The Porno President – Bruna Kalil Othero

[Companhia das Letras; 2023]

“He was an asshole. That’s why they elected him president.” So begins The Porno President, Bruna Kalil Othero’s absurdist psychosexual dramatization of Brazilian political history. The novel, originally written in Portuguese, tells the story of Dick Murderci Bolsonelli, a far-right politician turned military dictator in a tropical country called “Tumzil.” The story unfolds as a theater production performed for the entertainment of a future Tumzil’s sex-crazed emperor and empress. For the novel’s real-life audience, however, the story takes the form of a uniquely Brazilian type of smut: the pornochanchada.

Pornochanchadas were a Brazilian genre of comedic softcore erotica from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Combining the word “chanchada,” a generally derogatory term for the light musical comedies popular on-screen in 1930s Brazil, with the self-explanatory “porno,” pornochanchadas enjoyed not only widespread appeal but also relatively low censorship from the military dictatorship of the time, which viewed the films’ easy humor and ample sexuality to be politically neutral. Like the dictator in The Porno President, the Brazilian regime thought the best distraction from encroaching authoritarianism was the age-old question, “Tits or ass?” Othero’s novel urges us to consider this question in today’s political landscape.

As a young boy too scrawny for military service, Dick Murderci Bolsonelli employs the favors of a family member to sneak his way into basic training in hopes of pleasing the memory of his deceased father. While there, he develops a lustful romance with his bunk mate and begins the first of many same-sex relationships. He soon comes to realize, however, that being publicly heterosexual is much better for his image, and as he ascends the ranks of the military and later the political class, he ditches his young lover for a series of wives. Instead of loving one military man, he finds it more lucrative to love all military men. At rallies, he dedicates his speeches to the “hardened,” “virile” armed forces, who are “generously endowed with patriotism.”

Dick and his party, whose Portuguese name, “Partido Armamentista Ufanista (PAU),” I’ve translated as the People for National Investment and Security (PNIS), champion privatization, personal responsibility, and the free market, and they’re eager to open Tumzil’s ample natural resources to foreign investment, a program cheered on by the country’s mainstream media:

(Dick) Deforestation and progress are synonymous, which means that the more we deforest, the richer Tumzil gets. The left has demonized deforestation as something bad, and the mere fact that you’re asking me about it shows just how deep that indoctrination goes. (audience applause) Just look at the large capital cities of developed countries: there’s not a single tree among them! Trees are for hippies who do sun salutations. The sun is the one who should be saluting us! We’re the real stars! That’s why my proposal for the environment is to create the Tumzilian Forest Museum, where we’ll plant a sapling of each native tree. That’s more than enough for foreign visitors to come admire. After all, Tumzil is the gold standard in tropical tourism. Through the museum, we’ll be fulfilling our promise of a sustainable future that respects our trans-amazonian history.

(Journalist) A message for our international audience, then. Our doors and legs are open!

On a personal level, however, Dick doesn’t have much interest in politics. While he covets power, he doesn’t have a mind for policy. In fact, Dick’s publicly conservative persona functions more as a wingman for the hedonism he exercises liberally behind closed doors. If there’s a free exchange of goods Dick’s really interested in, it’s the swapping of fluids, be it with staff members, fellow politicians, sex workers, or his equally adventurous wife:   

the room is full of photographers, I strike a pose, kiss a kid, flash a hang loose next to the ballot box. I’m already sick of it when, oof, it’s over, thankfuckingod. I go home, have lunch, the coalition of allied parties is almost all here. the plan is to have a heavy petting orgy (no penetration) until the count is announced, since the rule is we’ll only stick it in if we stick the landing. I’d already decided to take it easy until I address the public, so I play it cool with just cocaine and vodka.

there’s enough sucking to make your mouth go dry, it’s all pussy cock ass, bam bam bam, and by the time I remember to drink water the results are in. I put on a tie, spritz some cologne, take another bump and head poolside to join the others.

all eyes are glued to the tv, all ears tuned to the speakers. this is it. I get a boner.

and the new president of the Repubelic of Tumzil is… it’s him, Dick Murderci Bolsonelli.

there are no words, even in portusleaze, to express how horny I get when I hear my name.

The sexuality of The Porno President is not erotic. Orgasms abound, but more often than not they are the result of Dick seeing his own reflection, his control growing, or his plans coming (wink wink) to fruition. In true neoliberal fashion, Dick is out to get his needs met with as large a field of players as he can muster, even if it means gutting a few social services along the way.

Personal proclivities aside, once Dick and the PNIS take power, they have no intention of relinquishing it. After an inflation crisis—which Dick realizes can’t be solved by burning the local currency—his party manufactures a red scare and Dick’s hardened and virile armed forces take full control of the government. Voting rights are abolished and access to cultural production is limited (“I’d caution you to be more careful with books,” an authority figure threatens a citizen amidst the frenzy of the PNIS’ anti-intellectual crackdown, “the most sensible approach is to not read any at all.”)

Following a series of policy failures, Dick and the PNIS fall out of favor and are ousted by a gaggle of politically liberal yet sexually conservative opponents. Years later, Dick dies during an interview used as the basis for the play that will become The Porno President. Given the attitudes of the emperor and empress the play is performed for, however, it’s hard to imagine Dick’s coup was the last gasp of Tumzilian authoritarianism.

Dick and his PNIS follow a tried-and-true formula not just because their trajectory reflects the past and present, but because plot points are largely irrelevant to Othero’s project, which is primarily aesthetic in nature. Puns abound in the novel, and barely a sentence goes by without innuendo in some form: Tumzil is a “Repubelic” concerned with national “securtitty,” the PNIS warns of the looming threat of the “Commufisters.” Satire, puns, juvenile references to erogenous zones: these are not generally the stuff of serious literature, but in The Porno President, those childish tools serve a grown-up purpose. In an interview from 2023, when asked why she didn’t write a traditional novel, Othero responded, “There is no such thing as reality in Brazil, only fiction.” In a country that has been trying to foist off the yolk of foreign intervention and exploitation of its natural resources since its inception—and still reeling from one of the world’s most prolific slave trades—there’s no joke more absurd than reality.

Within The Porno President’s dick jokes lurks a mirror, and who Othero is handing it to is anyone’s guess, although more than likely it’s a fellow Brazilian. But those of us in the U.S. will see ourselves reflected, too. Even a cursory glance at world history is enough to see that, as a country, the U.S. has been exporting Dicks all over the globe for decades, emboldening bizarre and narcissistic champions of the free market to open their countries’ doors and legs, then taking whatever can be wrenched out for itself. As one prescient literature professor in Othero’s novel cautions, “we’ve always been in crisis,” and that crisis is Made in America. With its satirical bent and childish puns, The Porno President illuminates the absurdity that results from decades of unchecked ego. The novel is a lesson for U.S. readers as we come to recognize that the imperial boomerang has circled back and we’re confronted with our own real-life absurdist conservative figurehead. But, more than a fiery takedown, The Porno President seeks to make centuries of failed nationalist experiments seem laughably childish in their delusions of grandeur, one dick joke at a time.

Adrian Minckley translates unpublishable literature from Portuguese into English. She works and lives along the Rio Grande.