Halloween 2012

welp

Go On and Community comparison

So I've added Go On (plot synopsis: Chandler's wife died and he has to go to a support group full of loveable weirdos to cope and ends up befriending them) to my shows that I watch, and I've realized the reason I like it so much is because it reminds me of Community.

Chandler Bing Ryan King: Jeff Winger, obvs
Lauren (the group leader): a combination of Britta and Annie. Like Britta, she is the girl the sarcastic main character is totally going/supposed to end up with, and is a fake therapist who wants to help people. Like Annie, she has gorgeous brown shiny hair and adorable clothes I want to steal, and she wants him to be a better person (wait, Britta does too. And Annie is also cute together with Jeff).
Anne: much like Britta as well. She's angry, blonde, and constantly calling Ryan out on his ish. Also a recurring joke on Community is that Britta is lesbian and Anne actually is (her wife also died, like Ryan's).
Yolanda: Shirley! Also Annie, the overachieving, sweater-wearing, persnickety prude version of her.
Owen: A combo of Abed and Troy? idk.
Mr. K: Pierce, obvs. Also Abed. And Chang but not malevolent. And Dean Pelton? Like if you put the Dean and Pierce and some Abed and Chang together. Yeah this makes no sense.
Sonia: Britta (blonde single cat owner) but also some Annie and Shirley?
Fausta: Pierce? I have no idea. They don't have a Hispanic stereotype on Community (yet).
Danny: No idea. A bit Abed-ish.
George: Pierce because of the oldness. He's not been on lately.
Carrie: Annie-ish but not really anything.
Steven: No idea.

Yeah, that ended up being less clear-cut than I thought. Oh, I just remembered that Jeff is always being compared to Ryan Seacrest and Ryan King is always being mistaken for Rachel Maddow. So that's funny.

Disney's First Hispanic/Latina Princess?

All right, finally found something to blog about! I have no idea how I missed reading about this earlier, but apparently Disney is going to have its first Latina princess. Her name is Sofia and she becomes a princess because her mom marries the king of Enchancia (yeah, I know). Read this article and this one too. What I find weird is this:

• while Sofia's mom is clearly Latina (she is voiced by Sara Ramirez from Grey's Anatomy, while Modern Family's Ariel Winter voices Sofia) and has dark brown hair and eyes and brown/tan skin, Sofia has auburn hair, blue eyes and basically just looks white, and
• Sofia is going to be in a computer animated Disney Juniors television show, not in a full-length feature film like any of the other Disney Princesses.

