Cheias de Charme (English: Sparkling Girls) is a Brazilian musical telenovela produced and broadcast by Globo. It premiered on 16 April 2012 and run for 143 episodes. It deals with the career and lifes of the three Marias (Penha, Rosário e Cida) that make the Empreguetes, having to deal with the jealousy of Chayene and her maid, Socorro.
Features performances by Taís Araújo, Cláudia Abreu, Leandra Leal, Isabelle Drummond, Ricardo Tozzi, Malu Galli, Marcos Palmeira and Jonatas Faro.
Cheias de Charme has examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer:
- Chayene to Fabian. She wants him to be her boyfriend, but he finds her annoying.
- Dália to both Inácio and Fabian. She's obsessed with Fabian, to the point of changing her actual boyfriend's face to his, through surgery.
- Accidental Misnaming: Chayene constantly refers to Rosário by many different names starting with "Ro-": Rosalba, Rochelle, Roxane, Rosilda...
- She also does this to Dona Epifânia, Socorro and Naldo's mother, calling her Epitáfia and Espinafra.
- Aerith and Bob: There are common names like Maria, Otto, Alana and Sandro but also oddballs like Jocileia (a.k.a Chayene), Fabianilson (a.k.a Fabian), Rodinei and Brunessa.
- Amoral Attorney: Averted by Lygia, who drops Chayene's case after getting to know the abuse Penha endured, defends the Empreguetes and helps bring down Sarmento's scheme.
- Played straight by Ernani Sarmento and Conrado, who are involved in a money laundering scheme.
- Animal Motifs:
- Chayene is always associated with butterflies due to the song that made her famous, Xote da Brabuleta.
- Tom Bastos is sometimes called a fox, due to his scheming nature.
- Eloy di Marco has a snake motif due to his gossiping and backstabbing.note
- Fábio Arruda has a bull/ox motif: he's the owner of a supermarket named Merry Ox and gets called a bull due to his (implied) sexual prowess.
- Ax-Crazy: Dália. Beyond ruining her ex-boyfriend's life with her obsession with Fabian, she planned to kidnap and kill both Chayene and Rosário for being involved with them, almost succeeding.
- Babies Ever After: Rosário is pregnant with Inácio's kid, and tells him at their wedding.
- Bait-and-Switch: Chayene notices immediately after her performance that her voice was tampered with due to Ferragoela tea. She says to Socorro that she already knows who did it and why. While Socorro, the actual culprit, is sweating bullets, Chayene tells her that Eloy, a gossip blogger who interviewed Rejane (an ex-colleague of hers and Laércio's ex-wife) recently, tampered with her drinks. The reason being that Rejane wants to avenge herself through Eloy after years of ostracism and jealousy of Chayene's success.
- Best Friends-in-Law: After Cida and Elano get married in the finale, Penha and Cida become this officially, as Penha always supported the relationship.
- Big Damn Heroes: Inácio and, oddly enough, Fabian in the last chapter, when they team up to fight Dália's henchmen and save Chayene and Rosário.
- Birthday Hater: Fabian, who hates attracting attention to his age, according to Tom. Turns out, he has a way bigger reason for doing so...
- Bound and Gagged:
- Rosário does this to Dinha so she can steal her catering uniform to get closer to Fabian. Dinha eventually gets out and manages to tell security guards, who promptly kick Rosário out.
- In the finale, Dália and her henchmen do this to Rosário and Chayene.
- Brother–Sister Team: Simone and Fabian (the first is the latter's manager); Naldo and Socorro (the first covers and helps in the schemes of the latter).
- Celeb Crush: Rosário considered Fabian her biggest musical inspiration, has all of his Cds and her bedroom was filled with his memorabilia (to the point where she hesitated in bringing her boyfriend Inácio in, specially as he hated the guy at the time). However, her (platonical) crush on him fades away over the course of the novela.
- Celebrity Resemblance: When the Frenéticas
show up and talk to the Empreguetes, they quickly notice that Valda, Cida's godmother, looks just like Dhu Moraes, one of the band members. (Of course, the joke is that Valda is actually played by Dhu Moraes.) - Cinderella Plot: Cida lost both parents at a young age, was kept by her parents' employers as a housemaid, grew up with two "sisters", daughters of her employers, who constantly mistreated her and later became rich (and found her prince, Elano).
