Funk party closed, pancadão silenced: the police action during the funk party at Paraisópolis (São Paulo)

Abstract

This article aims to examine the narratives of the newspapers O Globo and Folha de São Paulo about the military police invasion to the funk party in Paraisópolis, located in the South Zone of São Paulo, to identify meanings about the party and the community. The police action took place during the early hours of December 1st of 2019 ending the event that brought together about five thousand participants, resulting in nine people trampled to death and twelve injured. Two narratives were analyzed: “Baile reúne 5.000 nas ruas e movimenta comércio local”, published by Folha de São Paulo and “Após mortes em baile funk em São Paulo, 'lei do silêncio' reina em Paraisópolis”, published by O Globo, both on December 2nd of 2019. Narrative analysis will be used as methodology, following guidelines by Ricoeur (1994). In this work, we see that narratives are capable of representing the events in each historical time and space, enabling the production of meanings about groups and their universes. As a result, the narratives of O Globo were cyclical, did not try to change the perceptions on baile funk and violence. On the other hand, the narrative of Folha de São Paulo was spiraled because, through the plurality of voices, it produced new meanings about this universe.