Foreign Policy – “The World’s Jon Stewarts”
An FP List of the world’s most influential political satirists shows that in dangerous places, telling jokes can be hazardous to your health.
MARCELO TAS
Country: Brazil
Shtick: Tas is the host of Whatever It Takes, a weekly comedy news show that is known to buttonhole parliamentarians in Brazil’s National Congress building, and ask them easy questions such as what the laws they had just voted on actually said. Any representatives who can’t answer are mercilessly mocked on national television. Tas also edited a book of the inarticulate sayings of outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, like “My mother was a woman born illiterate” (think Slate editor in chief Jacob Weisberg’s collection of Bushisms).
While Tas is best known for Whatever It Takes, he actually started his career as a hard-hitting reporter for the state television network, not a funnyman. His real name is Marcelo Tristão Athayde de Souza, but adopting the moniker Tas has clearly been a good career move: He now boasts more than 971,000 Twitter followers.
But Tas hasn’t been joking around lately. Brazil still has a law on the books dating back to the days of military dictatorship that bans making fun of candidates in the three months before an election. With a presidential runoff scheduled for Oct. 31, it’s going to be another month before Tas can unleash his acerbic tongue on Dilma Rousseff, the presumptive winner.
Fonte: FP