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Ernani Sarmento, Cida's boss, is a businessman and lawyer known as "The Shark". He commits fraud using his office and ends up being arrested.
- Crazy Jealous Guy:
- Gender flipped with Chayene and Fabian. When she thinks Rosário is dating him, she goes to her apartment with pepper spray (which she accidentally sprays in her own eyes) and later tries to throw hot water on her (which, due to her being blinded by the pepper spray, ends up in Fabian's face).
- Inácio is this to Rosário, belittling her dreams of being a singer due to jealousy.
- Daddy's Girl: Rosário is this to Seu Sidney, due to him being her only parent (he adopted her after her bio parents died). He always encouraged her dreams while also keeping her grounded. Even when Rosário crosses the line in search of fame, Sidney cares and worries about her.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Inácio. He had to run away from a crazy ex girlfriend (who, after a serious accident happened to him, said his face looked exactly like the one of her idol, Fabian, to the surgeon, which explains why he hates the guy and his fans) and restart his life.
- Dark Secret:
- Parodied with Fabian his "dark" secret is that he's Simone's twin, thus he's actually 44 years old, and not 27. note .
- Played straighter with Chayene. She frequently gave Rejane, the ex singer from Leite de Cobra, a tea that ruined her voice and took her place in the band, eventually getting famous. The poor Rejane ended up addicted to the tea. This secret actually makes Laércio give up on Chayene entirely, and promote Socorro instead.
- The Determinator:
- Rosário. She doesn't give up in face of rejection (by her boyfriend, her employer, and her idol) nor ever gives up her dream of being a singer.
- Socorro is hellbent on becoming a butterfly sister to Chayene and singing with her. Chayene then makes her do ridiculous things as part of a "training", in the hopes she will give up. Socorro survives going around the block running on one foot, walking back and forth on a slim board above the ground while holding ceramic plates and glasses and finally standing still for hours on the floor (while ants crawl on her). In fact it's the last one that makes Laércio tell Chayene to make Socorro a butterfly sister already, because he realized she would either end up as one or die trying. When Socorro eavesdrops on Laércio and Chayene and realizes Chayene never intended to follow her word, she gets a bottle of Ferragoelanote tea and gives it to Chayene, taking her place at her performance with Luan Santana.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Chayene, despite being actually a successful singer who can still draw crowds even past her prime, is way more worried with destroying the up-and-coming Empreguetes, specially Rosário. It's frequently mentioned (by Laércio, by Tom, by Madame Kastrup, her fortuneteller and even by Rosário) that if she just focused on herself and treated the people around her better she wouldn't have sunken her career nearly as much.
- Disappeared Dad:
- Samuel grew up with his mom, his stepfather, Alejandro, and his half-sister, Manuela, never having met his father. Lygia never told him about his father because she never had much information on him anyway, dating the guy briefly and having lost contact before she could tell him about her pregnancy. Samuel ends up meeting him, after searching for him without Lygia's knowledge.
- Penha and Elano's father ran out on them after thinking Elano was the result of him being cheated on (Penha, their mother and presumably their father are black, while Elano is white).
- The Dog Bites Back:
- After Laércio finds out what Chayene did to Rejane, the ex singer of a band called Leite de Cobra, he decides to make Socorro his next star, who, in turn, makes Chayene her servant.
- This only came about due to Socorro's revenge after finding out Chayene's plan of locking her in the bathroom so she wouldn't sing at Chayene's show.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Chayene spikes Fabian's drink with Pó de Arriba Touro, the most powerful aphrodisiac ever, which can make even people who hate someone (like Fabian hates Chayene) want to have sex with that person immediately. Fabian doesn't notice anything wrong with the drink because Chayene lied to him about his biggest secret being on the internet and sleeps with Chayene. He comes to regret it the morning after (and for the rest of that plotline) but nobody believes him when he says he was drugged by her. Chayene then pretends to be pregnant. It's all played for comedy.
