Coco with Dani Fernandez

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
start changing it with the Bell Cast. Hey Jamie, Hey, Caitlin,
seize your moment. You know, I know you've been wanting

(00:22):
to play music and that's your secret passion, and I
think you should just go for seize your moment. And
who cares what your family says. I'm the dog Dante
by the way, Wow, that's exciting. Well, I love Dante.
I want a Dante at my house. I love Dante

(00:43):
so much. I know, he's one of my favorite Pixar
Disney animal familiars in many moons, and he doesn't even
need to talk. I always feel like I'm like, whenever
a Disney animal companions so good they don't even need
to speak, You're like, that's a that's a heavy heater. Yeah,
Dante's in the Hall of Fame. Welcome to the Bechtel Cast.

(01:08):
My name is Caitlin Darante, my name is Jamie Loftus,
and this is our podcast where we take a look
at your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens with
some of our favorite people in the world, and we
do that using the Bechdel Test as a jumping off
point for discussion, which I simply don't remember. What is that, Caitlin,

(01:31):
I'll remind you. It's been it's been half We've been
doing the show for half a decade, and yet what
even is it? Well, it's always changing and growing, and
our version of it these days fluid. Yeah, it is
very fluid. So it's a media metric created by queer
cartoonist Alison Becktel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace test, in
which our version is two people of a marginalized gender

(01:52):
have to have names, they must speak to each other
about something other than a man for at least two
lines of dialogue, and ideally that conversation is narratively important
and not just like hey Judy, you know, hey Sally,
you know when you hear it, when you hear it,

(02:14):
meaning full exchange, you're like, Okay, something happened there, yea.
And we have a very popular request on the show
today with a very popularly requested guest. She's been on
the show many, many times, and the movie is Coco,
and the guest is if you clicked. You already know.
But Caitlyn give us the give us the rentdown. She's

(02:35):
a writer, she's an actress. You remember her from our
episodes on tomb Raider and The Adams Family. It's Danny Fernandez.
Welcome back for having me. God, thanks for coming back.
I'm so glad that y'all had me watched this movie earlier,
Like I just haven't watched it in like a year,
and I was like, I needed a reason to cry

(02:57):
than all of the other reasons that we have to cry. Right,
it felt good though. I could feel it coming on
and I just let it take over. I was like,
that feels good. Sometimes you just need that sweet Coco
cry release really, Like it's no matter how many times
you see certain parts coming Like last night, I was like,

(03:18):
I've seen this movie before at this point, like I
I'm going to be able to compartmentalize through this part
and I've never been successful. Wrong, wrong, wrong, I didn't
like hydrate properly before watching like the whole thing. Oh
my gosh. So Danny, what's your relationship and history and

(03:39):
all that with Coco. Well, it's uh, you know, representative
of my family and background, my families from Mexico and um,
actually have a big I'll have to send you guys
a picture so that you can share it if you
want to. But I have a big Coco guitar that
has like painting of of like the characters from Coco.
It's really beautiful. It's actually one of my favorite is

(04:00):
of art that I own because you can see I
also have art of other Disney art and stuff behind me.
But um, I don't know, I have so many different
launching points into this. One thing is that I I
sent y'all also a video of my niece reading the
Coco book, like the Golden Book. Yeah, And so it
was so funny because we didn't really feel like we had,

(04:23):
you know, as far as representation goes, like before this,
we had Mowanna and so that was around the time
that she was born and she was like one or
two and mo Wanna came out, and so we're getting
her all Mahanna stuff. We just wanted anything that kind
of looked like her to have, if that makes sense.
And so I think on her second birthday was like
all Mohanna stuff. Want what she still has? She like

(04:44):
loves her Ma Wanna dolls. And then Coco came out,
and I was like, great, I have something from her culture,
from her background that we can we can help, you know,
teach her. Uh So then I got her the Coco guitar,
like the White famous like guitar hab she can play on.
My brother has pictures of him like playing guitar for
her when he would like, um, play her to like

(05:07):
to sleep, and so like it was just I don't know,
I felt like so many different intersections. I'm also pretty um,
pretty open about having issues in my own family and
not being close with certain people in my family, and
so like I really related to that aspect of of
the movie. Um. And then we also have an a
friend at my brother has that he taught my niece

(05:30):
and nephew and so we have our our deceased relatives
on there and it has candles and like they've they've
taught their kids, you know about that and so yeah,
so so it was it was great. You know, before this,
we had the Book of Life by Jorge Gautierrez and
and she also has that movie in that book as well.
And so the more representation, the more stories around this

(05:53):
that we can tell, I think is is really important.
But I personally just felt very happy that this existed
so that we could pass this in my family. Oh
that's so wonderful, beautiful a little bit, Jamie. What's your
relationship with Coco? Uh? Pretty simple. I mean, I just
I've seen it several times. It makes me cry every time,
and I take a lot of joy in it. It

(06:18):
is I mean, I'm not of Mexican descent at all,
and I might think my my knowledge and my just
experience of an understanding of Dia del Maritas and I
think very like basic aspects of Mexican culture. I mean,
I just don't know enough basically, and I think that
this a lot of what this movie does. Although there

(06:39):
is some criticism that we'll get into as well, but
like I I've learned from this movie too. And then
the way that Coco kind of ingratiates Mexican culture into
the plot in a way that is very natural is
like I wish that this movie had existed when I
was a kid, But yeah, true, but I'm glad it
exists when I'm an adult. It's great, totally. I was

(07:01):
just talking about this with a shout out to my
Spanish tutor Adriana, who I have a whole segment from
her because she was born and raised and grew up
and lived most of her life in Mexico, and I
wanted to get her thoughts on it. So she shared
a lot of insight that all I will share later.

(07:22):
But um, I was saying, like I didn't learn about
Dia delusmortos until I mean, I took Spanish in high
school and learned about it then. But you know, I
spent so many years like not knowing so much about
so many cultures because well, one, the American education system
did not expose me too much of anything, and to

(07:43):
all the movies I was exposed to were just about
white people, white Americans. So I was like, yeah, I
really wish I had this movie growing up two just
for the sake of like I could have learned a thing.
But same, I love this movie. I saw it in
theaters I think twice. I've seen it several times since then.

(08:06):
This movie makes me cry, cry cry. I teach it
in my screenwriting classes. Also, Like there's a segment I
do in world building that I have my students like
read a trunk of the script and then we watch
that and like see how it translates from the page
to the screen, and there's just like I love this movie,

(08:27):
so I'm excited to talk about it. Um, should we
get into the recap and just go from there? Yeah,
let's do it as per usual. Let's do it. I
was just saying, how I think this is the longest
recap I've ever written on the show. Can't wait, just
because like, this story is so good and it's like complicated,

(08:48):
but not in a way that it's like overwhelming or
like confusing or anything like that. It's just like so
rich and there's just so much detail I didn't want
to leave out, so bear with me. But um, here
we go. So we get some backstory about the rivera
family where long ago there was a musician who had

(09:09):
a wife and a daughter, and one day the man
left with his guitar and never returned. So the mother,
the woman, banished all music from her life became a shoemaker,
which she passed down to several generations of her family.
That woman was Miguel's great great grandmother, Emelda, and her

(09:30):
daughter is Miguel's great grandma Coco. And then Miguel's family
tells this story every year on El Dia de los Mortos,
so then we meet Miguel. He's a young twelve year
old boy in Mexico. The rest of his family, you know,
his mom, his dad, aunt and uncles, his grandma, and
his great grandma Coco. We meet them on screen. They

(09:52):
are all still very anti music. But Miguel has a secret.
He loves music. He plays the guitar. He worships Ernesto
de la Cruz, who was a famous musician back in
the day. And Miguel loves his song entitled Remember Me

(10:12):
Secretly Loving Music has to be like the sweetest rebellion ever.
It's such a fascinating like when as writers, I'm like
always thinking of like it's such a fascinating plot. You know,
You're like, how are we going to make a movie
about this holiday? And like what can we do? And
let's have his whole family hate music, but he loves it.

(10:36):
It's such a good It's like such a classic Disney setup.
It feels like of like know this then the you know,
like the Little Mermaid, like all she wants to do
is go to the shore, and her whole family is like, no,
that's an abomination. I wrote that down to where it
felt like I mean and obviously like the stories are

(10:57):
very different. But like when appolita Um smashes Miguel's guitar
spoiler alert, I was like, well, King Triton ruining the garrotto.
It's like same, same, devastating, like how could you? I
thought I could trust you energy. So that night, there's

(11:18):
a music talent competition for Dia de los Mortos in
Miguel's town's plaza and Miguel wants to sign up, but
his family is like no way. But then Miguel discovers
from a photograph on his family's o frienda that his
great great grandfather was Ernesto de la Cruz. His face

(11:39):
has been torn off of the photo, but Miguel recognizes
his famous guitar, so he decides to seize his moment
and enter the talent competition. But his grandma finds out
what he's doing and he's that's the scene where she
smashes his guitar. So then Miguel goes to de la
Cruz's mausoleum to borrow the guitar there, but when he

(12:03):
strums on the guitar, it transports him from his living
state to a kind of like apparition in which he
cannot be seen by the living, but can be seen
by all of the dead people who have crossed over
to the Land of the living for Diadels mortals. This
sequence is so beautiful and well done, Like it's one

(12:27):
of there are so many amazingly animated scenes in this movie,
but the one where it's so seamless and it's I
feel like it also like you you're so put into
Miguel's shoes of like it's a little jarring and confusing,
and then you realize what's going on, and uh, that
sequence is just like so well paced and animated. I

(12:48):
love it absolutely so. Then he runs into his dead ancestors,
including his Tia Rosita, Tia Victoria, Papa Julio, TiO Oscar,
or in TiO Philippe, who bring him across the bridge
to the Land of the Dead, which is this huge,
beautiful city where everyone's dead family and ancestors live. It's

(13:11):
also full of alabris, which are spirit animals. And then
they go through this like customs type thing where Miguel
sees a dead skeleton guy trying to cross into the
Land of the living, but he can't because his photo
isn't on anyone's a frienda. So then the family finds

(13:32):
Mama Emelda, who couldn't cross over to the Land of
the Living because Miguel had taken her photo off of
his family's a FRIENDA. Then Miguel learns that he needs
his family's blessing to be able to cross back over
to the Land of the living, but he has to
do so by sunrise or else he will turn into
a skeleton and be stuck in the Land of the
dead forever. More. Little Mermaid vines, yeah, yeah, you have

(13:57):
three days, says Ursula. Yeah. So then Mama Emelda gives
Miguel her blessing to return home, but with the condition
that he never play music again, since she was like
the original like no music lady, she invented the foot
loose rules to the family exactly, but the second Miguel

