BRAZIL-A grade-B "Horse Opera"?

The modern morality play

Morality plays were all the rage in 15th and 16th Centuries Europe. They paved the way for the emergence of secular society based on abstract concepts such as Justice and Equality against Evil.

The “Western” or “Horse Opera” is the American equivalent of the European morality play. 

A reluctant hero, often a “fast gun” (Justice) winds up getting engaged in a story-ending shoot-out with the representatives of absolute evil (Greed, Corruption, and Cowardice). At the end of the play he either marries the local doctor’s daughter and becomes a peaceful farmer or rides off alone into the sunset to another town.

The current situation in Brazil suggests an on-going morality play like the American “horse-opera”.

Bear with me as I imagine the scenario:

Act I: The opening setting is of a small town in the American West. It is a small enclave in the middle of virtually nowhere. Because of its isolation, local merchants have a virtual monopoly over local commerce. They are allied with, but fearful of, the rich cattle ranchers who live on the periphery of the town and whose unruly cowboys occasionally shoot up the town, get drunk in the local saloon, harass the "womenfolk" and fight in the streets. The local sheriff and the mayor are corrupt and take bribes and kickbacks from both the cattle ranchers and the local merchants ostensibly to protect one from the other but actually do little other than line their own pockets.

Act II: Enter a gang of outlaws who take over the town and terrify the local merchants, steal cattle, and threaten the prosperity of the small town. The entire population is held hostage to the gang.

Act III: A retired “gunslinger” visits the town, drops by the local saloon where he is challenged by one of the gang members. The “gunslinger” wants no trouble and just wants to drink his beer, but is eventually forced to draw his gun against the unruly gang member. He shoots him dead with a single shot and with such speed that everyone in the saloon drop their jaws in awe. A local merchant approaches the “gunslinger” to talk about the town’s problems and solicit his services to “clean up” the town.

The gunman’s sense of justice and his dislike for bullies lead him to accept the challenge in exchange only for room and board above the bar in the local hotel. He descends to the bar on occasion to deal with the bullies from the criminal gang and unruly cowboys from the nearby cattle ranches. Rather quickly, he begins “cleaning up” the town of its ruffians. He earns the enmity of the gang, the cattle ranchers who don’t want their cowboys pushed around and disciplined, and the local sheriff who feels threatened by his actions.

Act IV: The plot thickens when a wagon train of settlers from the East arrives to the town. The settlers are seeking a new life in the American West and the wagon train is composed of a heterogeneous group; some are dentists, others are preachers, there are lawyers, laborers, shopkeepers, and farmers who are enthralled with the town’s potential. It has clean rivers and streams, ample fertile prairies lush with grass, and what now appears to be a calm, serene community. The settlers are weary from having fought Indians and bandits on their trek westward and decide to make their homes in the town.

Act V: This is the point at which the gunman realizes that the local merchants are as greedy and corrupt as the gang and the cattle ranchers. He sympathizes with the settlers who are seeking a better life. He finds that the local merchants want nothing more than to restore the status quo ante, continue in the good graces of the cattle ranchers, and do not approve of the settlers moving in. They don’t relish competition.

The gunman loses his room and board above the bar of the hotel and takes a room at the home of the local physician to continue his quest for justice. The physician has a daughter who serves as his nurse. The merchants and town council try to hire another gunman to take on the one they hired initially.

The justice-seeking gunman tries to engage the local sheriff in his quest and is rejected. The sheriff, too, has his own interests and has no taste for taking on the ruffians, the merchants, and the cattle ranchers.

The End: The film ends when the justice-seeking gunman kills the new gunman in a street duel. He then brings in a former partner and friend to take on the role of sheriff. The settlers all move in and begin building a new and prosperous town. “Justice” has triumphed over “Evil”.

You can choose whichever final scene appeals to you; the gunman rides off into the sunset to dispense Justice in other towns or he marries the local physician’s daughter and becomes the “permanent defender” of the new town.

This kind of story is the New World version of the 15^th and 16^th Centuries morality plays. It has been the topic of both good and mediocre films in the USA. Some of the better ones are The Unforgiven with Clint Eastwood, Shanewith Alan Ladd, and Gunfight at the OK Corral (two groups of kleptocrats shoot it out and kill each other.)

There are numerous others such plays in the Grade-B category that played in US theaters in the 1950s.

I probably do not need to contextualize this particular “film” with the names of the appropriate actors in the real life morality play currently being acted out in Brazil. You can pretty much figure out which character represents Sergio Moro and the Lava-Jato team, the gang that takes over the town, the hypocritical greedy merchants, the corrupt sheriff and town council. The wagon train, is, of course, the 40 million-member new middle class that rolled into town on the Real Plan wagon train.

The only thing that needs to be defined is The End of the play. Brazil is currently moving through Act IV to Act V. “Justice” has yet to triumph over “Evil”. There is no guarantee that the town will not wind up like the numerous “ghost towns” of the American West, with a couple of gasoline stations and a dusty bar and luncheonette along a busy highway to Las Vegas. 

The lone gunman could just as easily ride off into the sunset in disgust (we never see his face, just his back and the rear end of his horse!). The settlers, too, could pack up and head for more prosperous venues. All that would remain would be a main street populated by tumbleweeds and “wind devils” stirring up dust. It could wind up being nothing more than a “geographical reference” attracting occasional tourists on their way to someplace else where the “action” is.

“Justice” doesn’t alwayswin!