“Aconteceu, virou história”: a revista manchete e o tempo presente da ditadura militar brasileira

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze the role played by Manchete magazine – a publication owned by Bloch Editores – in the production of memories and the construction of narratives regarding the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship (1964 - 1985), focusing specifically on the investigation of its extraordinary editions published throughout the military regime. The primary objective is to understand how the periodical articulated the temporalities of past, present, and future to assign meaning to the political events it covered. Based on the typologies of extraordinary editions – categorized as extras, historical issues, special editions, and supplements – the research first seeks to understand the magazine’s use of a jingoistic and developmentalist discourse. This discourse mirrored that promoted by the military dictatorship’s governments, particularly those of presidents Emílio Garrastazu Médici and Ernesto Geisel. These characteristics are examined through the lens of the “horizon of expectations”, considering the “modern regime of historicity” and linking Manchete’s narrative to the concept of the "future present”. Regarding the political uses of the past, the study observes how the periodical utilized the 1964 coup and the Sesquicentennial of Independence celebrations to shed light on the “present time”. Through the martyrization of Tancredo Neves, the research notes a return to the “recent past” to frame the proposed democracy and the “New Republic” as intrinsic elements of the “future-present” – a perspective still grounded in the “horizon of expectations”. Ultimately, the dissertation concludes that Manchete leveraged its political malleability to position itself as a press outlet that helped dictate the dynamics of memory and oblivion during the military dictatorship – a period that constituted the magazine's own “present time”.