(14:20):
is transported back, he picks up de la Cruz's guitar
and is immediately transported back to the Land of the
Dead because he broke his promise. So then Miguel gets
the idea to get his blessing from Ernesto de la
Cruz since they're related, so that Miguel can return home
and still play music. So Miguel sneaks away from his

(14:41):
family and sets off with a street dog named Dante,
who had also crossed over to the land of the dead.
Because dogs are just transient beings who can cross dimensions.
I think that that is like a tradition that's like
rooted in real mythology too, of like dogs as yeah,
like intermediaries between the living and the dead. Mm So,

(15:03):
then Miguel sets off to find Ernesto de la Cruz.
So Miguel comes across that guy who saw at the
customs section who he overhears saying that he knows de
la Cruz. This is Hector, voiced by Gael Garcia. Brnow,
by the way, who is my number one celebrity crush?
Is it? Yes? I don't see you tweeting about him enough? Then,

(15:26):
well are you trying to keep it on the I
feel like anytime someone has a celebrity crush, like I know,
I just do you all know who mine is? Tell us? Oh,
I thought you were going to say yes, of course.
I feel like when you say it, I'm like, wait,
I've seen those tweets. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I feel
like this is in line with this. It's Selmahiac. Oh yeah,
I feel like I've tweeted yeah about her. I try

(15:47):
to be chill though, because I feel like, not that
we all know each other, but we're kind of like,
I don't know, like adjacent. There's six degrees element. Yeah,
yeah for sure. And I know someone I think I
haven't told. I've told this story before another podcast, but
I guess not on this one. But I like the
New Bachelorette was like thirty five or something shocking horrible old,

(16:11):
and somebody tweeted that essentially like oh she's thirty five,
and I said, some hikes fifty five and I would
ruin my life for her. And I didn't tag her
because again, like we're professional, we all work in this
business together. And somebody sent it to her though, because
she screamshot it. She put it on Instagram, not just

(16:31):
on Twitter, and like found me and tagged me and
was like thank you. Danny was like, I was like,
I would ruin my life for her, and she was like,
thank you, Danny. I'm like, I'm going to do this
for Gail because I don't, like, I don't tweet about
really anything, um except for Paddington. That's true. That's true,

(16:56):
but I mean, like, I don't like when people tag that.
I just think it's and well, it's especially we were
just because we we were like you know a lot
of us work on different shows and movies and like,
you know whatever, Like that's very awkward and I never
wanted to be like weird, so I don't ever tag them.
But if you found it on your own, that's not
my fault. That's very good. I mean, this ship have

(17:18):
I mean not to shout it out once an episode,
but Alfred Molina was on the podcast. These things do happen,
I know, Selman, I will have our moment our. Yeah,
you gotta start thirst tweeting more. I love. I love
when a thirst tweet leads to something beautiful. That's nice. Alright,
Well this is my cue to send out more thirst tweets.

(17:41):
I don't know what's stopped. The stakes are low. I'm
barely in the industry, so I don't even have to
worry about like professionalism here. So um, okay, where were we?
So we see Hector again and he and Miguel make
a deal. If Hector helps Miguel find de la Cruz,
then Miguel will put up Hector's photo On and a
friend to when he returns to the Land of the Living,

(18:02):
so that Hector can cross over and see his family,
which he hasn't been able to do for quite some time.
Miguel learns that De la Cruz is hosting a very
exclusive party that night, and that the winner of this
talent competition that's happening gets to play at this exclusive party,
So Miguel and Hector set off to find a guitar.

(18:23):
This is also the scene where Miguel meets Freda Carlo
and has a fun interaction with her. Then Hector takes
Miguel to a place where dead people who don't have
families or people to visit in the Land of the Living,
they all kind of have formed this community, and we

(18:45):
learned that if enough time passes, these kind of forgotten
people will fade away and eventually disappear forever and have
their what they call it a final death, which is
illustrated through like the saddest scene ever committed. So we
see this with this guy Chon who's voiced by Edward

(19:05):
James almost by the way, So Hector borrows a guitar
from him. He is fading and then we see him
like die his final death. We also learn in this
scene that Hector was a former musician and that Hector
is also fading because his family in the Land of
the Living is forgetting him. The plant and payoff of

(19:27):
this movie is so good, like the screenwriting is absolutely incredible.
So with the guitar, they head to this talent competition
and Miguel performs, but Miguel's skeleton family, who has been
chasing after him this whole time, shows up to this show,
and this is where Hector learns that Miguel does have

(19:50):
other family who could give their blessing and send him
back to the Land of the Living. So he's like,
why am I trying to help you find d La Cruz.
So then Miguel runs away but bumps into Mamma Emelda,
who reveals that she used to love music, but of
course that changed when her husband left, and Miguel is like,
you you should understand and support my passion for music,

(20:13):
and she's like no, so then he runs away. Miguel
is a very emotionally intelligent kid. I'm like, I don't
know if I was firing off ship like that when
I was twelve, right, He's great not to be like
I was so emotionally intelligent, but like I have, I
have like diaries of mine from that time, and I
was so angsty and just thought I was like so

(20:36):
smart and I don't know, like I just I definitely
was very I was like a very emotional twelve year
old for sure. That's great. I was very emotionally. I
was just always repressing all of my emotions, which I
do to this day very healthily, I think I was.
I just had like O c D, like true O

(20:58):
c D notebook full of I would write down what
everybody was wearing around me at all times because I
thought I would die if I didn't do that. And
then I would also write about my crushes for four
to five hundred pages at that time. My god, so
there was more volume. There wasn't a lot of quality, hilarious, gosh. Anyways,

(21:21):
Miguel is is very in touch with his his emotional
needs and understands adults better than uh, certainly I ever
did for sure. So then we see Miguel sneak into
Ernesto de la Cruz's party. Miguel finds him and tells
him that he is de la Cruz's great great grandson,

(21:44):
which de La Cruz thinks is awesome, and he is
about to give his blessing to Miguel to go back
home and be a musician, but just then Hector shows
up and reveals that all of de la Cruz's songs
were actually Hector's and that Ernesto the Cruise stole them,
And then we get this flashback that reveals that the
La Cruz poisoned Hector so that he could steal his songs. Twist,

(22:10):
What a what a twist. I remember the first time
watching that being like it really gets you, I know.
I was just like, wait, this movie is for babies,
and I didn't know that was gonna happen. This movies
for baby. That's the thing about Pixar movies, though, is
that like, yeah, the target audiences children, but they're also

(22:32):
like so well written that all ages can. Excuse me,
but I have to say on behalf of Brad Bird
that the target audience is family. Is everyone? That's yes,
that's true. Sorry, no, I'm sorry, Pixar director Bradbird. It's
very adamant that these are not for children. I'm sorry,

(22:52):
I'm sorry, Bradbird. I'm just a single adults. I don't
know what constitutes a family. Okay, Brad Bird, your your
statement still doesn't include me somehow. No, I feel like
he would think that you were a fan like you.
You complete yourself, Jamie, Yeah, you are a family with

(23:14):
Bird would feel that way. I am my own family unit.
Please and yeah, exactly, And that's why I feel entitled
to watch The Incredibles two whenever I want. Exactly, I'm
more of an incredible as one. I'm sorry, but that's
that's quite a correct answer. You're right, okay. So then

(23:34):
de la Cruz has Hector and Miguel taken away by
security and thrown into a cave, where we get another
big reveal that Hector's daughter. The reason he wants to
cross back over is Coco a k a. Miguel's great
grandmother a k a. Hector, not Ernesto de la Cruz

(23:55):
is Miguel's great great grandfather, and Hector wrote the song
Remember Me for Coco. Then Mama Emailda shows up with
her Alibrique and rescues Miguel and Hector. Hector tells her
what happened that you know, he didn't leave her, he
was murdered, and she's like, um, yeah, I guess. But

(24:15):
I still can't forgive you, but she does want to
help him not be forgotten. I do like that. It
kind of like turns into like the last act of
a rom com. Once they're once they very unite to
where it's like, well, these two kids figure it out.
You're kind of like, I don't know, let's see right. Um.
So they head back to dela Cruz's place to get

(24:36):
Hector's photo back because de la Cruz had stolen it. Um.
They find him backstage right before his big concert and
they get back the photo. But then Mama Emelda is
like accidentally gets sent to the stage in front of
thousands of people, and she has no choice but to
sing and perform, and in so doing, she rediscovers her

(25:00):
of of music and then is about to give Miguel
her blessing free of any conditions. But then de la
Cruz shows back up and tries to murder Miguel, but
it's all caught on video, so everyone at the show
learns that De la Cruz is a fraud and a murderer.
Mama Emelda's Labrique saves Miguel, but Hector's photo is lost,

(25:25):
so now Miguel can't put it on the frienda and
Hector is dying because Coco is forgetting him, and it's
almost sunrise, so the family has to quickly give their
blessing and send Miguel back to the land of the living.
So now that he's back, Miguel rushes to Mama Coco
and tries to get her to remember her Papa Hector.

(25:46):
He starts singing remember Me, which gets Coco to remember,
and she starts singing along, and everyone's crying, crying, crying,
are balling our eyes out. I remember I was at
a screening and there was a mom with like three
boys there. I was like, oh man, she must be
like a mommy block. I mean, who brings like so

(26:07):
many children into it pr screening or whatever. And I
just remember the kid being like, Mom, why are you crying? Mom?
Why are you crying? Like you know when kids like
don't quite like grasp something. And she was just like
full blown, like sniffling in the theater. I remember he
kept like pulling on her sleeve like. So Miguel and

(26:33):
Mama Coco were singing together, and Miguel's living family is
there and sees Miguel playing music, but they see how
much Coco responds to it, so they're like, oh, wow,
maybe music is actually a good thing. And then Coco
takes out her photo of her papa and it is
confirmed that it is Hector. So then we cut to
a year later. The next day de Losmortos, the photo

(26:57):
of Emelda and Hector is on the al frienda, as
is Coco's. Apparently she had passed away at some point
during the last year. In the Land of the Dead, Emelda, Hector,
and Coco are all united. They cross over and visit
their family. In the Land of the Living. Micguil is
playing music for his family. Everyone's happy, everyone's together. I'm

(27:18):
crying more. And the movie is over. So that's the story.
Let's take a quick break and then we will come
back to discuss and we're back. Where shall we begin.