Being Latin@ is an ethnicity, not a race, so obviously there is a great deal of physical variation among Latin@s or Hispanics (Latin@ [the @ is used as a combination 'o' and 'a' symbol; in Spanish males' words end in o and females' words end in a, so this way both genders are included] is a newer term that roughly means the same thing as Hispanic, but the latter is a word applied to our ethnic group by the US government [aka white people] to classify us, so many Latin@s prefer this word. It's roughly the same to me, although I grew up using Hispanic because my parents do). I myself am a 'white' Latina; my dad is Mexican and my mom is of Cuban descent, but there is so much Spanish blood (my dad's family were land owners and he had a French whoknowshowmany-great-grandfather, while my mom's family are Cubans who also pretty much directly descended from Spaniards) that my immediate family pretty much all pass for white (my sister is blond, even). You don't have to dig very far in this blog to find pictures of me; I do have dark brown hair but I also have white skin and blue eyes. I'm whiter than most white people. Obviously, just because someone has light skin, hair and eyes does not mean they can't be Latin@.
The problem is that this is Disney's first Latina princess. This is a big deal. I think this is just about the only ethnic group the Disney movies haven't covered. Quick rundown of Disney Princesses: Snow White (come on. It's in the name/fairy tale), Cinderella (blonde/blue-eyed), Aurora (ditto), Ariel (first redhead! still white even though she is a mermaid), Belle (brunette and brown-eyed, French), Jasmine (first non-white princess! Arabian? Clearly Middle-Eastern. Agrabah is not I think a real place), Pocahontas (Native American, an actual person but she was so not like that), Mulan (Chinese, what I said about Pocahontas although technically she is not a princess since her dude wasn't a prince), Tiana (first Black princess! also from a real place, New Orleans, and is African American), and Rapunzel (after all that diversity I guess we needed to return to a blonde, white princess. She has green eyes, though). Oh, and Pixar's Merida (Scottish; red, crazy curly hair; blue eyes. Love her). These are the official Disney Princesses™, although Giselle (played by strawberry blonde Amy Adams), Kida (Atlantean princess with tan/brown skin, white hair and blue eyes who is all *~exotic~*), Ariel's daughter Melody (also white and has black hair like her dad Prince Eric), and Eilonwy (princess from The Black Cauldron. She's your basic blonde/white/blue-eyed princess but in her defense TBC is based on a book that was heavily influenced by your typical European fairytales) also exist. There has been no Latina princess, though, so it's rather disappointing that this one looks like your basic white girl. Yes, white-looking Latina girls like me exist (obviously), but we already have enough princesses to look up to or hold up as being or looking like me (Belle 4eva). What about the brown-skinned girls? There's just Pocahontas, Jasmine and Tiana for them, but none of these are Latina.
I think it's been a long enough time since the only two Hispanic-adjacent movies in this vein that we can do another movie set in pre-Columbus America about Mesoamerican peoples. The Road to El Dorado (which was made by DreamWorks but was clearly trying to mimic Disney's movies/success) was about two bumbling conquistadores trying to find/steal from a city of gold with a wily Mayan babe's help (can't remember if she's royal but I doubt it), while The Emperor's New Groove (set loosely in the Incan empire in Peru) does not have Emperor Kuzco actually get married (his wife would be an empress, though) since it is an odd-couple buddy movie. Despite Tumblr's lovingly referring to Kuzco as the best Disney princess, he does not actually count (although he is entertaining). It would be really neat to have an Aztec or Mayan princess, but it would be just as neat to have a standard princess with the dress and tiara and everything who just happened to have brown skin and dark hair/eyes. The Disney representative mentioned as the source of this information in one of the articles linked to above said that they're not flouting her ethnic background, just treating it matter-of-factly, which I think is fine. It would be nice if a brown-skinned princess were treated as normal.
This is especially a bummer since Sofia's show is set in Enchancia (ugh), a made-up country. The people there could look like anything you want (although at least it does seem rather diverse, judging from the trailer), and you have that girl and the ruling family looking white? Disappointing. I'm definitely not saying I want a sombrero-wearing stereotype or a story you can't watch without 'Cielito Lindo' constantly being played (I'm looking at you, From Prada to Nada), but why would you say a character, especially one you're trying to market as a Disney Princess, is Latina but then not have their culture be anything relevant? As the EW article says, "Sofia is half-Enchancian and half-Galdizian. The two kingdoms are in a world where a few real countries like France exist, but they’re still fictional, making words like Latina and Hispanic less clearly applicable." Some of the light-skinned Latin@s talking about Sofia on Facebook (link from the Mashable article) are angry that other people think she's too white, pointing out that skin color doesn't determine Latin@-ness (which is true) and that the white princesses and famous people don't share our culture and experiences. However, it's not like we light-skinned Latin@s are finally getting representation either; the child's from made-up lands. How does that count as Latin@? It doesn't, in my book. It feels like Disney's trying to seem diverse without really being so. Dora the Explorer's better than this. We're getting the short end of the stick, representation-wise.
I also think it's weird that Sofia is from a (pretty basic-sounding) TV show for young children. All of the 'real' Disney Princesses were at least in their teens, of marriageable (for their medieval/fantasy settings, anyway) age, and this one is clearly a little girl. This is Disney's first Latina princess, and she doesn't even get her own movie? That plus her age makes her not really count as a Disney Princess; it makes her not very important. I just barely heard about her today, and the show starts next month. Maybe they will do a real, brown-skinned Latina princess with her own movie in the future. Who knows. It feels like we still have a ways to go.

Image from Mashable. Note Sofia's mom, fourth little box from left.

From Prada to Nada

The sister on the left never dresses like that. She is in cute but comfy clothes in the whole movie, except for the obligatory makeover montage (which doesn't take). And the sister on the right never works, for shoes or otherwise.

I watched From Prada to Nada with my parents a couple days ago, just in time for Mexico's Independence Day. It's a romcom retelling of Sense & Sensibility, which I didn't know and which made me happy because I love retellings of my favorite books (as long as they're good) and because I had been feeling meh about the movie (my dad talked me into watching it). Really, the title is groan-worthy and riches-to-rags stories with shopaholic girls are so done, but this movie was actually surprisingly good. The representations of the Hispanics/Latinos in the movie were real. Usually it's somewhat cringeworthy, but these were real Latino people saying things Latina aunts or whatever would totally say. This is because the director and the script writers were Hispanic, which pleased me. About 70% of what happened with the two main characters (the Elinor ["Nora"] and Marianne ["Mary"] characters) was just as lame/cringeworthy as you'd think, but overall it wasn't half bad. Was it predictable? Yes. I mean, if you've read S&S you know what's going to happen, obviously. And you could probably go through this movie with a Latino movie cliché checklist (cholas? check. La Migra joke? check. And so on). What I found interesting (besides the rather genuine portrayals of Latinos) was the stuff they added to the sisters' characters. Besides making Mary be all swept up in lurve with Willoughby/Rodrigo, they added the dimension that she wanted to go back to her old way of life in Beverly Hills and get out of East LA/the barrio, making her love of the hot TA more gold-digger-y/mercenary and less romantic. And Nora, instead of secretly loving Edward and then finding out he was engaged the whole time, went the standard "we banter! He likes me but I am scared and Turn My Back on Love!" and you know what happens next. It's interesting how they didn't want Elinor to be the boring perfect one and so they made her storyline more standard romcom. In S&S, Elinor really does nothing wrong while the only thing Marianne does wrong is love recklessly without thinking of propriety or consequences (well, she is quite rude and self-centered too). However, it's like for the movie they didn't want the girls to be that blameless, so they made Mary a gold digger and Nora all obsessed with her 10 year plan. idk. Overall I did like the movie and it made me sad I don't have like twelve Spanish names I can trot out at the drop of a hat (at most I have four but only two are Spanish) or a family that throws huge block parties with salsa music for El Grito where I can dress like Frida Kahlo (but I am always wanting to do that anyway. It's a pity I'm so white-looking). Overall I liked this movie, which you can watch for free on Amazon Prime. 3.5 out of 5 tacos.