- Embarrassing Slide: Happens at Isadora's wedding party. She absolutely hates the pictures taken when she was fat, which Cida then puts on her wedding slide show, as part of her revenge due to being mistreated for so long at the Sarmentos'.
- Fake Pregnancy: With Laércio's help, Chayene pretends to be pregnant to trick Fabian into dating her.
- Fangirl:
- Rosário is this to Fabian, having loads of pictures of him in her bedroom and initially dating Inácio due to his similarity to him.
- Socorro is this for Chayene, being willing to stand the biggest humiliations to stay close to her and be a star herself.
- Dália is the most extreme version of this, being a direct contributor to why Inácio looks that much like Fabian. She also kidnapped Rosário and Chayene in the finale to attract both Inácio and Fabian to herself.
- Girl Group: The Empreguetes, of course. Penha, Rosario and Cida become best friends and become a famous musical group.
- Good is Not Nice: Dr Otto, who is one of the most likable characters in the telenovela, finds out that his son is involved in a corruption scheme. What does he do? He kicks said son out, disowns him, and throws out Máslova, his main enabler.
- Ham-to-Ham Combat: Happens every time Chayene and Socorro are in a scene. Socorro is utterly devoted to Chayene, being willing to suffer the worst humiliations (like having to stay still for hours) to be closer to her idol. Chayene however, finds it fun to mistreat Socorro (although this comes to bite her in the ass later) and scheme evil plans with her help. Case in point: their "fight", which Chayene and Socorro actually planned beforehand, so Socorro could mingle with the Empreguetes and spy on them.
- Identical Stranger: Inácio and Fabian are completely identical to each other. Some people even think they're twin brothers.
- Jerkass: The Sarmentos, especially Sônia and Ernani, who forced Cida to be their housemaid since childhood and and spoiled their daughters to be as rotten as they were. Ernani even tries to scam Cida by pretending to be her father. Conrado and Máslova count as well (as they consider anyone who is poor as below them).
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Tom Bastos, who, while being willing to trick people into thinking Inácio is Fabian, cares for his artists.
- Sandro, despite frequently being involved in scams, like selling falsified phones, still loves his son and Penha very much.
- Ariela and Humberto post regeneration, where they genuinely regret their treatment of Cida.
- Laughably Evil:
- Chayene, of course. She plans to give a tea to the Empreguetes that will make them lose their voice, but accidentally drinks it. She also got blinded by her own pepper spray.
- Socorro also qualifies, as she was responsible for switching the teas in the first place.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Brunessa gets pregnant but is unsure if Rodinei or Humberto, Ariela's husband, is the father. She miscarries before we find out for sure, but it was probably Humberto's.
- Manchild: Fabian. Along the time he seemingly becomes unable to defend himself against Chayene, accept fully that Inácio needs to replace him for some shows and also refusing to just say he lied about his age, being actually in his early forties, instead of letting Chayene control him as she pleases. He has a great flair for the dramatics as well, leaving it to Simone to do all of his emotional control.
- Mean Boss: Chayene screams abuse at her house maids and is nearly impossible to please. She even ends up doing community service and having to pay reparations after humiliating Penha.
- Missing Mom: Penha's mom ran out on her and her siblings to be with a truck driver.
- Momma's Boy: Rivonaldo José, mostly known as Naldo, is Dona Epifânia's favorite kid. He does all kinds of niceties to her and never lets anyone speak ill of her, especially Socorro.
- The Nicknamer: Chayene. She calls Fabian her "chicken", his sister a pirarucu note , and her own ex husband, later turned servant, a vulture.
- Older Than They Look: Fabian, who's actually 44, but was able to pass as being in his late twenties.
- One-Steve Limit:
- Averted by the protagonists, the Empreguetes, as they are all named Maria: Maria do Rosário, Maria da Penha and Maria Aparecida. It's one of the things that unite them. Naturally, they are all called by their second names.
- Socorro is also a Maria (Maria do Perpétuo Socorro Cordeiro de Jesus, to be more specific). But it's less emphasized with her.
- Only Sane Man: Laércio to Chayene. He's the only one who points out the craziness of her plans, being utterly in love with her after they have long divorced. Chayene mostly ignores his appeals.