(27:40):
There's there's so much to talk about here. Yeah, Danny,
do you have any place you want to kind of
jump off from? No. I just wanted to make a
note that my favorite part of this movie is when
Coco is reunited with her parents and she's still old,
and it's like so sweet because they just like, oh,
that's our Coco, and they like pick her up and

(28:01):
it's just like It's funny because you never think of
like your kids being older than you, I guess or whatever.
And that's just like how she was when she went
to the afterlife. And it was just really really sweet
for them to just like love her even like that,
like to just like unconditional love. It was I just
wanted that noted that that was my favorite part. Of course. Yeah,

(28:23):
I loved that too. Every part of this movie just
like tugs at my heart strings. Also, his dad, I
actually tweeted and I, okay, so Miguel's dad, there's there's
like a picture, I'll send it to y'all. He like
has his arms wrapped around Miguel's mom. And I did

(28:43):
that picture, and then I did a picture of Gomez
loving on more Tisha, and I tweeted and I said, God,
I see what you have done for others. So if
you could please, I would love I mean, if not Selma, hi,
I would love a Latino king to like love on me.
I think I deserve to be adored and loved and like,

(29:04):
please send me my Latino king. Thank you. Uh. They're
his parents are very very sweet. I mean, it's like
this movie is so stacked with characters that it's like
I didn't like Sure, I guess I wish that we
knew Miguel's parents a little better. But I also feel
like this movie takes given, you know, whatever the restrictions

(29:26):
of the time they have. I like that the older
characters are prioritized, and like the older women in particular
are prioritized in this movie, where you know, we get
to see a kid who lives in a multi generational home.
You don't get that a lot in children's media at all.
You're usually stuck in the same, you know, upper middle class,
white suburb. But Miguel lives in a multi generational home.

(29:50):
And then we focus mostly on his grandmother is his Abulita,
and then also on Coco, who is It seems, you know,
she's her memory is not all there, and she needs
help and her daughter helps her a lot. But I
just I loved that, given all the characters this movie

(30:10):
could have focused on, they prioritize the older matriarchs of
of the family along with Mama. Emaileda to like that,
like oncee Miguel crosses over to the Land of the Dead,
like she's very clearly like the matriarch, She's in charge,
She's making all of the family decisions. Also Coco like,

(30:31):
because Latina's don't age the same as everyone else, she
has to be at least five hundred for her to
have all those wrinkles. I'm like, Okay, she's been around
for she's at least five hundred years old. Well, and
we'll we'll get into this. I mean, I love this
movie so much. Most of the problems or like, most
of the things that any grapes I have, are with

(30:54):
Disney's conduct surrounding the movie, which we'll get into. I'm
very curious what I'll so to get into what you're
u because I'm Chicana, so I grew up here in
the States, and so like, I'm very curious about people
who actually were born and raised in Mexico who how
they came out there first, actually before it dropped here,

(31:15):
they got it a little bit earlier than we did.
So I'm very curious because it, you know, took place
there in Mexico. And so I always consider us like
kind of in the in between where I wrote about
this and the Good Immigrant this book, where I wrote
an essay in it where it kind of feels like
we definitely don't fit in here in the in the US,

(31:35):
but we're also kind of removed from growing up in Mexico,
so it kind of it kind of just feels like
we're in this weird in between space. So I'm very
curious about people who who grew up there, how how
they resonated with with this portrayal. Sure well, let me
share what Adriana Ortega, my Spanish tutor, and Adriana hi

(31:56):
wonderful person all around, she had had this to say.
As a Mexican born and raised in Mexico, I can
say Coco is considered a Mexican movie. Since it came out,
we started seeing Coco Pinata's labriquets and crafts, and then
Adriana included a bunch of photos of like Coco guitars

(32:17):
and costumes and just like things sold in Mexico from
the movie. She says, the mariachi's at parties started playing
the songs from the soundtrack as if they existed forever.
She also included a YouTube link with a medley of
traditional Mexican songs with Poco Loco um, which is one
of the songs that Miguel plays in the movie. Um

(32:39):
will share a link to that and people in general
We're happy to see Mexico represented not as a place
of crime and poverty, but as a source of culture
and traditions interesting to the world. I'm personally obsessed with
the movie, and I can't watch it without sobbing like
a baby, no matter how many times I've watched it before.
The movie is so well done that even little details

(33:02):
like the way the town where the characters live looks
and feels and the family dynamics show that clearly Mexicans
were involved in the project. A clear example is the
way all family decisions have to be approved by the matriarch.
I lived it when my grandma was alive, and she
didn't approve of something. Doing that thing was an act
of rebellion. On the other side, as someone who works

(33:24):
with people in Mexico who lived undocumented in the United States,
I must point out what I don't like about Coco.
The way transit between the world of the living and
the dead resembles the Department of Homeland Security controls for
undocumented people and even for people with documents entering the
US is a nightmare. Every Mexican that has ever come

(33:46):
to the US has a horror story about Homeland Security.
Depending on their privilege, the color of their skin and
their papers. Those stories are different, but many times they're
at least unpleasant. I think the creators of Coco could
have found way to create conflict for the character of
Hector without implying that the Department of Homeland Security and
similar controls are a quote necessary evil instead of a

(34:09):
very deliberate evil created to discriminate against foreigners, especially if
they're brown. Um. And then when I spoke with Adriana today, Um,
she just had a couple other insights, saying that she
only watches the movie in Spanish with like the Spanish dub,
which she says is like really really good. Not all

(34:30):
movies dubbed in Spanish are well done as far as
the dubbing, but she said the Cocoa one is very
very good. The actors and just like people that they
hired to do the dub are like just this slate
of like all star actors, iconic people in general from
Mexican culture. She was really impressed with the Spanish dub.

(34:53):
And then finally she said that um so el Dia
Delersmortos is more commonly celebrated in southern Mexico, especially in
the state of Mito Kan in Mexico, and Miguel's village
was inspired by a town called pats Quaro, So this
is kind of just like where Dia de los Mortos

(35:17):
was more commonly celebrated in Mexico until this movie came out.
In different other parts of Mexico, it was not a
super important holiday, but Adriana said that after this movie,
the holiday grew in popularity pretty significantly around all of
Mexico where it is now like because because of this movie,

(35:39):
like art influencing culture kind of thing, the holiday is
much more widely celebrated throughout the country. So all that's cool,
I know, right, It is interesting because I feel like
we've at least here in um southern California, and there's
always been like a big celebration at least since I've

(35:59):
lived here that we have here in l A. And
so that's fascinating. Though. I also figured that the cast
I think a lot of the castes overlap because they
purposely had people who could speak Spanish and sing in
Spanish as the leads. So I feel like that's probably
wise because they're great actors. They were doing both the
English version and the Spanish version for sure. Yeah. Um,

(36:24):
Coco is the first motion picture with a nine figure budget,
which is the budget of this movie is humongous, but
it also grossed way more money. I mean it's like,
I feel like this is kind of on par for
Pixar movie budgets too. Well, it took them like six
years to make this. Yeah. So it's the first motion
picture with a nine figure budget to feature and all

(36:44):
Latino like major cast. Um so, the principal cast of
even the English language version of the movie is all
Latino Latin X Latin. A. Maybe there's a conversation to
be had here about what's the US language to you?
Absolutely not, Kalen, absolutely not. It's a lose lose situation.

(37:09):
I'm like, I don't even discuss it on podcasts anymore.
I just tweeted and I said, like, because you know,
it was our Heritage Month. I don't know when this
is dropping, um, but I just was like happy whatever
term that people are going to just obsess over instead
of paying attention to my accomplishments Heritage month, because this
whole month is about like propping us up and like, Wow,

(37:32):
look at all this stuff that we're doing. Look all
the stuff that I'm doing in this community, in this industry,
and it's just like, but you're just going to spend
the whole time arguing about like which term to use
under my Twitter. So I was like, we just started, like, actually,
a bunch of us writers just started to you just
say Heritage month, like we didn't even label anything. And
I remember people tweeting like, so we're just saying heritage month,

(37:53):
like we won't even say the word, and I'm like,
I don't know, it's just not worth it. Sure, this
is also a joke. I don't please, do not write,
please like totally leave Danny a lot. Yeah, we don't
have to get into it. Just I guess just to
say that, like where aware of the different options for
the language to use, there doesn't seem to be much

(38:14):
agreement on what is like the preferred language, so I
might just kind of switch back and forth between a
couple of different things. For sure, I switch back and
forth between all of them. And I think the one
thing that I'll say, anyone who follows me knows that,
like it's so important to be inclusive. So at the
end of the day, I truly do not care what
term we if we even make up a whole word

(38:36):
that doesn't even that's not even a word that we've
heard yet. Um, as long as people feel included, especially
the most vulnerable people in our community feel because I
I say this all the time, but Latina, I am
a Latina and like that's I've always been represented by
that term, and so I've never had to wonder what
it was like to to not be represented. And so

(38:58):
that's what I care about. But I also altern nate
between all of our terms often. Sure, totally. Yeah, So
just again shout out to Adriana for sharing her wonderful insights.
Thank you so much to Adriana. She's been such a
wonderful person and bechtelcast listener over the years. Um, she's
the greatest. And I she pointed out, I think one

(39:20):
of the few repeated criticisms of this movie that I mean,
maybe it's just best to kind of get through the
criticisms at the top of the episode and then get
into what we really loved about the movie. Um, but
what she mentioned about the use of the Department of
Homeland Security metaphor as a way to cross between realms

(39:45):
seemed to be that was a criticism that I saw
in a bunch of places. There was a really good
essay published in The Mary Sue when this movie first
came out by Carla Tamis that. I mean she opens
the essay by saying that that just vision triggered her
as she was watching the movie and sent her back
to an experience she had with her mother when crossing

(40:06):
into the US when she was a kid, and um,
it does seem to I don't know. I mean, I'm
curious to know what everyone thinks, because that was like
one of the only things that like stuck out to
me as I don't know, like I maybe understand the
impulse to reference that in the movie, but I don't

(40:27):
like how it's like, if you're going to make that
decision creatively, I feel like it really needs to bear
out in a productive way, and for especially for a
children's movie, in an optimistic way. It's a Disney movie.
But I was kind of surprised that by the end
of the movie that system was very much upheld to

(40:48):
the point where Hector goes through customs. I don't know,
I just feel like there wasn't a lot of criticism
on that system. It was just like, well, this is
the way things are, and the movie does take a
in a way that I really appreciated and thought was
like a very thoughtful, I don't know, like pixar deep
approach to the subject of showing that the way things

(41:10):
are done does other and it does marginalize people in
the world of the Dead as well, where the people
who are slowly being forgotten they live. They're kind of
the underclass of this world. And by the end it's
like Miguel's family has managed to navigate that system in

(41:31):
a way and so the individuals are doing okay, but
that system is still upheld in a way that feels
like unusual for even like Pixar movies, where there was
a there's a YouTube essay I watched about it, which
you know are very hit or miss, but just even
in the world of Pixar, like they are all about
systems and then subverting the systems by the end of

(41:52):
the movie, where you're like, you have whatever monsters incorporated
stay with the system in that movie is we scare
kids and turn it into energy. But through the character's
journey they realize this is a flawed system. We need
to change it to be a more you know, societally positive,

