The official collective memory and necropower: death squads in Você também pode dar um presunto legal (1973)

Abstract

In this paper, we pre-sent a sociological and imagetic study of the short film Você também pode dar um presunto legal (1973), by director Sérgio Muniz, based on the concepts of necropolitics and war machines in Achille Mbembe and the theoretical contributions of Michael Pollak in his article Memória, esquecimento, silêncio. More specifically, it is an analysis that aims to establish the details of how the plot of the work points to the naturalization of the establishment of death squads at the service of the Civil-Military Dictatorship (1964-1985) and of the official collective memory established by the regime in question. That is, the following scenario is presented: in the same way that the short film exposes the maxims defended by the official memory exalted by the military regime, it also denounces the crimes and atrocities carried out by its agents. By denouncing the atrocities of the death squads during the period of the Civil-Military Dictatorship , Muniz aims to establish the bases (albeit only in a symbolic sense) for the advent of a memory that can genuinely both fit and be adequate to the precepts of a legitimate process of remembrance and justice for the victims of the military regime and their descendants.

Keywords necropolitics; Death Squad; war machine; official collective memory; civil-military dictatorship