Spring 2025 - Cultural Post 3
Zé Gotinha or “Joe Droplet” is an anthropomorphic vaccine droplet and spokesperson for Brazilian vaccination campaigns. He was created in 1986 and has starred in 30+ PSA films, cartoons, and children’s books selling 1 million + copies. Zé Gotinha often accompanies Santa Klaus, Jack Frost, and the Easter Bunny in commercials assuaging children’s fears of getting vaccinations and encouraging parents to bring their children in.
Zé started out fighting polio (literally in the public health materials Zé boxes with Xô Polio (a furry one-legged villain who chases children around), and the initiative met with great success. By 1994, 8 years after the program started the Pan-American Health Organization certified Brazil polio-free. Zé was then mobilized for vaccination campaigns against rubella, tetanus, yellow fever, hepatitis, and rotavirus. Zé’s presence over the past 40 years has made Brazil one of the most vaccine-accepting countries in the world. 72% of respondents in a 2021 IPSOS poll said they would “strongly agree” to take a COVID vaccine compared with 47% in the United States.
I first met Zé while in Brasilia on the SSIR trip, when I was buying items at a tourist cart outside of the Plaça dos três Poderes. What surprised me wasn’t that Brazil has a public safety mascot like Zé, after all we have Woodsy Owl or Smokey Bear in the US, but how iconic Zé is. Next to him were Rio magnets and Brazilian flags - Zé is that iconic to the Brazilian people.
This cutesy vaccination droplet became the subject of intense political debate when during the COVID-19 pandemic, former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva criticized then-president Jair Bolsonaro’s pandemic response asking, “Where is our beloved Zé Gotinha?” Bolsonaro, a far-right vaccine skeptic was being accused by Lula of undermining his own government’s vaccine rollout and, rather than use statistics, Lula observed that Brazil’s beloved vaccine droplet was uncharacteristically absent from all vaccine rollout announcements. In response to this, Bolsonaro’s son tweeted a militarized picture of Zé Gotinha holding a syringe rifle and representing the Bolsonaro family’s aggressive, right-wing brand of politics. Many parents were appalled at the beloved childhood mascot being militarized and Bolsonaro received a lot of negative publicity around this image contributing to growing sentiments that Bolsonaro had mishandled the pandemic.
Despite Bolsonaro’s repeated vaccine skepticism (he often called COVID a “little flu” [gripezinha]), he was eventually forced by his party to develop a COVID rollout plan featuring Zé and at the announcement event of this plan an unmasked Bolsonaro was refused a handshake by a costumed Zé Gotinha actor. Bolsonaro went for a handshake (an action public health experts recommend against) and the mascot (modeling proper health guidelines) responded with a thumbs up. Bolsonaro would eventually relent and allow Zé Gotinha’s widespread use for COVID vaccines, allowing Brazil’s public health ministry to perform collaborations with other popular characters (Snow White, Black Panther, Wonder Woman).
All of this from a small pin at a tourist cart in Brasília. I think this goes to highlight the importance of actually visiting the place where one’s language is spoken. Only there is the richness of the culture revealed. Yes, every Brazilian knows about Zé Gotinha but how many years of conversation with speakers in the United States would it take for me to organically learn about this important Brazilian mascot and cultural icon?
Sources:
https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/brazils-vaccinated-democracy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=66&v=-hh3EywuvtU&am...
Zé Gotinha or “Joe Droplet” is an anthropomorphic vaccine droplet and spokesperson for Brazilian vaccination campaigns. He was created in 1986 and has starred in 30+ PSA films, cartoons, and children’s books selling 1 million + copies. Zé Gotinha often accompanies Santa Klaus, Jack Frost, and the Easter Bunny in commercials assuaging children’s fears of getting vaccinations and encouraging parents to bring their children in.
Zé started out fighting polio (literally in the public health materials Zé boxes with Xô Polio (a furry one-legged villain who chases children around), and the initiative met with great success. By 1994, 8 years after the program started the Pan-American Health Organization certified Brazil polio-free. Zé was then mobilized for vaccination campaigns against rubella, tetanus, yellow fever, hepatitis, and rotavirus. Zé’s presence over the past 40 years has made Brazil one of the most vaccine-accepting countries in the world. 72% of respondents in a 2021 IPSOS poll said they would “strongly agree” to take a COVID vaccine compared with 47% in the United States.
I first met Zé while in Brasilia on the SSIR trip, when I was buying items at a tourist cart outside of the Plaça dos três Poderes. What surprised me wasn’t that Brazil has a public safety mascot like Zé, after all we have Woodsy Owl or Smokey Bear in the US, but how iconic Zé is. Next to him were Rio magnets and Brazilian flags - Zé is that iconic to the Brazilian people.
This cutesy vaccination droplet became the subject of intense political debate when during the COVID-19 pandemic, former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva criticized then-president Jair Bolsonaro’s pandemic response asking, “Where is our beloved Zé Gotinha?” Bolsonaro, a far-right vaccine skeptic was being accused by Lula of undermining his own government’s vaccine rollout and, rather than use statistics, Lula observed that Brazil’s beloved vaccine droplet was uncharacteristically absent from all vaccine rollout announcements. In response to this, Bolsonaro’s son tweeted a militarized picture of Zé Gotinha holding a syringe rifle and representing the Bolsonaro family’s aggressive, right-wing brand of politics. Many parents were appalled at the beloved childhood mascot being militarized and Bolsonaro received a lot of negative publicity around this image contributing to growing sentiments that Bolsonaro had mishandled the pandemic.
Despite Bolsonaro’s repeated vaccine skepticism (he often called COVID a “little flu” [gripezinha]), he was eventually forced by his party to develop a COVID rollout plan featuring Zé and at the announcement event of this plan an unmasked Bolsonaro was refused a handshake by a costumed Zé Gotinha actor. Bolsonaro went for a handshake (an action public health experts recommend against) and the mascot (modeling proper health guidelines) responded with a thumbs up. Bolsonaro would eventually relent and allow Zé Gotinha’s widespread use for COVID vaccines, allowing Brazil’s public health ministry to perform collaborations with other popular characters (Snow White, Black Panther, Wonder Woman).
All of this from a small pin at a tourist cart in Brasília. I think this goes to highlight the importance of actually visiting the place where one’s language is spoken. Only there is the richness of the culture revealed. Yes, every Brazilian knows about Zé Gotinha but how many years of conversation with speakers in the United States would it take for me to organically learn about this important Brazilian mascot and cultural icon?
Sources:
https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/brazils-vaccinated-democracy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=66&v=-hh3EywuvtU&am...
Brazil’s Vaccinated Democracy
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