(42:13):
less bad system and then it turns into like Billy
Crystal does bad stand up at you, and then that
turns into energy, like so much more efficient energy. Yeah right,
but it's like that doesn't happen in Cocoa. The system doesn't.
The characters go through incredibly nuanced arcs and the family
goes through this huge journey, but the system is upheld

(42:35):
in a way that is, you know, unfortunately probably true
to life. But it doesn't feel like a Pixar movie.
I don't know what, what did everyone think about that?
To me, it feels especially weird to include in a
movie that showcases Mexican culture so well by most of
the accounts that I've read, to show that system that

(42:58):
kind of like border control system in a movie about
a community where that system so largely harmfully affects that community,
it felt like a strange choice to me. Yeah, you know,
I would be curious to hear how Adrian Molina, who
co wrote and co directed this, who is Latino his

(43:21):
thoughts on it, because you know, kind of, like you said,
like I'm not as a storyteller and as as you know,
people who use things from our background, like I'm not
against using something that is harmful, evil whatever, Like those
elements do exist in stories, and they you know for
a reason, like he like you said, like he couldn't

(43:42):
get through, we couldn't get over, and that was harmful,
you know, and so that was saying something. However, I
understand what you're saying in the end is like that
they upheld that as opposed to like destroying that. So
but for me, though, as as a storyteller, I'm never like,
I'm not going to show this because this is triggering
or this is upsetting. It's like it is triggering and

(44:02):
up upsetting, and like I think sometimes that is included
unfortunately in our stories is things like that. And sometimes
you know, the audience which is this is you know,
this is a Disney movie, so it's going to a
lot of people, but for for other audiences need to
see that sometimes. So I'm never like, don't ever show this.
But I'm not sure why other than it was they

(44:27):
needed a way for him to be policed saying this
in quotes, like in some way to be to not
be able to to to be stopped, you know, from
some some type of security, some type of whatever. So
I don't know the conversations that happened in that room,
and I'd be very curious to hear how Adrian who
did work on it, who did write this or co

(44:48):
wrote this with Lee Anchorage, um, how he he felt
and like his thoughts behind it, because I don't ever
want to discredit other Latinos and they're you know, they're
they're wise, and I don't I don't ever want to
censor any of us from what we feel we wanted
to add or needed to add. And I don't know
if in the end it also all of us being writers,

(45:09):
I know that we know that you pitch stuff and
you're like, this is how I wanted to be and
then that's not always how it comes out. Never. Yeah,
writing on TV shows like it's so funny seeing people
tweet and they'll be watching a Netflix show and this
is my second Netflix show that I've written on now
that I'm writing on now, and people will be like,
why didn't they do this? Why didn't I don't understand

(45:31):
why wouldn't you? And I'm like, I can guarantee you
if there were ten writers, ten talented writers in that room,
they probably did. They probably brought that up. They probably
did say hey, let's not do this or hey, like
you know they're gonna say why don't you do this?
And then you don't always have the final say so,

(45:52):
so I will just also say that as well. It's
like and you and you know that, like especially like
these whatever figure budget movies are noted and workshopped probably
within an inch of their very lives. Yeah, I mean
I would, yeah, I would be curious to know what
those conversations were. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, because

(46:16):
it's I think you're totally right where it's like there's
nothing wrong and it does feel very like Pixar house
style to reference real world issues in children's stories, like
that's something that they're really good at. I just yeah,
I would just be curious about the conversations were about,
like why it landed the way it did. I don't know. Um,

(46:37):
let's take another quick break and then we'll come back
for a more discussion and we're we're back. I just
want to reference I think the other well. I feel
like one of the defining controversies of this movie took
place I think almost four years before the movie actually

(46:58):
came out, because Danny, as you were saying, this movie
was in production for seven years. Lee Unkrich, who is
a white director, pitched it in The story changed a lot.
He brought in Adrian Molina, who had worked as I
believe an editor in Pixar Movies, who is now on
the senior creative team. And this movie was being developed

(47:19):
for a very very long time in there was something
that I remember this happening, but I just hadn't thought
about it in years. But there was a I would
say a very Disney scandal where I think that at
one point Dia de los Morito's was the working title

(47:39):
for this movie and Disney was attempting to trademark that
phrase in two US. No one was happy about this,
Like everyone was like, uh, sorry, what the fuck? So
when that scandal bro there were uh I mean, there

(48:02):
were a number of Mexican people, of Mexican American people
who are all like, you cannot do that. That's that's
so deeply fucked up. And that seemed to be kind
of a turning point in the production of this movie,
where I mean, whatever, this this is too dense a
topic for a single podcast episode, but Disney has been

(48:22):
appropriating and misrepresenting cultures for almost a century now, It's
entire run. Yeah, then and you know, fumbling it almost
every single time, and and it didn't seem like until
when this very obvious like no, you're not going to
get away with trademarking, you know, Di del Smuertos, that

(48:45):
the production then really ramped up and began to include
more Mexican and Mexican American artists and creatives in the project.
Where it's I feel like that it's so often that
it does feel like people are screaming into avoid online,
which sometimes we are, but in this case, there there

(49:07):
was like an actual discernible change that took place in
the production of this movie because Disney tried to Disney
and people weren't having it, And by all accounts, the
result of that was hiring a number of Mexican and
Mexican American creatives to work on the movie, which then
came out four years later. But even in some of

(49:29):
the very positive reviews of this movie, that scandal was
referenced because it's just you know, so egregious. Yeah. One
of those was a Mexican American editorial cartoonist, Lalo Alcorrez.
What a poster. Definitely definitely know him. He I want
to share a quote about this um you know, Disney

(49:52):
trying to commercialize and appropriate the name of a holiday.
He says, quote, it's just frustrating because I've spoken to
some of these companies begging them to have more people
of color in the legal department, behind the camera and
green lighting projects, but they won't listen and not just tokens.
It's got to be real. So he, you know, was
very outspoken about meaningfully including people in these important creative

(50:18):
and development decisions and just you know, any decisions that
are made as far as putting a movie together. Posts
these remarks, he was then hired as one of the
consultants on this movie, along with Octavio Solis who's a playwright,
and Marcella Davison Aveliz, who is the former CEO of

(50:40):
the Mexican Heritage Core. So it's this group of people,
along with the co director and co writer Adrian Molina,
who were the people who seemed to be providing a
lot of the cultural consultation that allowed for the movie
to feel as authentic and for the representation as far

(51:02):
as the culture and the people in the movie, for
that representation to feel responsible and respectful. Because despite these
consultants um a lot of the people who are making
major creative decisions behind the movie are still non Mexican
white people. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's it's interesting
like I feel, you know, I feel in the past

(51:25):
decade and I've gotten to work with Disney, you know,
like I've I've you know, obviously was in a Disney movie,
I've hosted with Disney. I feel like they've really taken
good care of me. They also it's wild. I mean,
you all follow me on Twitter. I say whatever the
funk I want to at all times, and they're still like,
what do you want to host this a lad in
press conference with all the Disney princesses. And I'm like, sure,

(51:49):
I'm not going to change the way. You know, I'm
not gonna ever censor myself. Um, I'm always kid friendly
when I'm like doing stuff with them, but like on
my personal page, you know, I mean to me, I'm like,
if Sarah Silverman can say whatever she wants, then like
I should be able to as well. And so I
have actually gotten to see that change, like I have.
One of the people who worked with me on Ralph,

(52:09):
Josie Trinidad. She was the lead storyboard artist and she
also worked on his Utopia. She is now getting to
direct her own. They have a slate of directors of
color who are now directing their own films. Another one
that I know is Carlo Slope's Astrada, who did Ryan
the Last Dragon. And so like the industry as a whole,

(52:30):
the industry as a whole is not anywhere near where
it needs to be. I think, you know, we were
having this conversation off air, but I still feel like,
you know, we're very much in these boxes where Um,
for me, the stuff that is easiest for me to
get green lit is like this this idea of this

(52:51):
like one big happy Latino family, Like we're all just
one big happy family. That's like easy for white people
to digest. You know, we don't get to play sci
fi as much and fantasy as much and like, which
this is to some extent like definitely, Um, but I
just feel like as a whole, we don't get to
play around as much as a lot of other white storytellers. Um,

(53:13):
because I want to play in horror. I want to play,
and you know, I don't want anything to have to
do with like I'm not even that close with a
lot of members of my family you know, and like
I also want to play in like queer stories and
what it's like to come out and like have to
have to have find your family, like found family, Like
those are kind of stories that I want, I want
to tell. This is all to say, I do see

(53:36):
it changing. I see on Disney Plus with like um
Diary of of a Future President, Like, I definitely do
see more of us, more representation, more of us getting
to tell our own stories, which I think is the
most important. Not to have wallpaper, which I still feel
like is a lot of a lot of places, and
not saying that they don't do that, but um, just

(53:58):
in the past decade, I have gotten to witness that,
and so I'm hoping that that continues, you know, I'm
hoping that you know, this also came out. What year
did this? Did Coco come out? The next year we
had Black Panther, And it was like, you know, allowing
like the reason why it feels so authentic is, you know,

(54:22):
to some extent, like you said, like having people like
Lolo or having people like Ryan Coogler, like getting to
be involved in these projects so so that it it
doesn't feel like wallpaper. I still feel all studios have
have a ways to go, but I'm hoping that this
also with the numbers with shung Chi like blew the

(54:44):
numbers out of the water. No one I don't think
was expecting to do that well allows us Unfortunately it
is we're in this capitalistic society. But it makes people go, oh,
we can make money telling stories with people of color. Wow, Okay,
And unfortunately that you know sounds cynical, but like that's

(55:05):
how our industry works, right, And so having the success
of Coco, having the success of Black Panther, having the
success of Shuan Chi and Ryan and these other ones,
is allows for more of us to get into the
door and be able to tell these stories. And so
I'm glad that they have the slate of POC directors
coming up that are that are getting to because when

(55:26):
you see a lot of the quotes from director Lee
unk Rich, who's this like, you know, Pixar Legacy guy,
he either director or co directed Toy Story two and three,
Monsters inc. Finding Nemo. He you know, was talking about
developing and directing Coco and how he has how he
had all this anxiety about making the film because he's like,

(55:48):
you know, what we're taking on this real culture and
the fact that I'm not Mexican or Latino myself. I
felt this enormous responsibility on my shoulders to do it right.
And it's like, well, I'm glad you feel that responsible,
but can you like step back and be like, hey,
am I the person? Am I the best person to
be directing this movie? It does feel kind of I
don't know, I mean, it's it's Moanna and Coco came

(56:11):
out back to back years. Mohanna came out sixteen, Coco
came out seventeen, and it does feel like this kind
of like half step middle thing production wise, where it's
like on Moana there were a lot of consultants brought on,
but there's still these like legacy white directors and composers

(56:31):
at the top of the project. And I think that
that was improved upon in Coco because Adrian Molina clearly
had such like I really enjoyed watching his press junket
interviews for this movie, and like he just I don't know,
it's I would I I wish he had been just
you know, credited as a director, because it just seemed

(56:53):
like he had more influence on the story just watching
his interviews next to the young Witches whatever. I don't know.
This is animation at a very high level, but it
does seem like that thing where it's you know, there's
a they had a um I wish I had his name,
but they had a Mexican music consultant consulting the white composer.

