Past on Demand: Commercial and Political Uses of the Past by the Brazilian Extreme Right

This paper aims to study the production and circulation of commercial and political uses of the past by the Brazilian extreme right, based on two videos about the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship: one by the Brasil Paralelo Company and one by the YouTuber Felipe Castanhari. It is argued that the narrative elaborated by both videos promotes a conservative public history through a memory politics and what we call the “past on demand.” “On demand” because the idea of historical truth is reduced to a choice made by the viewer watching the video on YouTube. We contribute to analyzing memory disputes about the dictatorship in virtual environments, linking content to form.