Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo made an appearance at a campaign rally for socialist ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil this week, urging Brazilians to vote for current President Jair Bolsonaro’s rival “for my children and your children.”
Ruffalo submitted a video to the over five-hour-long campaign rally livestream alongside fellow non-Brazilian leftist celebrities Danny Glover and Roger Waters. In the video, mostly in English, Ruffalo laments his poor “Brazilian” (Portuguese is the predominant language in the country) and claims that Lula is best poised to protect Brazil’s lush Amazon Rainforest, continuing an ongoing campaign against Bolsonaro for allegedly exacerbating deforestation in the region. In reality, the number of forest fires in Brazil was significantly higher while Lula was president, between 2003 and 2011, than during Bolsonaro’s term, which began in 2018.
Lula’s presidential tenure was most prominently marked by a national corruption scheme known as “Operation Car Wash,” where politicians of nearly every political party offered lucrative, and overcharged, government projects to private contractors who secured the deals through kickbacks to the politicians. Lula was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for using Operation Car Wash funds to buy a luxury beachfront property in 2019, but the leftist-dominated Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), the nation’s top court, overturned the conviction last year, allowing him to run for president.
Brazil’s former president and current presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva looks on during a meeting with civil society personalities ahead of October 2 general elections at Hotel Gran Mercure on September 27, 2022 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Rodrigo Paiva/Getty Images)
Brazilians will go to the polls on Sunday to choose from one of several candidates. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff between the top two candidates – mostly likely Bolsonaro and Lula – will be scheduled for the end of the year.
Ruffalo, who has feuded with Bolsonaro in the past, “humbly” shared the video of his statement endorsing Lula on social media.
Today, I humbly add my voice to lift up the global consequences of the Brazilian election. You can watch my message, and more importantly the words of many brave Brazilian defenders of democracy & the planet in today's livestream event. Lula speaking soon! https://t.co/ARkVTXMnpS
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) September 26, 2022
“Hello, my Brazilian friends,” Ruffalo said in Portuguese, before reverting to English.
“Um, so, that’s pretty much the extent of my Brazilian, I’m sad to say,” he lamented. “I’m sure Bruce Banner would know more. I was asked to make this little video and I would never – don’t feel comfortable telling you who to vote for.”
“Of course, we have our own problems here in America and I know how difficult it is to make these decisions. But we are living in a world that is more and more interconnected, especially as we fight climate change,” Ruffalo continued, “and what happens in any one country is what happens everywhere in some sense.”
“Right now the rainforest is of utmost importance in its health and its size … so there’s a global implication to your election that I am asking you to consider,” he continued, “and what happens to the rainforest and the indigenous people that are there will impact the rest of the world for millennia to come and right now the leader that is best positioned to protect the rainforest is Lula.”
“So I’m humbly asking you to consider that for my children and your children and the future generations to come when you come out to vote,” he concluded. “It’s as simple as that.”
Ruffalo notably omitted any reference to Bolsonaro, who he has repeatedly accused of being antidemocratic and a supporter of a “coup,” presumably against himself as he is the president of Brazil. Ruffalo had been openly antagonistic of Bolsonaro but had not openly endorsed Lula prior to his comments this week, instead offering vague messages urging Brazilians to vote in their election.
Ruffalo is an actor of Italian and Canadian ancestry born in Wisconsin, with no overt ties to Brazil. He appears to have become engrossed in leftist causes in South America as part of a growing interest in environmental advocacy, first publicly discussing affairs in the country in 2016, two years before Bolsonaro won the presidency. At the time, Ruffalo began sharing what the New York Times called “conspiracy theories” tying infant microcephaly cases to a chemical larvicide rather than the Zika virus, as scientists had concluded.
The latest exchange between Ruffalo and Bolsonaro occurred in June, when Ruffalo urged leftist President Joe Biden, who has a notoriously poor relationship with Bolsonaro, not to meet with him during the latter’s visit to America.
“The man you are meeting with today does not respect democracy and consistently threatens a coup,” Ruffalo claimed in a post on Twitter addressed to Biden. “As the 1/6 [Capitol riot] hearings begin, remember to stand on the side of democracy.”
Ruffalo signed a letter alongside dozens of other American celebrities at the time urging Biden not to engage in any environmental preservation efforts with Bolsonaro, despite many signatories condemning Bolsonaro for not engaging in sufficient environmental preservation efforts.
“We urge your Administration to … not commit to any agreements with Brazil at this time,” the celebrities – which also included Alec Baldwin, Jane Fonda, and longtime Bolsonaro nemesis Leonardo DiCaprio urged. “We share your concerns that urgent action must be taken to address threats to the Amazon, our climate, and human rights, but a deal with Bolsonaro is not the solution.”
The letter explicitly opposed any action to “protect the Amazon.”
Bolsonaro responded to Ruffalo’s comments at the time by mocking him for playing the Hulk superhero character and telling him to “calm dowm [sic].”
“Dear Mark Ruffles [sic], calm dowm! I’m sure you have never read the Brazilian Constitution, but I can assure you it’s nothing like the complicated Hulk scripts you have to memorize: ‘AHGFRR,'” Bolsonaro responded on Twitter. “Read it and you’ll find out I’m not only respecting it, but protecting Brazil’s rule of law.”
“The records show my government has always been on the side of democracy and the Constitution,” Bolsonaro continued. “It’s the Brazilian left (your masters) who wants to control the press, curb freedom of speech, censor the internet and financially support dictatorships like Cuba and Venezula [sic], not me.”
Bolsonaro has trailed Lula for much of the past year since the STF overturned the latter’s corruption conviction. Polls this week found that Lula is drawing between 40 to 46 percent of Brazilian voters, compared to Bolsonaro’s 35 to 37 percent. If Lula cannot acquire 50 percent or more of the vote, the election will result in a second round of voting in which supporters of third-party candidates will have to choose between Lula and, if he meets polling expectations, Bolsonaro.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
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