Brazilian series and soap operas put the courtroom at the center of the plot
Netflix's 'Habeas Corpus' and Globoplay's 'Verônika com K' explore flaws in the justice system and elite privilege amid public interest in what goes on behind the scenes of the courts.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
A wave of Brazilian productions is turning the legal world into raw material for entertainment, according to a report by Folha de S.Paulo. The highlight is "Habeas Corpus," a Netflix series that premiered in September as the first Brazilian legal drama and follows court cases across its episodes, in the format of American hits such as "Law and Order" and "Suits."
In the plot, the daughter of a wealthy man who was stabbed is the main suspect but remains free, backed by good lawyers, while Jonathan, a gas delivery man, is jailed without evidence. The protagonist, Ines, played by Marjorie Estiano, is a professor and lawyer who takes on former colleagues from a prestigious firm to clear his name. According to the newspaper, the series' team consulted the Innocence Project Brasil, an organization dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions.
On Globoplay, "Verônika com K" stars Roberta Rodrigues as a successful criminal lawyer who falls into crisis when her boss is arrested on suspicion of corruption and begins defending the drug trafficker from the favela where she grew up. The series is a partnership with AfroReggae; its creator, José Júnior, says Black protagonists were missing from this kind of story. "Justiça 2" and the current 9 p.m. soap opera, "Quem Ama Cuida," also turn lawyers into heroes and lawsuits into entertainment.
For Folha, the trend is no coincidence: Operation Car Wash, the recent crisis at the Supreme Federal Court (STF) and the investigations into the murder of Marielle Franco and the January 8 attacks heightened public interest in the inner workings of the courts. Lawyer Augusto de Arruda Botelho, a former national secretary of justice, criticizes the live broadcast of STF sessions by TV Justiça but welcomes the fiction, which, he says, can shed light on how the justice system works and point out its flaws.
According to Folha, in the soap operas of past decades lawyers and judges were supporting characters, and courtroom scenes were saved for the final episodes. For University of São Paulo (USP) professor Esther Hamburger, today's series capture a moment in which the justice system punishes the most privileged but still fails to guarantee citizenship to the most vulnerable.