"Unfiltered": Brazilian Social Influencers, with a Gay Couple

 

In the old days, advertisements would be incorporated into the plot of the radio or tv program: "Before we discuss the problem of the week, let's have a cup of Maxwell House Coffee.  It's really the best coffee, isn't it?"  Today social influencers get paid for pausing their podcasts or TikToks or whatever to praise a product.  If they have 10,000,000 followers, they will reach more people than a tv commercial.   Still, the process seems bizarre to a Boomer who can barely handle Facebook, so I was interested in the Brazilian series Sem Filtro (Unfiltered).

Scene 1: College student Marcely listens to her favorite influencer, PI Love, bragging about her 20 million followers.   Then she goes into an economics class where a professor is asking about a huge, complicated mathematical formula.  Suddenly she has an epiphany: no more boring, useless college classes!  She's going to become an influencer like PI Love!  

Scene 2: Establishing shot of Ararinhas, Brazil. Marcely explains the idea to her two friends, Gustavo (a femme gay guy) and Rubria (a chubby drag queen).  They discourage her: it's a very competitive market.  Everybody with a cell phone thinks they can become an influencer. "But Sandrinha is making so much that she quit her job!"  I dig the representation, but where are all the masculine-presenting Brazilian hunks? 

Cut to Marcely burning bridges, by quitting her paid internship: "This job sucks and doesn't match my abilities."  Welcome to the work world, girlfriend.   

Not to worry, she tells her friends, she's already got an influencer gig: Fernandinho (Pedroca Monteiro) is paying her to introduce the Sheik Happy Meals at his new Arab restaurant.  (Left: Pedroca is gay in real life, and married to Michel Blois)

"So, does your Mom know about this?"  "Of course not! I'm not going to tell her until after I'm rich and famous!"

Scene 3: Marcely's Mom and sister come in. Character dump: Mom complains about everything, and openly prefers younger sister Lohana.  Drag Queen Rubria (Thamyris Borsan) is a permanent houseguest.  

Ex-Husband Mumu (Ora Figueiredo) comes in, and Mom starts yelling at him for spoiling the girls -- well, the older girl.  Goddess Younger Sister deserves to get anything she wants. Then she complains about Marcely's boss Fernandinho: his previous restaurant sold sushi stuffed with Nutella. 

Scene 4: The Arab restaurant.  Ferdnandinho, culturally appropriating an Arab outfit, gives Marcely a Sheik Happy Meal: "But don't open it until your live stream at 8:00 pm."

Then Gay BFF Gustavo (Pedro Ottoni) picks her up in his van, and they meet with influencer Sandrinha.  Gustavo has a hula girl bobbler on his dashboard and a gay pride flag on the wall.  Mixed signals, dude!

Ulp: Sandrinha didn't really quit her job.  She made ony $30 US from influencing last month. 

Marcely is not dissuaded.  She quotes the Five Pillars of PI Love: Don't settle; go for it; it's possible; I did it; and you can, too.  Rather banal advice.

Scene 5: They drop off Sandrinha at her job -- a beauty shop, I think.  Love Interest Max (Maicon Rodriguez) comes out to flirt, but is blocked by his comment that "you don't seem the influencer type."  

Driving on, Gay BFF Gustavo yells at Marcely for not sealing the deal with Coworker Max.  "I can't -- he has a girlfriend."  "A Canadian girlfriend."  So, fake?

Scene 6:  First step in being an influencer: makeup.  Marcely borrows some from her Perfect Sister  Lohana. 

Next step: a place to shoot.  She tries "the association," Gustavo's van, the barber shop, the grocery store where Mom works.  In the end she has to do it at home, while Mom is out. 

Complication: Ademar, the owner of the grocery store, accidentally tells Mom about the influencing gig.  She rushes home to kill Marcely (figuratively, I hope).

Scene 7: In the bathroom, Marcely begins her livestream and opens the Happy Meal: a jumble of kibbes ( she tries to hide her disgust), sfihas (even more disgusting), and a surprise desert, a turd (actually kofta covered with Nutella). Whoops, she can't eat it!  It accidentally falls into the toilet, and...and she breaks down and tells the truth about the other disgusting dishes.

Mom comes in, yells at her, and confiscates her cell phone.  

Scene 8: Morning.  Marcely, Little Sister, and Drag Queen Rubria sleep in the same room.  Rubria never seems to get out of drag, so I'm guessing that she is actually transgender.  

Fernandinho  meets her to yell that she's ruined his Arab Happy Meal business. The only orders he got last night were from people wanting to use the nutella turds as props in nasty videos.  But everyone on the street is staring: she's famous!  

Gustavo and Mom's Boss work together to convince Mom to relent and allow Marcely access to social media again.  "She's brilliant!  She has no filter!"  Ok, but she has to go back to college, too.

She tries, but...there's that horrible economics class.  No way!  The end.

Beefcake: None.

Gay Characters: Marcely's BFF Gustavo. He doesn't do anything gay in this episode except display a Pride Flag and be feminine, but that could change.  Rubria is probably a cishet character.

Heterosexism: Marcely has a brief Love Interest flirtation.

Poop Joke:  I could have done without the poop references, especially when it gets replayed over and over.

Update: In Episode 8, Gustavo starts dating Carlos, the assistant to influencer PI Love.  So two hand-fluttering femme stereotypes.  They do make a cute couple, however, and they kiss several times in Episode 10.  Marcely's Dad is also gay.

My Grade: B.