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The article examines an underexplored dimension: how humour operates alongside horror and speculative fiction. It argues that humour creates crucial bridges between speculative storytelling and historical reality, supporting the film’s political work. Through detailed analysis, it evaluates whether this hybrid strategy engages contested issues such as identity politics, racism, regionalism, and colonial legacies.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/bacurau-humour-and-speculative-fiction-in-contemporary-brazilian-cinema/138757/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/bacurau-humour-and-speculative-fiction-in-contemporary-brazilian-cinema/138757.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Gloria","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-21","2026-08-23",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why did Bacurau trigger controversy after its release?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The film’s graphic violence drew intense public debate, with commentators linking it to Brazil’s contemporary socio-political climate marked by deep polarisation and cultural wars.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What underexplored aspect does the article focus on?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The study highlights the role of humour, particularly how it interlocks with horror and speculative fiction rather than treating violent reactions as the only narrative key.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the article connect humour to the film’s political work?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It argues that humour helps establish links between speculative fiction and historical reality, enabling the film’s political engagement with identity politics, racism, regionalism, and colonial legacies.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},138757,1787487634,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":144},2336474459895,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/22000baeef7a5ed0655?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1786071322749376916","The European Journal of Humour Research 12 (3) 67–87  \n[www.europeanjournalofhumour.org](www.europeanjournalofhumour.org)  \nBacurau: humour and speculative fiction in contemporary Brazilian cinema  \nDiego Hoefel  \nFederal University of Ceará, Brazil [diego.hoefel@ufc.br](diego.hoefel@ufc.br)  \nMariana Baltar  \nFluminense Federal University, Brazil [marianabaltar@id.uff.br](marianabaltar@id.uff.br)  \nAbstract  \nWhen released in theatres, Bacurau sparked a massive controversy due to its graphic depiction of violence and its alleged connection to Brazil’s socio-political climate, marked in recent years by profound political polarisation and cultural wars. This article explores an often-overlooked aspect of the film: the use of humour and its articulation with horror and science fiction imaginations. Our argument is that humour plays a key role in Bacurau, establishing connections between speculative fiction and historical reality, which underpins the film ’s political work. We look at the significant attention that the interactions between humour, horror, and science fiction have received in Brazilian cinema produced over the last decade, and we conduct a detailed analysis of the use of humour in Bacurau, one of the most prominent films produced in the country during this period. We seek to understand how the interweaving of humour and speculative fiction is employed in the film, and if it is used to address controversial issues such as identity politics, racism, regionalism, and colonial legacies. We also investigate the extent to which this unconventional combination serves as a strategic tool for engaging with Brazil’s contemporary landscape of social and political unrest.  \nKeywords: humour, speculative fiction, contemporary Brazilian cinema, political polarisation, cultural wars.  \n1. Introduction  \nIn the final sequence of Bacurau, the inhabitants of a remote town in the Brazilian countryside unite to confront a group of outsiders from the Global North.1 Throughout this sequence, we  \n1 The terms Global North and Global South do not have a strictly geographical connotation; instead, they should be understood as referring to nations, regions, or peoples operating within power dynamics established in  \nwitness the execution of these characters one by one, amidst much bloodshed, gunfire, and decapitations. The explicit representation of these deaths sparked a series of controversial reactions in the weeks following the film ’s release in Brazilian cinemas. Cultural journalists with divergent opinions went as far as exchanging critiques and sarcastic comments across various media outlets in the country (Araújo, 2019; Magnoli, 2019). In many of these texts, the controversy transcended the mere analysis of the film’s graphic violence as to suggest its relation (or a possible relation) to the Brazilian socio-political landscape of the time, characterised by heated cultural wars and deep polarisation. However, in cinema theatres, the violent scenes did not exactly evoke reactions of shock or fear; they were primarily accompanied by laughter, shouts of support, and applause, culminating in a cathartic explosion recorded in several screenings of the film. Although some analyses of Bacurau mention these reactions, they are treated only as evidence of the transposition of the polarised logic of cultural wars into cinematic narrative. Interestingly, very little—in fact, practically nothing—was said about the role of humour in Bacurau. The film is generally examined solely based on its contact points between reality and fiction.  \nBacurau, along with a significant body of recent Brazilian films (Hoefel & Aparício, 2021; Hoefel, 2024), is a cultural text that indirectly and symbolically re-enacts socio-political conflicts, using allegorical constructions (Hoefel, 2021) . The story unfolds in the near future, where a group of foreigners comes to Brazil to engage in a macabre form of shooting game, using real firearms and lethal ammunition.","cbCailiIczv5OuDT","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailiIczv5OuDT","pdf",873517,21,"English","# Introduction\n## Humour and controversial reception\n## Genres as speculative fiction\n## Political work and contested issues","[{\"question\":\"Why did Bacurau trigger controversy after its release?\",\"answer\":\"The film’s graphic violence drew intense public debate, with commentators linking it to Brazil’s contemporary socio-political climate marked by deep polarisation and cultural wars.\"},{\"question\":\"What underexplored aspect does the article focus on?\",\"answer\":\"The study highlights the role of humour, particularly how it interlocks with horror and speculative fiction rather than treating violent reactions as the only narrative key.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article connect humour to the film’s political work?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that humour helps establish links between speculative fiction and historical reality, enabling the film’s political engagement with identity politics, racism, regionalism, and colonial legacies.\"}]","Bacurau: humour and speculative fiction in contemporary Brazilian cinema | PDF",53]