Although it didn’t happen recently, few people know the story of how Hideo Kojima was tricked into supporting Brazil’s biggest criminal organization.
It’s 2017, and the celebrated Hideo Kojima was in Brazil to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Brasil Game Show. Photos with celebrities, a gastro tour, and the classic journey of the creator of Metal Gear Solid. On this occasion, however, there was a post on his social media pages that overshadowed everything else, especially in the Carioca region.
During a meet and greet, where people took the opportunity to take pictures with him, ask him to autograph the covers of their favourite games, and give him some of the typical fan gifts in the form of drawings, someone came up with a strange request.
Amidst the high spirits and buzz of the situation, Kojima readily agreed. Without having the faintest idea what he was drawing with his hand in the air: a letter C and a letter V. Despite its seemingly innocent nature, the joke had an intricately dark meaning.
The “Red Command” that Hideo Kojima turned into a meme
In the 1970s, in the middle of Brazil’s military dictatorship, a maximum-security prison in Rio de Janeiro united the country’s worst criminals with all the left-wing politicians and guerrillas jailed for the repression. Faced with a common enemy, however, the fear of prison violence and police brutality drove both groups to support each other.
Over time, left-wing ideas eventually found their way to criminals, seeking the social justice that people craved.
Prison officials named this association “Comando Vermelho”, a support network that sought mutual cooperation both inside and outside the prison to protect shared interests. With the segregation of criminals to other prisons, this political culture faded. Drug trafficking has taken over the influence of the network.
With the advent of democracy in Brazil, these left-wing guerrillas returned to public life, but with the boom in the drug trade, the “Red Command” was no longer a political group. But a vast gang that took over the favelas. At one time, he was responsible for 70% of Rio de Janeiro’s drug trade!
Unbeknownst to him, Kojima displayed the letters and trademark of one of Brazil’s largest criminal groups. The “Red Command” was not only accused of crimes related to drug trafficking.
Also, with arms trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, robbery, attacks on cash trucks, drug terrorism, groups of assassins and violence fueled by conflicts with rival gangs.
This unfortunate mistake could easily have turned into a schism over Kojima’s character. But luckily, Brazilian social media sites have resorted to what they always do in hairy situations. With humour and parody, they tried to make reality hard to swallow. Fibonacci codes, sandwiches and drinks on your hand, and a massive collection of memes managed to turn what could have been an insult into a surreal joke…
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