BEATRIZ AT DINNER: THE MAGICAL MEXICAN AND WHY I HATE THIS MOVIE

I have to admit I was hesitant to watch this movie. Beatriz at Dinner was presented as a movie about a Mexican immigrant at a dinner party where she encounters a series of microaggressions and deals powerfully with them. You would think I would be down with the powerful part of this, but I am just tired, as a professional Latina woman, I deal with these stereotypes all the time and didn't want to deal with them during my leisure. I ultimately gave in and went in order to support Latinas in leading roles.

I walked into the theater in a very diverse City and I was the only attendee of color. I understood. I assumed many like me did not want to watch their lives play out on screen. I was open though and have to admit that ultimately, this is a horrible movie.

First of all, I couldn't help but feel that Salma Hayek's character is your standard Hollywood Magical Negro, with the twist that this time it was a Magical Mexican. If you remember, The Green Mile literally had a Magical Negro who dies in the end for the benefit of the Tom Hanks Character.

In Breatriz at Dinner, you have a character that appears to be on the autism spectrum and is a healer by trade. It appears she sacrifices herself for the healing of the soul of greedy white men.

Besides being predictable, and not uplifting at all, the end of the movie is just bizarre and left me wandering "what just happened." I think if Hollywood wants to be predictable, it should be predictable. If it going to take the liberty to be "artistic" or "cutting edge" it may just want to use as much energy in not relying on old, tired and racist tropes...oh and the dinner was too close to what I experience on a regular basis, so not empowering at all.

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