(57:15):
But ultimately the white composer gets the credit and you
have to imagine a hell of a lot more money
for for being consulted on on how to properly represent
Mexican music. So it's like this in between place that
like you were just describing Danny. Fortunately, seems like this
company and a lot of companies are working their way

(57:38):
out of of like no actually having you know, experience helps,
but like having a white guy at the top of
every project is going to disservice a lot of projects,
and it's you know, like it's it's getting in the
way and it's holding back creative freedom and resources, and
like you're saying, like capital from margin allies people who

(58:00):
will do a better job. So those elements are definitely
present in this movie. But it is nice that I mean,
it's it's less than five years later, and that already
does seem like it is indeed process of changing. Like
you're saying, yeah, I don't even know if now where
we're at one, like if you could do that. I

(58:23):
don't know if they are. I haven't looked at their slate,
but I don't even think that there are other their
live action that I just named. You know, shan Chi
had an Asian director, and Black Panther had a black director,
and like that. Also we also have Captain Marvel has
a black director, which is you know, the Captain Marvel two,
which is very important. We should not be directing just

(58:44):
our own stories, yes, please, we should be directing our stories,
but also we can direct your stories too, because we
grew up that is a lens through which all media
has been told since the inception of media. So it's
actually so much easier for us to write white characters
because that's all of the shows, you know, the majority
of television and film totally, where whereas it doesn't work

(59:07):
the other way around. So what I'm saying is like
that already feels like it's changing in the last couple
of years, So I am hopeful. I don't know if
they're doing I've heard so much about like a Coco too,
but that was like reference and I don't know if
it's like super under wraps or like, I have no

(59:27):
it was like announced I felt at some point, or
it was like leaked and then it disappeared. I just
assume everything gets it too now, even though it's like
I don't know Coco does. Like it's just the writing
is so good that it's like I guess that you know.
It's not like they left any hanging threads, but they
also created this incredible universe that anyone would be happy

(59:50):
to go back to. So I don't I hope, I hope?
So um. I also, was this the Was this the
project that got Robert Lopez and Kristin Anderson Lopez their egot? Like?
When when did they effectively? He got there? There the
songwriting and composing married couple that wrote Remember Me, and
they wrote all of the Frozen songs. They're like, and

(01:00:12):
I think that they started with Avenue Q. Is that right?
I'm not sure. Yeah, the Book of Mormon and Avenue Q.
I'm fans of theirs, but I think that this might
have been the project where they formally got their egot
because most egots are musicians and composers. Because so as

(01:00:32):
we learned on that really old episode of which I
don't know, but I do know that this that Remember
Me won the Oscar for Best Original Song, so it's
very possible. UM. I wanted to speak a little bit
to co director Adrian Molino's involvement in the filmmaking where

(01:00:56):
he started out in on the projects in Reception as
a story artist. Um, he would like submit notes throughout
that process and the people writing the script and like
developing the story because this movie is I think four
story by credits. They would hit roadblocks with the narrative.
So at one point Adrian Malina started submitting screenplay pages

(01:01:20):
just basically saying like, let me just take a crack
at this. You don't you don't have to read it
if you don't want to. Lee Unchorage, but I thought
I'd take a stab, and then he thought like Lee
Anchorage thought they were great. So then he asked Adrian
to come on board as a screenwriter and he said
he found himself relying more and more on Adrian's input,
so eventually had him come on board as a co

(01:01:42):
director as well. So he didn't even start out as
like a co screenwriter and co director. It was just
like his insight and his kind of continued and increasing
involvement is what got him to be brought on and
this greater capacity. For example, it was his idea. So

(01:02:03):
the other writers were trying to figure out the mechanics
of Miguel being in the land of the dead and
like what he would need to do to get back
to the land of the living, And it was Adrian
Milina who contributed the idea that Miguel would need his
family's blessing to return home, because that came from something
very personal in his own life, where you know, like

(01:02:23):
when he went to college, his parents offered their blessing,
which is something that he like hadn't expected them to
do based on, I think what he wanted to study
or something. But he's like, yeah, let's what about this
being an element of the story. And according to Unchorach,
that part of the story quote ended up being really

(01:02:44):
central and thematically on point. It helped solve some problems
we've been having, and that is like a a crucial
part of the story. So it just like goes to
show when you have people who understand the culture and
know what they're talking about and bring them on your
story is just have like a pack of white guys
fumbling around in the dark, which sounds like we're the

(01:03:07):
was the early production of this movie. In fact, Lee
Unkridge also said that in an early draft of this script,
the character of Miguel was going to be a Mexican
American kid who would have and I think the movie
would have been set in the US, and he was
dealing with the death of his mother, So it was
still going to revolve around Dia de lo Smuertos, and

(01:03:30):
Lee Anchorage says, quote our first stab, but the story
reflected the fact that none of us at the time
were from Mexico, so it made sense to tell it
from an outside perspective because I knew we were going
to have to teach an audience about the traditions and
about Mexico, and that seemed like a logical way to
do it initially. Uh and quote so it's like, okay, well, well,

(01:03:51):
I would say I am kind of like impressed, isn't
the word, because it's like you can't really hand it
to anyone in this situation. But I feel like it
is kind of rare to hear a white director publicly
vocalize it and not just be like oh yeah, but totally.
And I googled and I went to the library, and
like I figured it out. Like I feel like that's
normally more what you get. And I feel like I

(01:04:12):
bring up the quote where Robert Egger says he went
to the library and that's why he understands indigenous American culture,
Like I feel like you get a lot of that,
and uh, I guess like it still feels like it
should just be Adrian Molina's movie, and that it is,
but you know, at least the Uncher just like, yeah,
I kind of didn't know what I was doing. But

(01:04:34):
did I take the directing credit? Did I take the money?
I shared it? I had one more. I feel like
we haven't even started talking about this story yet. Uh,
but there was one more criticism I just wanted to
bring up because it's something I saw in several different places,
and that was um and again in that essay in

(01:04:58):
the Marys Sue, it came up and um, the writer,
Oh my gosh, I have so many taps. Okay. Carla
tamise about how there's only one shade of brown in
the movie in terms of skin tone, and how that
was something that stuck out to her as just a
frustration and a disappointment, and uh. Conversation that I think

(01:05:21):
is had all the time and yet rarely taken action
upon in projects is colorism and the fact that there
are many shades of brown, and also there are white
people that live in Mexico like there. So I just
want to quote from her piece because she does it
better than I ever could. Obviously. Um, so she says, quote,

(01:05:43):
I'm not naive enough to have expected a fair representation
of what Mexican people can and do look like, but wow,
it was still surprisingly disappointing to find that picks are
found one shade of brown and really committed to it.
Like any colonized land united under a flag that was
imposed by settlers and voyagers on its indigenous inhabitants and
the slaves who were brought in to help it make

(01:06:04):
it suitable to white needs. There is no one way
that a Mexican can look. I always think of the
Sandra Ses Narrows quote from Caromelo. So now we're quoting
Sandra's narrows. Um, there are green eyed Mexicans, there are
rich blonde Mexicans, the Mexicans with the faces of Arab Chics,
the Jewish Mexicans, the big Footed is a German Mexicans,
the leftover French Mexicans, the Chaparrito compact Mexicans. Um. This

(01:06:29):
quote goes on for a while, but all that to
say she She concludes by saying that lack of physical
diversity on screen is simply an extension of a continued
failure of big stage Mexican representation in embracing both our
extensive ethnic heritage and our pre colonial history unquote, which
is a point of sag in a few different places.

(01:06:49):
And honestly, I mean I felt foolish because I hadn't noticed.
I just wanted to bring that up as well. Yeah,
I think, yes, I completely agree, and I feel like,
you know, I understand to some extent his his family,
you know, being the same color and um like his
parents and looking like him. But as far as his village,

(01:07:11):
they are correct, and that there is still colorism both
in Latin American countries and in our country, very obviously
amongst Latinos. And I do feel like they took that
note with their new movie that they have with them
Stephanie Beatrice, because that family seems very um diverse skin

(01:07:31):
color wise and actually being including after Latinos, but that
is something that I feel is an afterthought and uh,
Miguel's shade, I feel like, is what people think of
when they think of Latino, you know, and I've I've
said that as well, like when I audition for roles,

(01:07:52):
it's never debated about whether I'm Latina or not, whereas
my Afro Latina friends sometimes they're not even considered. And
so that is still a huge problem that we're that
we're still dealing with Um that we saw, you know,
the conversation surrounding in the Heights. I think that just
in media, that has been thought of as the skin
color for for Latinos, and it's just not correct that

(01:08:16):
we do come in all shades. And I want to
say though that yes, although there are white Latinos like,
I'm more concerned with Afro Latinos being shown. No. I
know that she that's what She's not wrong, but I'm
just like, yes, but also I personally don't know if
I care as much as UM because I just feel white.

(01:08:38):
Then if you are white, you have other things to
latch onto. You know, you're you have had other people
that look like you and princesses that look like you
and and superheroes and people in Star Wars and whatever
that that are your skin color, then even if they're
not Latino, they do still have your skin color. And
so I'm very concerned with Afro and Indigenous representation of

(01:08:58):
Latinos and just feel like that has not been And
I know Jamie is sorry, I know that's not what
you're saying. I just wanted to say, or or necessarily
what she's saying, but I just wanted to say that, like,
I just don't see enough representation and I feel a
lot of times like they're they're just not considered, you know,

(01:09:19):
um like in the in the auditions that I get
it just and it's hard. There is no one way
to be Latino like that. That it's also like we're
kind of we have this term and yet we're so
different that it's hard to put us all. It's hard
to put us all in this under this term. And
so for me, it's so important with everything that I make,

(01:09:40):
that that I actually make. I don't I can't control
the shows you know that I write on that I
have bosses and it's their show and I'm just a
writer on there. I try to push as much as
I can, uh, and I do, but I'm at the
end of the day, not the one that's making the
final decision, but at least in the things that I make,
I feel pretty proud of being able to represent my community.
But I do feel like there needs to be more

(01:10:03):
more of our stories greenlits, so that one singular movie
or one singular show doesn't have to represent all of us,
because I think that's that's such a burden that white
people don't have, and it I just think it's so
unfair and hard on uh, Like I think of even Insecure,
and I remember people you know, writing as about like, well,

(01:10:25):
this is kind of classes because you're showing this type
of class of black people, and I'm like, well, one,
she was also an uber driver for one, but like two,
that's such that's such a burden too place of like
she needs to represent the wealth of the black community,
and I'm like that's just impossible. That's that's not something
that is put on white on white creators to represent
every single element of their community. And so I literally

(01:10:46):
have lost sleep about this with my own community of
like I actually cannot I cannot represent you know, the
full breadth of my community. And even experiences. As we
were thinking. As I was thinking, like Lee Ridge took
this on and he's not in the community, I was like,
I don't even know if I could take on like
Argentinean like representation. I'm like that that's just not that's
not my Like, I'm just not in that community, and

(01:11:09):
so like, I don't even know if I would feel
And I have had projects come across like that, and
I'm like I pass on them because I'm like, that's
such a that would be so much time to when
it could just go to someone that that's their authentic selve,
their authentic background in truth and culture. And so, but
that is all to say that it's like impossible for
one single Latino person to represent every single Latino person.

