📺 The truth behind the soap opera

TELEVISION

What soap opera ‘Vale Tudo’ can still teach us about Brazil

In 1988, as Brazil transitioned back to democracy, a primetime soap opera captivated the nation with a blunt moral question: vale a pena ser honesto neste país? (Does it pay to be honest in this country?) The show was “Vale Tudo,” (“Anything Goes”) and the answer — then and now — remains as murky as the headlines.

Now, nearly four decades later, “Vale Tudo” has been remade for a 2025 audience — and the timing could not be more pointed. As Brazil contends with the continued dismantling of the epoch-defining Car Wash corruption scandal, the recent fraud debacle at the National Social Security Institute and a declining public confidence in democratic institutions that appears to be reaching almost terminal levels, the show’s central dilemma feels as urgent as ever…

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