Table For Two: The Racialicious Review of Machete

Thea: I think so. It may be worse than it intended to be … but it’s definitely campy and seems self aware about that.

Arturo: Ok, campy I get. I felt that Machete’s vacillating between camp and straight-up action took away from that “vacation” feeling you talked about for me. Because, hell, man, at least give me a villain who can deliver a decent speech.

Thea: What was your issue with the senator’s speech?

Arturo: It was just bad. Like, not “MWAHAHA” bad. There was no style to it.

Thea: Did it feel too over the top to you to be seen as a threat, sort of declawing what is a real threat to people’s lives in America, in a way that misrepresents the danger people are facing? Or you just didn’t like it aesthetically?

Arturo: Both. It was like bad madlibs of my Twitter feed.

Thea: Haha. Like if they made an OKCupid graph of “Americans who think undocumented workers should be rounded up and deported”?

Arturo: Right. All they needed was, “I’m a simple guy.”

Thea: Hey! I’m a simple guy! I just want to listen to some Van Halen and deport some people!

Arturo: But back to the speech and the Senator character…

Thea: Right. This is an interesting point you raise … I think that you approached this film with discerning eyes, whereas my eyes were more yippee-guts-i-can’t-wait-to-see-jessica-alba’s-worker-rally-will-she-quote-cesar-chavez.

I think for me it really comes down to audience. I feel like the guts and campiness part of the film were for your regular Robert Rodriguez fans.

The political message was probably for Chican@s, undocumented workers, their allies and their families who just need a break from the bad news.

Arturo: But that’s the thing: I am a regular Rodriguez fan. I can tell you Rodriguez can deliver that message better, if he chooses to.

Thea: Well that is an interesting point.

Arturo: And the “turn your brain off” approach didn’t work for me here.

Thea: Right, well, it’s confusing if you are turning off the movie critic part of your brain, but leaving the revolutionary part on. What I meant to say though, by talking about target audience, is that I don’t think that Rodriguez was trying to win anyone over who hasn’t already been won over either by his films, or by the movements against SB 1070.

Arturo: Which is his right.

Thea: I can see, though, for someone who is both a Rodriguez fan and against SB 1070, you’re in a different spot.

Arturo: I don’t disagree with anything that was said. I just thought he’s championed a particular version of Mexico more skillfully in the past. Hell, Planet Terror had a Latino male as the co-protagonist.

Thea: So if you could pick say, three things you’d liked to have seen different in Machete, what would they be, in terms of the version of Mexico or Mexicans?

Arturo: 1) I’d like Rodriguez to acknowledge that Mexico has indoor plumbing and paved streets.

Thea: Fair enough.

Arturo: 2) Quit giving us at least one character who I want to see die but does not (Enrique Iglesias in Once Upon A Time and the Spy Kid redheaded cholo in Machete)

Thea: Ha! I liked the redheaded cholo! Big ups to the mixed cultural kids!

Arturo: That kid was just bugging the hell out of me. Anyway, #3: It’s not even that much about portrayals of Mexicans here, but I was just disappointed we didn’t get full-on camp or a fully-realized action thriller.

Thea: And I have to wonder how the politics of the film intersect with that.

Arturo: It just wasn’t a very clever film.

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