Xuxa risks her crown with condescending autobiography

Anitta, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Elton John and now Xuxa. The list of celebrities who have released documentaries about themselves while they were alive is long and growing in recent years. In the hands of skilled screenwriters, the format has become a tasty marketing tool, but also a dangerous shortcut to cancellation on the networks – a fine line on which the reputation of the queen of short people has been balancing since the launch of the first episode of her series. “Xuxa, The Documentary”.

From the first to the fifth and last episode about the presenter’s trajectory, the latter available this Thursday (10) on Globoplay, the series does not escape what seems to be the new rule for productions of the genre: non-fiction products that allow to humanize famous biographers while voicing their own versions of controversies that trouble them—and they do so in meticulously edited narratives sold to audiences as raw, factual reality.

Editing reality to create an illusion of intimacy that allows the public to identify with the figure on the screen is what digital influencers have masterfully done in the last decade, explain studies in the area. The success of these real-life influencers caters to a TV audience weary of unattainable stars and impeccable celebrities. Its online popularity perhaps explains why so many celebrities have also decided to appear with a clean face talking about their pain in recent documentaries.

The problems begin when the audience realizes that they have been deceived: they pressed play on the streaming hoping to see the famous artist show themselves to be people like us and found themselves quickly guided by a very particular version of the facts, which tries to convince that even the mistakes of the portrayed they are, in essence, a match. The Xuxa series is this audiovisual version of the anecdote of the candidate who responds in the job interview that his biggest defect is perfectionism. He seems to recognize a flaw in him, but deep down, he does not stop signaling virtue. What employer doesn’t want a humble candidate who, on top of that, seeks to do everything perfectly?

The documentary portrait of the trajectory of the country’s most successful children’s presenter has, of course, undeniable historical value. Xuxa is charismatic, sensible, talented, beautiful and determined. It is understandable that Globo wants to recover its history to honor and recycle its resounding success and present it to new generations.

But this new audience doesn’t like untouchable, supposedly perfect heroes. This is clear through an effect of Globoplay’s production that is certainly unexpected for its creators: on networks like Twitter, Xuxa has been receiving eye rolls and much criticism for exempting herself from any responsibility for choices and mistakes in different situations portrayed in the series.

The online perception of the documentary, subtle but noticeable, is that everything is always about Xuxa, but nothing is ever her responsibility.

Did Xuxa break Ayrton Senna’s heart by prioritizing his career and ending the relationship? Marlene Mattos is to blame, says the series, who made her choose between the two. Was he in a relationship with Adriane Galisteu when he died? It may even be, but the love of his life was Xuxa. Did the queen of shorts miss the interview on America’s biggest morning show that could have boosted her career there? It’s because she was ill and because Marlene would have sabotaged an international career over which she would not have the same control.

Were all paquitas blonde and white, in a country with a black and brown majority? According to the series, Marlene is responsible, who chose the girls and forced them to dye their locks. Not a word is said about the structural racism from which Xuxa, with her Nordic beauty, largely benefited from early in her career. A single black paquita, who participated in the American version of her program, is picked among all the others for an emotional statement about the importance of diversity in the second episode. In Brazil there was none, according to Xuxa, because “it was not the image that Marlene wanted”.

The documentary turns against Xuxa in such a way that the portrayal of the undeniably abusive relationship with Marlene Mattos has caused part of the public to start, surprisingly, defending the former director and rehabilitating her reputation.

Xuxa was until now unanimity in the virtual progressive bubble, thanks to the affective memory of the public and its also progressive public positions. But that bubble always seems likely to sympathize with the weakest link. Therefore, when the blame for everything is repeatedly placed on Marlene’s account, it is predictable that the networks’ solidarity migrates to that which appears to be being publicly and repeatedly vilified. Xuxa’s version, although genuine, loses credibility. In a documentary, the audience doesn’t want to see good guys and bad guys.

The presenter also does not win many sympathizers among the online woke generation, which hates privileged people like nepobabies, when Globo executives say without shame in the series that some of the first professional invitations to the presenter were made simply because she was stunning. It also doesn’t get many likes from the audience, who know how difficult it is for someone talented to be recognized, when admitting with genuine astonishment, herself, that several doors opened without her even knocking on them —as in the case of invitations to act in movies or record albums without having any experience or notorious talent in those areas.

If the idea was to connect with the more connected young generation, it lacked the courage to recognize errors and privileges and address delicate issues, but ubiquitous in debates on networks today. It is important that the series talk about issues that victimized Xuxa, such as sexism, moral abuse and sexual violence. But the production loses its truly documentary character when it ignores the themes in which the presenter may have had her own role as executioner. Racism in the choice of paquitas is one of them. Contextualizing it in the country’s past can avoid an anachronistic analysis, but does not exempt it from naming it for what it actually is and discussing it today, as the series chooses to do.

Paradoxically, it doesn’t help the presenter that all the controversies in her life are approached in a light that favors her. It is in the rare moments when she recognizes real weaknesses and allows herself to be really vulnerable that the public comes to like Xuxa more. Perhaps online criticism proves that, to remain queen, one must also know how to step down from the throne..