Português of the Week

comemoração - celebration

Friday, September 18, 2009

Travel Channel: Keepin It Phony

Travel Channel — how can you be so bad and so good all at once?

You give the Hunter S. Thompson of Food a platform (Bourdain's No Reservations) and then you barf up this.

Brace yourself folks. Below is the actual description of the shows first episode — taken directly from the press release sent to us:
Riku and Tunna, the two Finns behind the madness, begin their journey in Brazil where they encounter dangers I personally wouldn't dare to face. The episode starts with Riku in a medical chair getting his bicep sliced open with a scalpel. What for? A diamond of course! He gets a diamond sewn under his skin in case he gets robbed and needs cash fast.

This precaution makes more sense once they reach their first destination: a shanty-town (Rocinha Favela) run by gang members. The murder rate in this town is significantly higher than Rio's, which has one of the highest crime rates worldwide. A lot of criminals move to the shanty town to get lost after leaving prison. Riku and Tunna get up-close-and-personal with one of the gang members and his guns.

They have got to be joking...

Unfortunately, prior to this post, the preview of the show has been removed from YouTube.

It was probably because of the dozens of comments pointing out whatever false location the show was calling Rocinha.

I spent around a dozen Funk fueled nights scurrying up and down the morro of the most populated favela in Rio and, no, that certainly doesn't appear familiar. I'm no favela expert but I do also recall every single person (Brasilero or not) being accosted by rifled minions whenever even seeming to take a picture with so-much as a cell phone — much less a video camera.

Aside from Diplo's 'Favela On Blast', which doesn't even show too much visually, you will be hard pressed to find quality favela footage.

In addition to the obvious cultural clusterfuckery this show is about to induce upon the places it visits, I wonder about the legal ramifications of lying about the place you are claiming to be shooting from.

Of course, I refuse to actually tell you what day the show will start. If you really wanna see it you will have to figure it out by means other than those of my words.

Travel Channel stays losing.

Tony may wanna jump ship before it's too late.

1 comment:

lifeinrocinha said...

i have favela video on my website but I live in Rocinha. Rule is true, no fotos of trafickers. The favela they in Tavares Bastos has polie post of BOPE at the top of the hill so if they want film they can..but in Rocinha where I live, only if you from there can you film more places

Zezinho