YMMV / Da Cor do Pecado

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Has Barbara always been in love with Paco and the money was just a bonus, or did she just go after him for money and then fall in love with him?
  • Does Tina really love any of the Sardinha brothers?
• Awesome Music: Even though the novela did not age well, many are inclined to agree its soundtrack is nothing short of incredible. Standouts include Skank's "Vou Deixar" (technically credited as Ulisses' Leitmotif but more famously used for the commercial break vignettes), Cássia Eller's "Palavras ao Vento" (the romance theme for Preta and Paco), "Época" by Gotan Project (Bárbara's Leitmotif), The Darkness' "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (Abelardo's Leitmotif) and Ramatis' "Marcia Rodinha" (Tina's Leitmotif).
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Many of the supporting plots are only there for comic relief, and the tone contrasts jarringly with the more dramatic and tragic tone of the main couple. The prime examples are the Sardinha family (especially Tina's love affair with the three brothers), Bárbara's criminal parents (whose crimes always go wrong) and Preta's two psychic friends (who even have an exorcism scene).
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The charismatic, beautiful and funny Tina. Even critics of the whole Sardinha family B-plot tend to cite her as the one saving grace from it. It helps that Karina Bacchi, who became quite popular for the role, retired from acting years later, establishing Tina as the most iconic character of her brief acting career.
  • The whole Sardinha family B-plot is often remembered and brought up in discussions of the novela, for better or for worse.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Bárbara is basically a textbook example of a "Karen", a term that wouldn't be in vogue until 2020 in the U.S., 16 years after this novela from Brazil was made. Her signature spiky hairstyle is even similar to the particular bob haircut associated with Karens.
• Narm: The visual effects in the scenes of the Sardinha brothers using their super strength in fights are bad. Really bad. Yes, they are purposely cartoonish, but after the 15th time they are used, they are no longer funny.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Apolo. Halfway through the novela, it is revealed that he is Paco's twin brother. You would imagine that he will return at some point and help Paco take revenge on Barbara. Instead, he remains supposedly dead for the rest of the story, and Paco uses a lookalike he hires at an acting agency to help him get revenge on Barbara. And then, in the last chapter, Apollo finally returns, revealing that he was alive and without memory. Which makes us wonder why the writers didn't bring him back early. Even the discovery that he has a twin brother and the repercussions of it for him occur off screen.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The Sardinha family treating Abelardo with contempt for much of the novela's story for the fact that he is a makeup artist and for suspecting that he is gay (something never confirmed) is treated by the script only as a joke. For some modern viewers, it is difficult to feel sympathy for them.
  • For many fans, Paco is a very unpleasant protagonist. He spends several years faking his death, to the pain and grief of all the family and friends who loved him. He pretends to be his twin brother, which is a crime. He also firmly believes that Preta is an opportunistic woman who tried to steal his money, though he never gave her a chance to explain herself.
  • Helinho pretending to have the power to communicate with the dead to deceive people and earn money from it is already something morally debatable, to say the least. But him using these tricks to seduce a widow is even worse, and despite that, the script treats the subplot only as a joke and portrays Helinho as a sympathetic character.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Many viewers have agreed that many elements in the story, such as Bárbara's constant racism against Preta and especially the toxic masculinity and homophobia of the Sardinha family towards Abelardo, haven't aged well. This has been acknowledged in the most recent rerun of the novela on Globo's affiliate network Viva, which has added a disclaimer at the end of the episodes stating that the work reproduces behavior from the time it originally aired in, and has even gone as far as refraining from using the novela's title (which is considered derogatory slang used for people with a darker complexion, as is the case with Preta).
  • Abelardo is the youngest son in a family where everyone is a fighter. When he announces that he plans to be a makeup artist, everyone in the family is horrified, immediately believing that Abelardo is homosexual. From that moment on, Abelardo is always treated by his family with contempt. As if that wasn't bad enough, there's also the fact that the telenovela never clarifies whether Abelardo really is homosexual or asexual: he doesn't date or show interest in any woman, and has a make-up friend, with his family suspecting that they are lovers. But the worst is yet to come: in the second half of the telenovela, Tina, who had already had an affair with two of the Sardinha brothers, falls madly in love with Abelardo after discovering that he is the best fighter in the family. Tina has to get him drunk to have sex with him, and when Abelardo's family finds out, they decide to let Tina live with them, even forcing them to sleep together in the same locked room, where Tina forces Abelardo to have sex with her every night. Abelardo even screams for help when this happens, with expressions of fear and disgust. It's all Played for Laughs because Tina is a beautiful woman coveted by all the men around her. If the genders were reversed, none of this would be funny.
  • The relationship between Moa and Sal is quite uncomfortable when you remember that actor Thiago Martins was still a minor aged 16, while Alinne Moraes was already 22.

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