The gated community as a character in The Others: an interview

Abstract

The interview with screenwriter Lucas Paraizo, acclaimed for his authorship of audiovisual projects that explore inequities and the power relations structuring Brazilian society, focuses on the series Os Outros (The Others, Globoplay, 2023–2025). We discussed the strategies employed by Paraizo and his team to craft a dramatic plot in which the gated communities take on a central narrative role, functioning as a metaphor for social and subjective contradictions. At once a material and symbolic infrastructure, in the series, fortress suburbs are founded on values, beliefs, and discourses that sustain and shape a social organization based on the fear of otherness. He shares with us the reflective processes that guided the creation, over the course of 24 episodes, of a storyline in which conflicts between neighbors intertwine various forms of violence—physical, symbolic, and psychological—and, as they exceed the domestic sphere, reflect broader disputes over religion, authority, and belonging. As the plot unfolds, one observes how walls, surveillance cameras, and private security systems enable these urban enclaves to produce boundaries that, though dense, prove porous—crossed by internal and external tensions that challenge the ideal of control and harmony. We argue that The Others offers a platform for critical reflection on contemporary forms of urban coexistence, where sociospatial fragmentation and intersubjective conflict are closely intertwined.