(01:11:31):
And so what the truth is is that more of
those stories need to be greenlit. More after Latino creators
need to have uh need to be green light, need
to be given the funds to make their own stories
and shows so that they don't have to feel like
they're a side character in somebody else's movie or side
you know, or an afterthought. Right, Yeah, And I want

(01:11:52):
to acknowledge that we've had conversations on this show the demonstrate.
I don't want to speak for you, Jamie, but like
my misunderstanding that I had for a long time about
Latin X Latin A communities and people in which I
kind of assumed, oh, all people in that community are

(01:12:14):
people of color. And we've had conversations about like Latina
actresses who are white people of European descent who are
still also Latina, but we were referring to them as
people of color, and we've you know, had friends and
listeners clarify for us, just because someone is Latina doesn't

(01:12:34):
automatically mean they're also a person of color. And I
think the confusion for me at least comes from the
colorism and featurism that exists in media and movies and stuff,
where white European features are favored and are considered to
be more attractive. So a lot of the famous Latin

(01:12:58):
X actors in both the U S and in Latin
America are of European descent, and they are not indigenous,
and they are not Afro Latino, or if they're mixed,
they tend to have more European features. So again it
speaks to the need to have far more representation across

(01:13:18):
the board to fully represent all the communities and subcultures
that fall under the Latin umbrella. So this is all
something that I didn't have a super clear understanding of
at first, and I've had to do a lot of
research and reading and talking to people. And again, there

(01:13:40):
are past episodes where our misunderstanding is fully on display.
So I want to hold ourselves accountable for that and
to acknowledge that. Yeah, no, I totally. I mean we've
we've very much fumbled and it made and I think
just like made not uncommon but completely incorrect assumptions in

(01:14:02):
the past on this show. And it's something that's like, yeah,
our listeners have have been kind and moments that honestly
they didn't need to be about letting us know about
about stuff, and and you know, it's conversations that we're
committed to continuing to have. But yeah, I mean, it's
it's even in this particular scenario with with cocoa, I

(01:14:24):
was I was like, oh, like, Jamie, how did you
not notice that? Like what could because it's like, once
it's brought to your attention, you can't un see it.
And I learned about this criticism between you know, whatever
viewings for this show, and I don't know, and like
you're saying, Danny, it's a completely unreasonable request and an
additional pressure put on marginalized creators to represent their entire

(01:14:49):
culture every time they're creatively producing something that is impossible
and and setting up people for for failure because it's
not a realistic expectation and of a creator. Yeah, so
I mean, the it should just be the answers to
have allowed more more people to get to tell their

(01:15:09):
stories and will eventually, I mean, I'm hoping that we
eventually get to that that place. So no single POC
creator feels like they have to represent every single element
of their or even every single element of their you know,
commute like like I was saying in East's cases, like
representing all types of different wealth or poverty or like whatever.

(01:15:31):
I'm like, Oh, she just is kind of making a
story about dating as a as a black millennial, you know,
but like to to have to like and I totally
understand that, and but it's just like it's just something
that we don't place on on white on like girls,
you know, like that wasn't I mean, I don't know,
I didn't watch the show, but is that a commentary

(01:15:53):
on Ship's Creek. Well, actually I think it did because
they were poor and then they got but like at last,
so I don't know, Okay, things less like you can
name white leads for the next five days. No, but
you're totally right, Like, these same burdens are not placed
on white creators, largely because there's been so much representation

(01:16:15):
of white people in media that the full spectrum has
already been represented. And of course there are groups that
haven't been represented enough or well. And that's you know, obviously,
that's what we talk about all the time on the podcast.
But even so, a lot of queer stories and stories
about disability and stories about women still center white people.

(01:16:40):
So again, this all just continues to speak to the
need for a much larger scope of representation of all people,
all communities, all identities, all intersections everyone. Yeah, and like
behind the camera too, Yes, I was gonna say to
like also just being able to represent both. Like one
of my favorite a Filatino characters is Miles Morales, and

(01:17:04):
I feel like a lot of times people forget that
he is black and Latino, and I just feel like
a lot of times they're a lot of stories don't
allow for the full complexity or full depth of of
both of those, you know, And so it's it's kind
of like one or the other, and that is you can't, um,

(01:17:25):
you can't separate those two. Those are two. That is
his identity, like you can't. You can't like you know,
pick one or the other. And so that is his
identity in full. And so it just is um allowing
more characters. I think too that our a Filatino to
have to have all those layers is important. But I
think a lot of times people forget and have that

(01:17:46):
not be such a rarity too. Yeah, I wanted to
talk a little about the use of Spanish in the
movie Coco, where not a ton is spoken and in
like the English language version of the movie, Um, but
there is some there. And I wanted to share something

(01:18:10):
from a New York Times piece entitled how Picks Are
Made Sure Coco was culturally conscious by Reggie Ugu points
out that quote. Throughout the film, several main characters voiced
by a nearly all Latino cast that includes Gayle Garcia Brunell,
Benjamin Bratt, and the young Anthony Gonzalez as Miguel slip
in and out of untranslated Spanish a rarity in commercial

(01:18:33):
American cinema. And then there's an additional quote from Octavio Solis,
who is one of the consultants that was hired on
the film, says, quote the original idea was to have
the characters speak only in English, with the understanding that
they were really speaking in Spanish. But for us, language
is binary, and we code switch from English to Spanish seamlessly.

(01:18:56):
End quote. Um, which is just like a feature that
I thought was really cool. It gives people watching this
who aren't Spanish speakers exposure to the language. Like I
think it just like has all these great benefits that
I thought was like cool to include. But I'm interested
to hear other perspectives on that as well. Well. I

(01:19:17):
feel like that's how a lot of families, at least here,
you know, it's fascinating because it was in Mexico, so
obviously it's probably all in you know, Spanish, but like
here in the States, I feel like it's that's very
common to just kind of switched back and forth between
Spanish and English kind of seamlessly, uh, in conversation. So
I like that, and I also just like, you know,
hearing Mexican accents with while English speaking, and you know,

(01:19:43):
just teaching even young Latino Like my niece is currently
in um in a school where like half of the
days in English and then after lunch it's all in Spanish.
And so I do love I love the fact that
you know that this is a family or four kids,
you know, family movie, and so it's teaching young kids,

(01:20:03):
whether they are of Latino descent or not. Like getting
to hear some Spanish and a massive one of the
things that actor Hector Navarro, Um, he's a host for
Nurdict and down a bunch of other things. We both
like wrote each other about the beginning to hear the
Disney movie. I mean the Disney music that was at

(01:20:23):
the beginning of the movie with the castle was Mariachi's
and like that was a huge deal to us, Like
that that was really important. That meant a lot, and
so like even little things like that, to to have
these like Disney, you know, American Disney whatever moments, but
like from our culture just feels really special. Yeah. Absolutely, Okay,

(01:20:46):
I have one last thing I promised, and then we're
going to talk about the story. I know it's late. Um,
the last thing I wanted to to bring up was
I was looking back at this movie was extremely well reviewed,
like it has like in the nineties, seven critics score
on Rotten Tomatoes. Right, this was an extremely well reviewed movie. However,

(01:21:09):
there was a piece on a website called Rameskla. I
had never been on it before, but it's it's a website,
grassroots project that documents Latin culture, and they published this
article as Coco was coming out, saying like, yeah, everyone's
loving Coco, but on the Rotten Tomatoes page there is

(01:21:32):
not one Latin movie reviewer who has reviewed this movie
to the point where this site ended up, you know,
recruiting and reaching out to a number of I mean
because as we've talked about on the Show of a
jillion times, there's no shortage of non white film reviewers.
That's just who ordinarily gets the job at the highest

(01:21:53):
level and who ends up on the Rotten Tomatoes page.
And it's something that's changing very slowly to the point
where it's like it would have been very glaring in
to anyone who was looking that there were no Latin
reviewers reviewing this movie. So this website, Ramesque Club put
together a number I think it was five or six

(01:22:16):
reviewers who were of Mexican descent to review this movie,
and the reviews were still extremely positive. But the I
mean the point of everything was, like we've sort of
been referencing at different points in this episode, there's a
lack of representation at every single level where you know,
the average movie viewer isn't thinking, well, who's writing my

(01:22:38):
movie reviews? But it absolutely makes a difference. So yeah,
I just want to point that as well. I mean,
I think it's similarly, it's worth noting that Coco is
Pixar's nineteenth movie and the first one to feature a
minority character in the lead role. Interesting, all the other

(01:23:01):
ones up until that point had been coated toys or
peoples or cars. Did you see white coated toys? Yes?
I did, w John Goodman coated monsters, Owen Wilson coated cars.
I'm sorry, but solely is a monster of color? Um

(01:23:26):
the color is blue blue. Yeah, I mean, look, it's
it's it's hard. We have these conversations so so much
internally of like yes, please, like we want to be
able to review Cocoa and mo Wana and whatever, But
as I continue to say, we we don't want to
be your token person that I remember when Mo Wanna

(01:23:46):
came out, I got hit. I'm like, I'm not I'm
not even from this car. I'm just the closest thing
you have, you know. And so it's hard because we
want to be included in in the conversation, like even
with this podcast, Like if you had invited an their
white person, I don't know how it would feel. Probably
wouldn't be as important, right, but like, but but you
have also had me on what did you say, like

(01:24:07):
Laura Croft tomb Rater and like that family, and so
like you're not just like let's get Danny on this
Latino one and then we're like not going to let
her talk about anything else, and so like that's so
I do want to say, yes, we do want to
be included in these but I don't. I just don't
think that we want to be boxed in like pigeonholed
and that's the only thing we're allowed to talk about.

