One commercial, multiple readings – 07/13/2023 – Education

The new Volkswagen commercial appeals to emotion by reliving Elis Regina driving an old Kombi, by artificial intelligence. The automobile catches up with the new model of the car, driven by Maria Rita, daughter of Elis. Both, on a common road, sing side by side “Como Nosso Pais”, Belchior’s iconic song that, far beyond addressing models of behavior learned from parents and repeated by children, is a protest to the military dictatorship. “But you’re the one who loves the past / And who doesn’t see / That the new one always comes”, says one of several critical passages in the lyrics.

The advertising piece generated a lot of debate in society. There are those who see it as successful, for creatively incorporating something as contemporary as artificial intelligence into its message, linking it not only to the novelty of its product, the electric Kombi, but above all to the affective memory of a singer-mother who, to this day, is a national idol. The affectivity that permeates the entire piece, however, begins even before the appearance of the artificial Elis, with a sequence of images of other old models of the brand, which refer to a family album, a relic that records the nostalgic past of family moments.

However, the positivity of the message hides the inconsistency of linking Belchior’s lyrics and Elis’s image, voices critical of the dictatorship, of a company that contributed to the military regime in Brazil. On her Instagram, USP anthropologist and historian Lilia Schwarcz draws attention to this, mentioning an investigation carried out in 2015 by the Federal, São Paulo State (MP-SP) and Labor (MPT) Public Ministries, which resulted in a report that points to collaboration between the German company and the military.

“The report highlights a letter from the president of the Brazilian subsidiary from 1964, in which former Nazi party member Friedrich Schultz-Wenk praises ‘the organization of the revolt, which had been extremely well prepared’. The correspondence, addressed to the company’s president in Germany, it also demonstrates connivance with violence on the part of the State. The company also handed over employees and lied to their families”, says the historian’s post.

In addition to this question, referring to the authorship and context of production of the advertising message, it is necessary to reflect on its reception: many referred to Elis Regina’s “recreation” as a deep fake, a type of fake news created from artificial intelligence. But this is a conceptual mistake.

In the Volks commercial, it is evident that Elis’s representation does not want to make the public believe that it is the singer in fact, but to reinforce her as an artist from the past who continues to be relevant in the present. Therefore, it is not a deep fake. This misnomer, however, is an opportunity to reflect more deeply on the role of artificial intelligence in media creation.

Messages constructed through this artifice do not necessarily intend to deceive or to be fraudulent content, in the sense of disguising the authorship of those who produce them. It is a new way of facilitating creative processes, testing ideas, producing art. The case of Papa Fashion, an artificial image of Pope Francis in a stylish white coat, previously covered by our column, is a good example of this.

Of course, content produced in this way can be misleading, although it is not intended to be. Just as real images, but mistakenly attributed to other contexts, can also be deceiving. This is what happened to the true photos of the Minas Gerais State Fire Department in a rescue operation in 2018 that were mistakenly attributed to the accident in Brumadinho, which occurred in 2019.

But in addition to analyzing the intention of resorting to artificial intelligence to create a message, the controversial Volkswagen commercial is an example of the need to have more critical capacity to interpret media content, demonstrating the importance of linking different repertoires for increasingly more readings. complex, in different layers. In this case, it was necessary to resort to history to understand that the great goal of the message as a whole was, in fact, an own goal.