Truth as Ideology in A Revolução de Maio

Patrícia I. Vieira, Georgetown University

Abstract

In her article "Truth as Ideology in A Revolução de Maio" Patrícia I. Vieira analyses the different understandings of propaganda at work in the Portuguese New State. According to the leader of the regime, António de Oliveira Salazar, truth is self-evident and the role of propaganda is merely to convey truthful information to the citizens. Conversely, António Ferro, the first president of the government's National Secretary of Propaganda, suggested that truth is pliable and sees it as the task of propagandistic artworks to shape reality and to define the public's understanding of what is true and false. These contrasting views on the function of propaganda clash in the film A Revolução de Maio (1937) (The May Revolution), directed by António Lopes Ribeiro and produced by the National Secretary of Propaganda to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the revolution that led to the creation of the New State (Estado Novo). The friction produced by the juxtaposition of these divergent approaches to art and propaganda in the film allows us to identify some of the fissures in the ideological edifice of the regime.

Recommended Citation

Vieira, Patrícia I.. "Truth as Ideology in A Revolução de Maio." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.3 (2009): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol11/iss3/3

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