Elinor: Uptight Career Woman Who Don't Need No Man (law student version). Can't speak Spanish but tries to learn. Played by a half-Brazilian actress (I was worried for a bit that they cast a white actress until I looked the movie up on IMDb).
Marianne: slutty shopaholic party girl with gold digger tendencies. Can't speak Spanish and tries to deny her Mexican heritage. Played by a half-Venezuelan actress (Carmen from Spy Kids!).
Mrs. Dashwood: dead, obviously was just like Marianne/Mary. Represented by painting.
Margaret Dashwood: axed (not necessary to story)
Mr. Dashwood: Gabriel Sr. models his mustache after Pedro Infante's, dies within the first 8 minutes of movie. Represented by topiary.
Edward Ferrars: Edward Ferris, hot lawyer. White but looks more Mexican than Nora does for some reason (played by Italian actor). Speaks Spanish badly.
John Willoughby: Rodrigo something, hot Mexican TA who turns out to be married and was just using Mary. Well, at least he got her to read a book.
Colonel Brandon: Wilmer Valderrama, hot thuggy vato who is secretly an artist/carpenter with a heart of gold. The above two actually speak Spanish well.
Sir John Middleton: actually became the girls' tia, an awesome lady who with her two comadres is also Mrs. Jennings.
John Dashwood: Gabriel Jr., who turns out to be Gabriel Sr.'s illegitimate son and has daddy issues because his father never acknowledged him, wanting to save his marriage to the girls' mom. A pushover and super wimpy, lets his wife control him, so just like the book.
Fanny Dashwood: forgot her name but she is a right bitch, just like in the book. Blonde WASP.
Lucy Steele: Bitch-in-law's bestie, is set up with Edward and he's engaged to her like immediately. Also white, but interestingly she does no scheming, just passively does whatever "Fanny" says. Is only relevant as an obstacle to Edward and Nora getting together.
Setting: Beverly Hills, East LA
Recurring themes: cultural heritage, importance of family (obvs, that's in every movie with more than one Latino person), Cielito Lindo song

On Habakkuk 2: 18-19

by Doug Groothius

This glamorous gusto for godlets;
this voracious volition for vacuity;
this incessant insistence for idols.

Grasping a fistful of falsehood.
Consuming a stomach-ful of stupidity.
Filling a mind full of maddening mush.

Perform! Oh, you purveyors of nothingness.
Entertain our eyes, fill our years.
Enthrall our ears.
Give life to our living, and
deal the death blow to death.

We made you,
Now re-make us.

