the comedy series Palermo division premiering on Netflix this Friday, February 17. There, the Minister of Security inaugurates the urban guard of the City with a blind man, a trans girl, another in a wheelchair, a fat man, a Jew and a Bolivian. “Dear Agents: Welcome to this inclusive force! Safety is back on the street! Thanks to you, we are closer every day!”

The Minister of Security returns to a militarized clearing operation and communications to the police station are cut off. Miguel (Daniel Hendler), the coordinator of the brand new Palermo divisionread the slogans that the group receives, between the acidity of The officethe parody of Police Academy and the absurdity of Cha-cha-cha: “It is an unarmed civilian body made up of people like you”. Or “Avant-garde, proximity and inclusion in the City”.

When was an Argentinian comedy on Netflix that brought together Daniel Hendler, Pilar Gamboa, charo lopez AND Martin Garabal? Palermo divisionof eight short episodes (for a total of 3 hours and 46 minutes) was created by Santiago Korovsky, who had distinguished himself as an actor in The kingdom AND almost happy. Here he plays the protagonist Felipe Rozenfeld, who enters the Palermo Division after his girlfriend leaves him and his father takes him out of the family business: “You lack passion”, they tell him.

The power of minorities

In the series, nonsense will be combined with a harsh look at minorities and diversity.

“Does being Jewish count as a special ability?”, ask the leaders of the Palermo division, incorporating it into this “inclusive city guard”. A backpack with the money was stolen from Felipe Rozenfeld in the neighborhood square, he went to file a complaint and ended up in the Palermo Division with the promise of a salary, patrolling the streets without carrying any weapons.

“We’re not stigmatizing anyone here,” clarifies coordinator Miguel (Hendler), more amiable than vigilant. The gags will be distributed over the eight episodes of Palermo divisioncreated as a marketing operation “to change the image of strength”.

Alongside the ironic and political message will be a criminal conflict: a gang of drug traffickers operating behind a toy store with an evil gunslinger (Carlos Belloso).

How does humor work? Palermo divisionfor Netflix?

Felipe Rozenfeld (Korovksy) is thin, tall and bearded, and possesses the melancholy grace of Eleven’s “cole”. The best character, Sofía, is in a wheelchair (the brilliant actress Pilar Gamboa). Jonatan (Hernán Cuevas) is the short man. And Valeria Licciardi is the trans girl, fluent in her dialogues and also inside his insults to the porteños who commit fines.

sarcastic and incorrect

The sarcastic and incorrect humor of Palermo division has another duo to take the series to the opposite point of Explosive Brigade. Thanks to the skill of Charo López and Martín Garabal, their characters, police officers Paloma Gutiérrez and Esteban Vargas, carry out strategic interventions, monitoring or supporting the Palermo Division in its operations through the neighborhoods.

The humor of the series was calibrated by six writers: Santiago Korovsky, Florencia Percia, Martín Garabal, Ignacio Sánchez Mestre, Ignacio Gaggero and Martina López Robol.

As if it needed explaining, laughing at false inclusion (and exposing discrimination) aren’t the only sources of Palermo division. It is also at odds with unsuitable police officers with these civilians who, lacking regulatory bodies, find their true community vocation.

“Some come from the web discapacit.ar. Others from the employment office…”, explains the pusillanimous Miguel de Daniel Hendler, who also has hisa dream hidden by the police bureaucracy: the theatre. Somewhat in tune with the character of Mario (Bolivian actor Renato Condorí), with rare cabaret skills in the middle of the street operations of the Palermo Division, much more harmless than others.

“This is not an eviction. I want it to be very clear. Here there are infiltrators of left-wing parties”, the Security Minister said in front of the cameras, after a police repression of a Bolivian community. And urban photography grows with the presence of Luis Mansardi (Mike Amigorena), a “yellowish, masked, mercenary” presenter, according to the trans girl.

Amigorena’s won’t be the only cameo Palermo division. Each scene of the parody will hold surprises and subtle twists, but intimacy will be enhanced in the love dynamics between Sofía (Pilar Gamboa) and Felipe Rozenfeld (Santiago Korovksky). Like when he googles, “How to make love to someone in a wheelchair.” Various situations will add tenderness and humanity.

against prejudice

“In writing Palermo division we had to break down various prejudices. We didn’t want to fall into positive discrimination,” he says clarion Santiago Korovsky, also co-director with Diego Núñez Irigoyen.

“It is a prejudice to think that all people with disabilities, or those belonging to minorities, are beings of light. Or that they have no sexuality. That’s why they are often infantilized. We advise each other well so that nothing is boring or solemn ”, she says.

Also in dialogue with clarion, Pilar Gamboa thinks of Sofía, her big character in a wheelchair, who doesn’t hesitate to laugh at herself while offering emotional darkness. “Sofía often came to me and the educate that Lucrecia Gómez Boschetti gave me”, he says about the young Cordoba author of the book Five stories of a reckless invalid and a poem not to lose dignity.

“Lucrecia made me de-solemnize the character of Sofía and she was writing too Palermo division. We were able to take risks and always get to the bottom of humor”, celebrates Pilar Gamboa, recognized in 2021 with the Konex Award as theater actress of the decade.

Palermo division It triumphs even in the less effective comic moments for its irreverence in showing this “urban guard with a disability” created by a fictitious organism (with psychologists in the shadows) under a cynical premise, which returns in all eight episodes: “The ministry asked us to highlight the whole issue of minorities”.

But they all have complex life stories, far from the official discourse which, in the series, proclaims inclusion. “Do security and integration go hand in hand?” is heard in another ridiculous scene from Palermo division. And Sofia replies: “Spider-Man has special abilities.”

that’s when Palermo division will reveal its extensive gallery of villains: the drug gang with Carlos Belloso, but also institutional violence and prejudice. “We are all different,” teaches the series.

Or as the officer played by Martín Garabal explains to Felipe Rozenfeld (Santiago Korovsky), setting the patrol car in motion: “Look, being a policeman is one thing and putting on a cap is another.”