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.

Comments

I CAN'T PASS JUDGMENT ANYMORE

I know all of my friends are loving the ease and convenience of carrying books around on a Kindle, or whatever the gadget of the day is, but this move to electronic reading is really affecting my ability to judge others, yes, you heard me right-judging others is now difficult. It used to be that I could sit on the train and just by watching book covers, and their respective readers, I would get an idea of what books I might like. Now, everyone has a kindle and I can't really derive reading recommendations without appearing to be a stalker. But worse than that, new friendships are severely affected. I used to be able to walk into someone's house and look at their bookcase and know whether I should run the other way-now, the non-visibility of books makes identifying incompatibility so much more difficult. For example, if someone were to walk into my house, this is what they might see: You would be correct in making quite a few assumptions about me based on this ...

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: AMERICAN FLAVORED APARTHEID

I remember being a young adult and cramming into a van with 26 other people: this van was designed to hold only nine. Had I been wealthier, I could have gotten on a nicer and safer bus, but I was not wealthy and had to get home ASAP. I hated my country for things like that and loved America because America had nice buses, no overcrowded bus. I had been on American buses and trains while on vacation and they felt glamorous compared to what I had to get on on a regular basis. Years later, I would move to America. I would depend on public transportation to get to work, school and leisure. I lived at the border between a wealthy area and modest one, lucky enough to have been assigned to the wealthier neighborhood's school system. It turns out, PT in America was not that glamorous. The fleets were nicer, but the routes and expense couldn't get me to where I WANTED to be. They were good enough to get me to where OTHERS wanted me to be. I have since moved around and lived all ov...

THE INVISIBLE COST OF TRAUMA AND WHY IT IS HARD TO SEE

Every day I look out of my back door and stare at two beautiful Pine trees. Those who don't know their histories see two well-formed plants that cast shadows, clean air and house neighborhood critters. I, on the other hand, see missed opportunities. Only after looking at what was lost among those trees could I begin to conceptualize how much good has been removed from the human experience due to trauma. I bought my home in 2006 and can assure you that the two Pine trees were planted and transplanted at the same time; they were nurtured (or not) by me in the same amounts. Both trees grew at the same pace for about nine years. Over a year ago there was a huge snow storm that toppled the Pine tree on the left. I tied it back up hoping it wouldn't die. Sure enough, the Pine tree was resilient and survived. In fact, if you were to look at it today you would not know that it once fell over and looks like a model Pine tree. People often see survivors of trauma after they have ...

MODERN IFIGENIA

Search This Blog