(01:24:27):
And I know that you know, our friends during Black
History Month, same thing, it's like all of a sudden,
their inboxes are full, and like, let's have you on
every single panel and to talk about all of this,
and then all of a sudden after February, it's like nothing,
you know, and so it's it's let us talk about
all the things like Laura Croft, tomb Rat It's yeah,

(01:24:48):
which is like, I mean, if if there were less
white film reviewers reviewing every single film that comes out,
like that would also rectify that issue of like there's
what I mean, this is really getting into weeds, but
into of staff writing positions for magazines and like you know,
go to film reviews as opposed to the freelance model
that I think kind of empowers that kind of tokenizing behavior. True. Yeah, yeah,

(01:25:13):
let's talk about the movie. Yeah, let's let's talk about
co Co the story thoughts. I like it. I honestly
thought this was really clever. Yeah. I still like, you know,
my writer brain, like I still think this is such
a clever way to approach this, like to be like,
how are we going to make a film about this

(01:25:35):
really special day? Um? Yeah, I felt like this was
very clever and it was. It was very different than
Book of Life, like completely different. So it is fascinating.
Oh you should, you definitely should. Yeah, And I love
Jorges um he has Maya and the Three coming out
on Netflix. Also cried watching that trailer. Also cried. I

(01:25:56):
watched that trailer so many times and cried. Also, something
that took him like three years to make this series
that's coming out on Netflix. I mean, animation takes so long.
But he has a very cool, very unique artistic style
that you can't miss. Like I've seen I've seen his
work on the side of buildings and I'm like, oh
that's more hey, um, but yeah, check that out. What

(01:26:17):
I'm saying though, is that I love that we can
have multiple movies and we should because like, how many
Christmas movies are there billion about white people? Yeah? Exactly
how many Christmas Lifetime movies do we white people moving
in with their parents? Yeah, that live in a nice house,
or like reconnecting with their high school love or something. Yeah,

(01:26:39):
I mean whatever, now disrespect to people who but like
what anyways? Yeah, I also something that just I can like,
this is a really good movie in so many ways.
It's also like a really good Disney movie. I can't
remember what like more, but this movie has like Dela
Cruz is such a good Disney villain. Like I felt

(01:27:02):
like I hadn't seen like one of my goofy who
gives a ship millennial gripes with more recent Disney movies
is like, I like when a villain falls off a
cliff at the end, I like it, like and I
feel like Dela Cruz, who literally I mean he gets
crushed by a bella second time poetic justice. We was like, yeah,

(01:27:25):
like his character. Not only is the writing surrounding his
character so strong and everything is so firmly planted, but
like when you reach the twist, it is so like rewarding.
But on top of that, it felt like this really
cool meeting between you know, the more recent Disney quote
unquote villains. I feel like you're encouraged to empathize with them,
and then by the end maybe you see them in

(01:27:46):
a different way, which you do a little bit with
Dela Cruz, but you still get that kind of satisfying
nineties Disney villain where he falls off a cliff and
is double dead. Now, um yeah, I I really enjoyed
how his plot line bore out too, and how it
affected Miguel of you know, Miguel was kind of being

(01:28:08):
gently encouraged by someone he thought was his relative of like, oh,
you know, like it was all worth it, this thing
that I did, Like, I would recommend it to everybody,
which you get is kind of overly simplistic because everyone's
family is different. But I mean, he had me going.
I fell for the first time I watched it. I

(01:28:28):
was like, wow, he's right, no notes, he's great. Yeah,
I I too abandoned my family to pursue comedy and
I never looked back. I know, I was like, yeah,
I guess we all didn't do that. Um, so we're
all gonna get crushed by bells, etcetera. Like it's an
it's an oversimplification, but I just yeah, I was like, wow,

(01:28:50):
like a Disney villain, I missed them. It was exciting.
One thing I really loved. And even though the main
vehicle of this story is Miguel seeking the blessing of
a male family member, there's so much emphasis in the
movie on something that Adriana was speaking to in terms

(01:29:11):
of like the matriarchs of the family, and how there's
multiple women in the movie who are like the authority
figures of the household. They're calling the shots. They are
revered and respected by the rest of the family, strong
women who Miguel sure butts heads with. But you know,

(01:29:32):
he has an arc in which he does like come
to learn to appreciate his family and the love that
his family provides for him thanks to the kind of
guidance of these women and his family. And then the
women also arc in the sense that they realized maybe
they were being a bit too hard on him and
a little bit too rigid, and you know again when

(01:29:54):
they see how much music means to him and they
see the effect that it has on him, and just
like like kind of the larger cultural scope of things,
they're like, oh, I was maybe being unreasonable to banish
all music for the first I do wish that this

(01:30:16):
is like a very tiny nippet, but I do wish
that we had gotten to see some of the women
in this story have a little more fun where it
felt like there was with with Hector and with Miguel.
I mean, everyone has these very like dramatic arcs, but
you get to see Hector and Miguel have fun and
have these like moments of levity with their characters and

(01:30:38):
goof off and just have these silly moments. And I
wish that for all of the very well developed and
strong women in this story, I wish you got to
see them have a little bit of fun. Because it
did feel like usually, even though all of the women
are I think, you know, very individual characters. I just
I don't know. I just wanted to see one of
them make a goof have some fun joke, like make

(01:31:00):
a go yeah. I feel like that Mama Melda gets
to like embrace her her music background again, she gets
to like have that moment that spotlight. I think the
only thing that I would say is that this was
kind of the answer to all of the Disney Princess movies,
which by the way, I personally appreciate, Like, you know,

(01:31:20):
like every new Disney Princess that would come out, I
was that Disney Princess for Halloween. It was like every
new one, I had the costume. And so I think
this was their kind of way of like, Okay, well
we're going to instead, because like we said, they had
Mowanna right before this, right um, and Frozen and like
I mean also all the Disney Princesses and snow White.

(01:31:41):
I think this was one of their ways of like, Okay,
now we're going to have a little boy, you know,
and like focus on that and his story and like
men and like this bonding between a son and this
father figure and the fact that he actually has parents
and like gets to keep his parents. It's fascinating or
a Disney movie. Disney movies famously kill off mothers, and

(01:32:04):
the fact that they are like multiple mother figures. The
family grows by the end, there's a new sibling. Yeah,
and he has a new sibling. Yeah. So that's the
only thing that I would say that it kind of
it kind of felt like, you know, my brothers grew
up watching me, kind of experiencing not saying that they
didn't have their own ship, because they definitely did, but like,

(01:32:26):
you know, when it came to Disney, it was kind
of like my time to shine, and they always watched me.
They had to watch my Disney movies. It felt like, uh,
and they were always the side whatever characters in the
Disney movies. And so this was kind of like if
this had come out when they were little. You know,
if I think of like my older brother getting to
see himself in Miguel, you know, where is the closest

(01:32:49):
thing I felt I got was like Jasmine, and I
you know, letched onto that. But but yeah, so that's
what I would say with them with it being you know,
more quote unquote boy if we're like gendering this, but
like it's I didn't even have an issue with with
the protagonist being a boy or connecting with his male ancestors. Yeah.
I just wish that that that the women and the

(01:33:10):
family got to have more fun in the moments that
they that they were present because they felt very present. Like,
I don't think I would really change too much about
like the distribution of screen time really, like it feels
like the movie is so well thought out. Yeah, I
just know, Jamie. I saw your blog and it said
Miguel should have been I did a bunch of math.

(01:33:31):
I like hot take. No, I wanted to say, I
did love. I loved and freaked out and was like
very excited about freed To. I have a freed To
canvas across from me right now of artwork of her
my beautiful by icon who I adore. She also popped

(01:33:52):
up in love Craft. I don't know if you all
saw that, but like anytime she pops up in pop culture,
I get really excited. Um, so I was really happy
and she she kind of got you know, she They
definitely showed her a little you know, her wild side.
I guess she Yeah, I mean she definitely got to
goof off. Yeah, yeah, her her wild side, but I

(01:34:13):
was so happy that they had her in it. Yeah,
I do appreciate to that. Like, the matriarchs are again
these kind of like authoritative figures in the family and
therefore often stern, but they are also very appropriately soft
and compassionate and like loving and affectionate with Miguel especially

(01:34:36):
and you know, other members of the family. But yeah,
it didn't feel I feel like it would have been
a like earlier Disney trope or just like media trope
in general, to kind of villainize a like matriarchal figure
in a family and be like, oh, she's the mom,
so she's mean, because we've talked about that trope on

(01:34:58):
a number of episodes. But the these mothers and matriarchs
and women in this story have just way more dimension,
I feel like than your typical like mother character in
a family movie, especially right. Yeah, any other thoughts about
the narrative or the characters. Oh, this was something that

(01:35:20):
I so, I mean, I just I love Hector and
Miguel's relationship. I love I mean the way that Hector's
character is written I thought was so just brilliant, The
way that he's introduced like I don't I can't really
think of many other movies that do this where I
feel like Hector is so very introduced to you as

(01:35:44):
a like side character that you don't see it coming
that he is one of the most critical players in
the entire story. I just felt like that was so
well executed and almost plays on what we know about
Disney movies already to be like oh side character at it,
and that it ultimately like becomes this story about a

(01:36:05):
father and a daughter by the end where you get
to focus on the connection between Hector and Coco. That
is like I cried as thinking about it, but but
I think that that is kind of a rare thing
in in movies, and by extension, like Coco and Miguel
like this, like in the beginning of the movie and

(01:36:26):
in the end of the movie, so like during the exposition,
there's all this Miguel's talking about, like, oh, I tell
my like Mama, Coco doesn't remember that much, but it's fine.
I talked to her, I tell her everything, And there's
like little montage of all the things he says to
her and they do like he re enacts like wrestling

(01:36:46):
with her and then at the end that again like
the heart wrenching ist scene of any movie ever, where
he's trying to get her to remember Hector and singing
to her, and then she start singing along and you
see how like how much she comes to life, and
which is so inherented, Like I don't know anyone who's

(01:37:09):
ever had an elderly family member who is kind of
in and out and in a moment where you when
you're like, oh, there they are, you know, and those
moments are so precious and beautiful, and it was just
like so well done. Yeah. I think that just goes
back to like how universal our stories are, you know,

(01:37:31):
like having the story of Miguel like pursuing something that
his family doesn't necessarily want him to do. I feel
like everyone can relate to that, you know, especially if
you're in the creative arts um. And then like you know,
having a falling out with a family member or you know,
like identity issues or like you said, even kind of

(01:37:52):
losing um an elderly having an elderly family member like
maybe not remember you, or kind of going in and
out like these are all universal stories and experiences. So
I don't know, like I just keep going back to
like allowing us to make our stories. But it's just
like they're they're universal, they're human stories, human stories. Yeah,

(01:38:14):
I'm really saying like groundbreaking things here that nobody has
ever said. Y'all really like really like no one's ever
thought of thought of these thoughts. I mean, it's really
important to just be reminded of these things and talk
about them. That's true. It can't be overstated that. I
don't think, yeah, today would have anything else. I think

