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If you were in Brazil during the military dictatorship of 1964-1985, tried to bake a cake from a recipe in the newspaper, and were served with a sorry mess that tasted disgustingly salty, it wasn't your fault. What you thought was a recipe was actually a message from the newspaper that they were being censored.
Designer and researcher Crystian Cruz opens up the TOP SECRET files, to share the fake weather reports, single nipples vs a pair, soap opera characters getting bumped off, and the problems with kung fu.
This is an unexpected continuation of the theme of cakes and protest in the last episode, Cake is Mightier than the Sword.
There is one swear towards the end of this episode.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
“Anyone who dared to express ideas that sounded inconvenient, in addition to having a text or work banned, ran the risk of responding to Military Police Investigations (IPM), the IPMs. This meant they had to give statements that included the threat of imprisonment, torture, and murder. It was ‘cultural terrorism’.”
“The fifth Institutional Act marked the beginning of the hardest phase of the military dictatorship... It gave the regime exceptional powers against all forms of opposition or criticism of military power.”
“During the dictatorship, every newspaper at the time found its own way of resisting the presence of censors in the newsroom. Be it through publishing images of devils, headline-less front pages, passing easily destroyed notes to colleagues, or even humming Frank Sinatra’s ‘Strangers In The Night’ in order to alert the arrival of an unfamiliar visitor among the reporters.”
MiMi Aye (whom you heard on the Food Into Words episode) writes about the military coup in Myanmar.
For more content about deliberately printing wrong things, listen to the episode about Mountweazels.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
metachrosis
CREDITS:
Crystian Cruz is a designer and researcher, and finishing up his PhD about the impact of censorship on creative work. Crystian will be posting some of his research findings at instagram.com/censurativa.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks to Emerson Lehmann and Bruno Porto for making it happen!
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and hear more of his composition on the science podcast for kids Maddie’s Sound Explorers.
Find the show at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