- Pair the Spares: Dr. Otto and Ivone in the finale. Dr. Otto was one of the men who fell for Penha, one of the main characters, and Ivone was her best friend.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- Inácio refuses to tell Rosário why he hates Fabian. It, along with his machismo and jealousy, ended up separating them until the ending of the novela. When he decides to tell her, it's already too late (as she's just found out, along with the rest of Brazil, he'd been impersonating Fabian at their shows) and Rosário doesn't want to see him ever again. He has to tell his story on live television.
- Cida refuses to tell Conrado she's actually the Sarmentos' maid instead of their adopted daughter. So Isadora takes a picture of her in uniform and sends it to a friend of his, who then sends it to their whole friend group. Conrado is enraged and breaks up with her.
- Poster-Gallery Bedroom: One of Rosário's bedroom walls is filled with posters (and a cardboard cutout) of Fabian.
- Promoted to Parent: Penha was this to Elano and Alana, her siblings, after their parents left them.
- Prophecy Twist: Madame Kastrup foresees a blonde woman who will take everything from Chayene. Chayene thinks the woman is obviously Rosário and spends the whole telenovela trying to destroy her career. It was actually Socorro.
- Rags to Riches: The Empreguetes undergo this, after they become stars, especially Cida, who used to be a maid since her childhood. Also happens with Rodinei when his graffiti gets him famous, Ivone, when she married Dr. Otto and Brunessa when she married a rich foreigner.
- Riches to Rags: The Sarmentos, Conrado and Máslova all lose their money in the end. It also happens partially to Chayene and Fabian, whose last scene shows the once famous musicians having to sing in a children's show.
- Running Gag:
- Chayene calling Rosário everything starting with Ro- but her name, there's even a time when she calls her two different names in the same sentence.
Chayene: Se é guerra que Rochele quer, é guerra que Roxane terá. (Translation: "If Rochele wants war, Roxane will have war")- Tom mixing up Fabian and Inácio, the latter answering angrily. It actually stops after Inácio really starts to fake being Fabian, though.
- A Simple Plan: Chayene thinks getting actually pregnant by Fabian is this: she fakes a pregnancy, slanders him publicly, accusing him of abandoning their baby, makes him move to her house (which partially backfires, as he brings his sister, Simone, along), calls the mother of her cook, Dona Epifânia, to be her midwife and then starts recording a reality show at her home (thus, Fabian would have to share a bed with her for real). Laércio points it out for what it is: a Zany Scheme.Laércio, referring to the amount of people Chayene has at home: Chayene, you can deceive some people for some time but not a lot of people forever.
- Special Guest: From Ivete Sangalo to Michel Teló, several popular Brazilian musicians appear in this telenovela. Mainly when Chayene's reality show starts.
- Tampering with Food and Drink:
- Chayene puts sleeping pills on Simone's drink so she can have time alone with Fabian. She tells Laércio, who immediately mixes the contents of both drinks (to avoid Chayene being arrested for drugging someone), making both Chayene and Simone sleepy.
Simone: I'm so sleepy.... What's in these drinks?Chayene: There was a sleeping pill on yours, you skinny pirarucu. On mine, however, there was only....Laércio!- Chayene drugs Fabian with an aphrodisiac she puts in his drink, sleeps with him and then pretends she's pregnant to be together with him.
- Tantrum Throwing: Fabian does this at home while regretting being drugged by Chayene and sleeping with her.
- Sônia does this to Ernani, throwing pillows at him after Cida starts living with them and giving orders.
- Verbal Tic: Fabian calls everyone some variation of beautiful.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Kleiton and Tom. Kleiton keeps nicknaming and annoying Tom, and Tom tries to get Kleiton fired, but they both come to consider each other as friends.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: Chayene considers herself this, not making any hit songs for a while. She constantly worries about being forgotten by the public.
- Whole Episode Flashback: The first episode spends most of its runtime telling why exactly Maria da Penha, Maria do Rosário and Maria Aparecida met at the same police station.
- Worthy Opponent: Chayene comes to consider Rosário as this in the finale, after trying to destroy her career during the whole telenovela.