(01:38:35):
that was about I was as I was going through
my nuts. I'm like, I feel like a lot of
this was just like I like that. I feel like
I'll just like linked to some really good articles I
read that. I think it would be like good supplemental
things to to read in addition to listening to this episode. Um,

(01:38:56):
we didn't really talk about the and I don't know
how much anyone wants to go in to this. If
we don't want to go into it, we don't have to,
because I would understand not wanting to think about the
Trump administration again. But I think it's just at least
worth mentioning the kind of cultural context in which this
movie came out in the US at least where again

(01:39:19):
not long into the Trump administration, where Trump was, you know,
constantly spewing hateful rhetoric about specifically Mexican people, and you
know this need to build a wall, and you know,
the ramping up of ice, and for this movie to
come out like in the midst of all that and
be so beloved and to represent the culture so respectfully

(01:39:45):
and responsibly and authentically to be a huge box office hit.
This movie, by the way, is the highest grossing film
of all time in Mexico. So for that to just
be a reprieve basically from all of Trump's awfulness, it's
just another thing that goes to show how important it

(01:40:07):
is for these stories to be told on a regular,
regular basis. Yeah, I would say, also like our resiliency
and like our winning an Academy Award and um Guarrama
winning I think like either the year before and then
Roma winning and just like our I don't know, like

(01:40:29):
our I was, like our takeover, our just like our
ability to resonate with so many people and um in
spite of this country's president at the time just wanting
to obliterate us, that we still came out on top
and we still were dominating, which is a burden you

(01:40:50):
shouldn't have to bear, of course, but yeah, yes, they
were like, I hear that you hate us, and we're
going to actually win all of these Academy awards over
everybody else. Um during that administration. No, literally, like it
was like so many Mexican directors, like one after the
other after the other. We're like winning during just as

(01:41:13):
kind of like a middle finger. You know, I don't
even want to fuck you. I know I'm allowed to
say that on here. I was like, what is another
term for fuck you? As a middle finger to the president? Yeah,
the only last thing I wanted to mention was another
like Disney didn't. Another oopsie was that they used they

(01:41:40):
used the likeness of a real woman named Maria de
la Salude Ramirez Caballero from a village in Santa Fe
de la Laguna in Mexico. They basically used her likeness
for the design of Mama Coco. Producers came to her
ledge took a picture of Maria, but did not compensate

(01:42:03):
her or her family or give any credit to her
or anything like that. So, um, that's just another thing.
I don't know killing they had. They only had a
budget of two million dollars. So that sucks. That's always
so frustrating, and it's like something that that should just
be standardized in Hollywood because I I don't know. Unfortunately,

(01:42:30):
I feel like in an industry like this, you cannot
count on the goodwill of certainly large corporations, no matter
even in a production that seemed this determined to be
culturally sensitive, and but they're just needs to be like
a requirement that it's like, no, you cannot just steal
someone's face, like it seems intuitive, but yes, I hope

(01:42:53):
the artists that follow me are I've seen y'all. I
sent it to Iffy and my friend Neil Radford. There
are a couple of people that have copied because you know,
I post like my photo shoots, like my very like
muscular like art Like I've seen people use those and um,
like this is I should send you some. I'm like,
this is my face you're or like my I've had people,

(01:43:17):
I've had artists that will be like, oh I saved
this and like use this as like a life drawing
or like I hope it's okay. I like planned to
use this as like you know, because like the different
poses I'm in like it shows off my different like
muscle definition or whatever. But I definitely have seen a
couple of Latino characters that look too similar, Like my

(01:43:38):
face is very like my jaw and like, anyways, I
made this about me. I successfully made this about me.
What I'm saying is you can, but like please like
either pay me or be like Danny has to voice
this character because we base this off of her look.
But I've definitely seen you appropriately and compensate you. Like

(01:44:00):
not too much to ask, I can say because I
just be in this industry. It happens more than people realize.
It happens more than people realize. And is also when
you all tweet. I just had a tweet about this.
But also when you're like pitching stories and stuff on Twitter,
people do steal those, so I just please protect yourself.

(01:44:20):
Yeah again, that's why only tweet about Paddington because that
story already exists. Yeah, or oh you know what, I
should tweet a story about how me and Gail Garcia
brnow fall in love Mary, and then that story can
get stolen as long as it happens in real life.
You hear that, Gail? Anyway? Um, yeah, that was all

(01:44:46):
I had. We've been talking for a long time, and
longer than the run half of the movie, so the
tradition continues. Wow, hilarious. H Does anyone have anything else?
That's all I got Now. I'm just glad this movie exists. Yes, yes,
and I already I know I'll cry next time too.

(01:45:08):
There's no way around it. I honestly don't know the
answer to this question because I was so enthralled by
the story. I was hoping you would know. I forgot
to pay attention. If it passes the Bechtel test or not.
I feel like it does. I think it does at
some point between like Miguel's grandmother Ammam a Coco, and
then there are other family members of his that exchange words,

(01:45:31):
but I don't know, like to what extent or I
don't remember exactly what they talk about. Yeah, it could
be Miguel, Like there's a I could see it going
either wait, let me let yeah, go to Bechtel test
dot com or whatever. If you google any movie and
backtel yeah, yeah, Becktel test dot com. Here we are, Okay,

(01:45:53):
it does. It does pass. But then there's a lot
of this is like a lot of comments for this website,
I would say, we forgot to do our job. But
also the Bechtel test is again not that important to
our show. Okay, so the consensus is it does it
does pass the Bectel test. It doesn't pass a lot.

(01:46:14):
But I would argue for this movie here matriarch well,
it's like you're in a matriarchal family, in a matriarchal structure,
women have a strong influence on the plot. Could women
and could people have a marginalized genders be speaking to
each other more? Yes, always, and that's always fair game.
But in the context of this movie, I don't know.

(01:46:37):
This is just I feel like, not the best metric
to apply to this movie because of how I don't know.
But it does technically pass not not not a not
a million times, but it does pass well. How about that.
As far as our nipple skill goes zero to five nipples,
examining it through an intersectional feminist lens, I would say,

(01:47:01):
if I had to take any nipples off, it would
be because of some of the like production and development
stuff and the people behind the camera being still largely
white men who were making a lot of the major
creative decisions here, and even though they brought on consultants

(01:47:23):
and Adrian Molina as a screenwriter and co director. It's
still is just like, Okay, well, who are you guys
to make this movie and and tell this story. But
even so, the product that came out of it was
so good and so well handled. And aside from yeah,

(01:47:46):
like the kind of border control customs thing that was
traumatizing and triggering for some viewers to watch, and a
couple of little things like that, this this movie is
really well done. And because it had such a positive
response from the Latin community, especially because so much of

(01:48:11):
the culture and community the way it's been represented in
American cinema prior to that has been absolutely abysmal. So
I would give this like four and a half nipples,
I want to say, and I'll give one to Mama Emldo,
one to Mama Coco, one to basically just all the mama's,

(01:48:33):
another Miguel's and Miguel's mama, and the little baby that
was in the house, nipple to little Sis at the
very ends. Yeah, I'll meet you at uh four and
a half. I think that you know that the criticism

(01:48:54):
surrounding this movie in the production, I think it's very
much worth discussing I and the I mean, it's stuff
we've been talking about for three hours, So I don't
I don't want to, you know, retread everything. I think
that there is valid criticism around certain creative decisions in
this movie. There was certainly a lot of like white

(01:49:15):
CEO creative nonsense that took place at the beginning of
this movie in terms of production. And I also think
that the conversation around colorism is a very valid one
that warrant continuing on this show and in the industry
at large. And the movie that we got is so
beautiful and like so human while also being very culturally specific,

(01:49:41):
and it's it's such a beautiful movie. I can't wait
to watch it again. It makes me wish that it
existed when we were kids, but very happy that, you know,
like our nieces and nephews are are going to be
able to grow up with it. Um, So four and
a half nipples from me? I who am I going

(01:50:01):
to give my nipples to? Wow, I'm going to give
them all to Dante the Dog. Who I did think
about doing that, because Dante is incredible. I want I
am going to start actively seeking out a stuffed Dante
to have in my home, and he has an arc too.

(01:50:21):
He becomes another brick hid does. Yeah, he's when Dante
came in the last scene. I mean it's like the
whole the whole last scene is just absolutely um, emotionally destroying.
It's like it's beautiful, um. But yeah, Dante has even
Dante as a full arc. It's simply that good. Four

(01:50:42):
and a half nipples, Yes, um, I feel like I
have to give this five nip? Is that how many
nipples are? Five nipples? Because of how important this movie
is to me and my family, And I'm going to
give all of the nipples to Frieda, my queer icon.

(01:51:02):
And I just imagined her there in heaven with all
of her lovers, and Diego might be like far away
from her, I don't know, or there with her. I
don't know. It depends on what she wants, yeah, to
have what she wants. Yeah, Well, if it's Diego from

(01:51:23):
the biopic about Frieda, it's Alfred Molina case Jamie. True
and problematic on its space, absolutely, I mean extremely problematic.
They seemed like star crossed toxic lovers. I just wish

(01:51:47):
that she's surrounded by whoever she wants to be surrounded
by absolutely the end. Well, Danny, thank you so much
for joining us. This has been an amazing discussion. Truly,
thank you so much. We have to send you your
three backed all cast appearance letterman jacket that we pretend
to have that we don't actually have. What we should make, Okay,

(01:52:07):
I'll like put it on and wear it in front
of my mirror, which it will just be me naked
looking at myself naked. Perfect. Tell us what you'd like
to plug where people can check you out on social media, etcetera.
Just follow me on social media because everything I'm working
on doesn't exist yet on screen and so there's nothing

(01:52:32):
to point you to. Um, like a lot of other
people during this time, like the last two years of
my life, I'm like, I swear to God I'm doing something,
but um, maybe you'll see it in No, I hope
you say it before then. I am at MS Danny
fernand Is. It's M. S. D A N I F
E R N A and D easy on Twitter and Instagram,

(01:52:53):
and that's where I post my things and my thoughts
and my projects. Amazing. Hell yeah, thank you and thank you.
Come back anytime. You can follow us on Twitter and
Instagram at Bechtel Cast. You can subscribe to our Matreon,
which is at patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast. It's

(01:53:15):
five dollars a month. It gets you access to two
bonus episodes every month, plus the entire back catalog, which
is over one hundred episodes. We did it. We can't
stop creating content. You can also find our merch at
t public dot com slash the Bechtel Cast for all
of your merchandizing needs. With that, shall we cross the

(01:53:41):
bridge and finally embraced this the sweet embrace of death. Yeah,
let's do it. Let's seize our moment. Bye everybody, Bye
bye

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