Religion enters through the Porta dos Fundos

Abstract

The video producer “Porta dos Fundos” is a vehicle of cultural policy. In this article we undertake an analysis of its cultural policy along the axis of the religious theme, which is as challenging for democratic laicism as a strong expression of common culture. The audiovisual production actively and politically mobilizes the viewer's imagination, contributing, in this case, to the debate on the religious theme and providing an opportunity to shift the viewer's worldview to expand his interpretative capacity on the “religious sacred” that, as a political-cultural expression, it has nothing "sacred" or separable from the elements of the public sphere marked by democratic laicity. For this reason, the multiple and inclusive approach present in the religious-themed videos of the collective Porta dos Fundos are ways of qualifying the level of effective democratization of Brazilian society. The inability to laugh about “sacred” themes for the short films and Christmas specials at Porta dos Fundos points, in addition to a healthy tension, the narrow political-cultural limits of a country that has not yet matured in its institutional and democratic principles.