Today’s soap operas should talk about politics, says Paulo Betti, who returns to Globo with ‘Tieta’

Paulo Betti has always been a militant, he had a participatory personality. As well as the motto “Up with the beam, kids” (he says it himself). The youngest son of 15, Betti was born in a slave quarters in the interior of São Paulo. He had a good education, political awareness and ended up going to the theater, where he could express his convictions and ideals.

In 1989, at the age of 37, he was successful as Timóteo, in “Tieta” (Globo), which returned to the network’s screens in Vale a Pena Ver de Novo. “He was certainly my most popular character. So, I’m happy to see him again. I’m encouraged to remember the political moment we were going through while making ‘Tieta'”, says the actor, in an interview with F5.

The soap opera was recorded in the year that Brazil held its first direct election after 25 years of military rule and elected Fernando Collor as president. The plot does not address redemocratization directly, but the author Aguinaldo Silva said he invested in a metaphor about the return of freedom of expression: in the first phase, Tieta was expelled from home by her own father on December 13, 1968, the date in which AI-5 was promulgated.

“A soap opera, even if it doesn’t take place at the time it is happening, lives a lot from the pulse of the backstage, the dressing room. And our ‘Tieta’ dressing room was highly politicized. Armando Bógus, Paulo José, Yoná Magalhães, Betty Faria , Joana Fomm, José Mayer…”, he remembers.

Betti says that there was an excitement, an effervescence behind the scenes, which ended up being transferred to the screen: “This comes across in the soap opera. You had a feeling of more freedom.”

The actor explains how much Lula, Collor’s opponent, represented him at that time: “You see my family, my sisters, working at the factory. Lula was the guy who worked at the factory. I knew what the lathe was, what it was a saw, a hammer, a plenum, a screwdriver”. “I was organically committed to Lula’s victory,” said the actor — and historic PT member.

Today, more than 30 years later, Betti says he continues his political mission: “In this last election, I made 400 personalized 30-second calls to progressive councilors and mayors across Brazil.” “I pay dearly for this. I am blocked in some places”, he says.

He says he misses the political effervescence, the discussions that could appear in current soap operas: “Brazilian TV should speak closer to reality. For example, watching a nine o’clock soap opera, you don’t have a moment when someone at the bar is arguing politics, mentioning Lula, Bolsonaro or [Arthur] Lira. It would be interesting if there were character names.”

Those who agree with him and want to see politics and art intertwined can check out his first book, “Authorized Autobiography”, an extended version of his play of the same name, which has been running in theaters for 15 years. The actor wrote the monologue when he realized his story was worth telling.

“I am of Italian descent. My grandparents came to Brazil to replace slaves on the plantations. They were very humble people, who were fleeing a time of crisis in Italy. I was born and raised in the quilombo, in Sorocaba. My mother was a woman of 45 years old and wore a scarf on her head, she looked like a woman in her 70s, 80s. She was a faith healer. My father had schizophrenia.” “Then, add to all this, the fact that I have been an addicted note-taker since I was a child,” he added.

Betti says that she grew up writing her experiences, as a form of therapy: “I needed to write what I was experiencing. At 15 years old, I admitted my father to the asylum. If I didn’t write, I would get worse, right? It served as a kind of psychoanalysis that I had in relation to my father, the environment in which I lived”.