Rereading Emma

Mr. Knightley scolds Emma for matchmaking because she is meddling in affairs that don't concern her and causing her friend Harriet to think too highly of herself. Harriet, someone's illegitimate daughter, is too low of a social station to think of marrying Mr. Elton the vicar, while the gentleman-farmer Robert Martin is perfectly all right for her. Mr. Knightley is correct in his opinion of it and in telling Emma what he thinks, but I find it interesting because he sort of does the same thing himself. It is he who gives Robert his blessing to marry Harriet, and it feels like he's upset in half because his own neat matchmaking was ruined by Emma's. Later on in the book, too, he lets or sends Robert Martin to London to meet up with Harriet and propose to her (which she accepts, since she is far away from Emma's influence). Mr. Knightley may possibly lecture Emma about matchmaking and having strong, often selfish opinions about things and people because he recognizes such inclinations in himself.
Emma dislikes Jane Fairfax because she is the ideal accomplished, elegant young lady: excellent at music, genteel, quiet, pale, never speaks out of turn, etc. Emma is "handsome", true, but she is strong-willed, chatty, witty and not afraid to show it, likes to take control, doesn't practice her music or read enough, etc., and she feels a grudge towards Jane for being so perfect and so much closer to the Ideal Young Lady than Emma is. No one else in Highbury brings to light her shortcomings, except Mr. Knightley. The latter and Emma are friends, but a good chunk of their friendship is them bickering, mostly about her character flaws and things she does wrong.
Also, can we talk about how creepy it is that Mr. Knightley has been the Woodhouses' family friend since Emma was a child and was always trying to improve her character and correct her behavior, and professed falling in love with her at thirteen? He tells her this towards the end of the book, and while it is clear he didn't realize it until Frank Churchill came into the picture as a plausible love interest for Emma some months earlier and Mr. Knightley became jealous of him and realized why (and Emma is twenty to twenty-one years old in the book), that's still seriously creepy. He's sixteen years older than her! He's old enough to be her dad, which in itself is creepy enough, but he's known her since she was a child?? Someone I was discussing the book with once said that they'd read something comparing Mr. Knightley's behavior to child molesters/predators who "groom" their child victims into mentally accepting them as partners later on, or just to accept their abuse as not being wrong at all. Like, they groom them into becoming their perfect mate. Uggghhhhhh. I don't think that was Mr. Knightley's intention, obviously, but it's still really creepy and weird.
I read Emma mostly on my Nook and partially from my Barnes & Noble Classics copy. The Nook book is "25 Favorite Novels" in one ebook, which is nice because it was 99 cents, but there are no foot- and endnotes like in the B&N Classics, and I think it can only hold like ten highlights at a time? I'm quite sure I highlighted my favorite passages from P&P and S&S in the ebook, along with Emma, but I can only see/read the latter book's. It sucks. Also, each book is treated as a chapter, and while there are "Book I" and chapter divisions within each book, you can't jump to the next chapter within the ebook book. That sucks most of all. For some reason the place wasn't kept between my Nook app on my phone and my Nook ereader, so that was a pain.
Anyway, I read the introduction to my B&N Classics copy of Emma, which was an exhaustive essay in the awesome English journal article style on Emma and its characters and social aspects, etc. Those are quite interesting, if you like literary analysis and criticism, but I don't recommend reading the introductions (for sure in the B&N Classics books) before you read the novel because they will ruin it for you. Besides, it's nice to go back and get insight on the characters and plot points etc. after you've already read the book. Anyway the person who wrote Emma's introduction pointed out that Emma chose to befriend and improve Harriet and manage her love life because she sees her as an extension of herself. Like, Emma herself does not want to have a love life, partially because she does not think she can due to her codependent father, but she can be involved in Harriet's love life. She treats her like a human Barbie, almost. A love life by proxy. A fascinating discussion of control (Emma must be first in everything) and self-absorption. Emma does annoy me but I think I mainly like her.

I read Silas Marner and it was good, sad yet heartwarming at the end in that sympathetic, melodramatic way of most nineteenth century novels. It was good but from all that I'd heard of George Eliot, I sort of expected more? More fleshing out or explanations or whatever. There was a lot of buildup for Silas getting the little girl Eppie, and then it's just like "flashforward 18 years and Eppie's a gorgeous golden-haired girl!" Like of course she is. But for all that's spent on Silas's life prior to that? No depictions of single-father life? No struggles with raising a little girl on one's hermit/miserly own? And we're just told that Godfrey Cass just like marries his love, just like that? I hate just being told things. Show, don't merely tell! I just feel like there was a lot of potential in the story and with its characters. How did Godfrey convince his wife to marry him? How did she take over the household and get it running well? How did Godfrey live with the guilt of pretending the child wasn't his? I hate just being told stuff after the fact. IDK. I'm used to Dickens and Austen.

Anyway, I'm now reading Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales. I'm of course familiar with and have read most of them, but I like having a complete collection. I bought it at Barnes & Noble last Saturday night. It's not a gorgeous leatherbound book like the Hans Christian Andersen one that I bought at the same time, but the Grimm's was $8 while the other was $20, so. The Grimm's has a lovely wood scene painting as the dustjacket cover, while the HCA one is a gorgeous purple leatherbound one with gold designs. A bit too cutesy to be truly old-fashioned, but it's still nice. The books are uploaded to my LibraryThing (widget in sidebar). Oh, I also bought the fourth season of Ugly Betty on DVD, so now I own the entire show. I will have to watch it one of these days.

Cuentos

Tell me who you are
are you a good witch or a bad witch
neither, you're the other girl in the story
not the love interest (that'd be far too exciting)
you're the girl who sits in dull existence
waiting for the story to be about her
you're the jealous sister, one of the people
in the village or the chambermaid who fetches
the light and perhaps if you are lucky
you'll become the mother (step or otherwise)
of the hero who fulfills the quest

this is something they never told you
maybe you're not the storybook
you're just the bookmark in it