Dora and the Lost City of Gold with José María Luna

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start changing
it with the Betel Cast. Hello, and welcome to the
Bechtel Cast. Ever heard of it? Ever heard of it?

(00:21):
I hope so no, no, oh, welcome, you already said it,
And well, um, but what are our name you? My
name is Caitlin Durante. Awesome my name? What's your name?
Jamie Bethany Loftus? WHOA, Yeah, I know, I've I've I've
probably said that on the show before, definitely, but I

(00:42):
never in the intro. And what's your full name? Oh? Okay,
my full legal government name is Caitlin Marie Durante. I
knew that, but I wanted everyone else to know that.
I wouldn't that be a really confusing, Like that's like
a slight baron stain Bears, like Mandela affecting. Like if
we just all of a sudden started using our full

(01:03):
names every single time, like, Hi, my name is Jamie
Beth Loftus and I'm Kaitlin Marie Darrante and welcome, and
people would get little shifts in the matrix like that
would really funk with people. It bothers me when stuff
like that happens, where I'm like your who. Um. Anyways,
welcome to the Betel Cast. This is our podcast um

(01:26):
where we take a look at your favorite movies using
an intersectional feminist lens. If you can believe it, I
can believe it. And what we are doing today is
unlocking one of our Patreon a k a. Matreon episodes
that we released earlier this year on Dora and the
Lost City of Gold. And we have a guest on

(01:48):
that episode, Jose Marie Luna. We don't often have guests
on the Matreon episode and this one has really and
first of all, if you're a Matron, you already know
this episode, Uh really fucking ruled and Jose is so
wonderful that we must unlock, we must share with the world.
We must, Yes, So that's what we are doing. So

(02:10):
now that it's a main feed episode, we just want
to include the kind of standard you know, do the
standard protocol, the Bechtel Cast protocol, if you will, as
far as introducing in the episode, so we will explain
the Bechtel test. For example, Jamie, what is it well, well, okay, relax.

(02:31):
The Bechdel Test is a media metric created by queer
cartoonist Alice and Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test.
I feel like I want to start specifying that it
was originally created as a one off joke in a
comic um, but it has been widely adopted since as
a way of examining the media around us. There's lots

(02:53):
of different versions that have evolved in this test over
the years. The one we use to start our discussion
is this, we require that there be two characters of
a marginalized gender with names that speak to each other
about something other than a man for more than two
lines of dialogue. The reason this metric is so popular
is because for a very very very long time and

(03:14):
still sometimes now, um, that didn't happen. Yes so, but
with me and Caitlin it happens all the time. It
happens all the time because we we're out here talking
about movies. Yeah, such as well, I was gonna say,
like Shrek two, but not that doesn't work out. That's

(03:35):
the man's story. That's a masculine who don't get me
started on the raw masculinity of that story. Um, but
when we're talking Dora, it's passed passing. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
And the other thing to know about this episode if
you've never listened to an Unlocked episode before, is this, Um, well,

(03:56):
we do have a wonderful guest covering an awesome movie.
It's a looser discussion. It's not maybe quite the buttoned
up Bechtel Cast you're used to. So if you hear
me maybe lightly cyber bullying Mark Wahlberg's nephew, we just
kind of get a little loose and like, that's just that,
that's that's just of the matron. Yeah, so deal with it.

(04:20):
It's kind of like I feel like the matron is
do you remember in like the late two thousand's when
like if a jet apataw movie came out, there would
also be like a DVD that's like the unrated version
of the forty year Old Virgin, And so that's just
like kind of what the matrion is for us. Wow,
that's true. Kind of it's just like we get a

(04:41):
little bit loose, the Bectel Cast unleashed, you know, unleashed. Yeah. Anyways,
uh so we're very excited to share this episode with
you um, you're absolutely going to love Jose Maria Luna.
We love him dearly and with that, enjoy the episode.
B del Cast, Hello matron Us again, Welcome back to

(05:05):
Lost Treasuary. There's a second Lost Treasure we want to
talk to you about today. I was starting to think
of how it would be fun to introduce this episode
the way that this movie is introduced, Like it seems
like it's going to be one thing, and then it
cuts to us sitting at a cardboard box being like
which is basically how we record our shows. So true,

(05:26):
it sounds like a wild, sweeping adventure full of education
and friendship, and it's really just us sitting in a
box and my microphone is actually made of cardboard, and
we our mom is a desperate housewife. She comes in
sometimes and she's like, stop pretending to have a podcast

(05:48):
the one thing and truly anyone can have and does
That's a would be funny too. Maybe this is a
thing where like kids are like I want. I don't
think any children like children grow up and they want
to YouTubers or like TikTok stars. Do you think anyone's
like I want to have a podcast about an esoteric subject?

(06:09):
If so, that's interesting and and it's so, it's such
an achievable goal, truly, But I would also argue that
being a TikToker or having a TikTok account, as the
kids are saying, as the kids are, yes, a TikToker.
Is that what it's called? TikToker? That doesn't sound right?
We're so old. Oh my god, Well, friends, guess what.

(06:33):
We have a special surprise for this episode. Normally here
on the Matreon, you know, it's just us, Me and
Jamie goof and goof and goofing. Yeah, being irresponsible, being irresponsibly,
goofy going off doing bits, which we will do today.
But the twist and just like that, we have a guest.

(06:57):
We have a guest joining us today for this episod
so on Dora and the Lost City of Gold. He's
a writer, screenwriter, occasional video essayist. It's Jose Maria Luna. Hi,
thanks for being here, Thank you so much for having me.
This is very very exciting. Oh my god, we're so

(07:17):
thrilled to have you. We've already I feel like we
we are already on such a journey, the three of
us for those listening, Um, Jose left the room for
a second. I didn't realize that he still had his
earbuds in, and I immediately started to tell Caitlin that
I've had pims for six hundred days and there's no

(07:40):
end in sight. And it turns out you're you heard
the whole thing, and that's the intersection of art and technology.
It was a very important bonding experience, like we needed
to go through that in order to record the podcast
properly exactly. I don't think we really could talk about
Dora and the Lost City of Gold without having had

(08:01):
that experience first. It was very very bonding. This movie
is wild. I'm so excited to discuss it. Yes, I
am also very excited. And Jose, we reached out to
you because of a wonderful video essay that you did
entitled Decolonizing Adventure, A Cinematic Road to El Dorado, in
which you analyze several different movies, Dora and the Lost

(08:25):
City of Gold being one of them. So tell us
about your relationship to this movie and maybe if you
have any relationship with the source material of Dora the cartoon,
all that stuff, Dora as text, well, the seminal story here.

(08:47):
I did. I did watch Dora when I was very young,
or maybe not that young. I remember watching Dora, so
it couldn't have been too young. And you know, I
watched Dora growing up in Colone Ba in Spanish, and
she taught you English unlike like the like the original cartoon,
So it was kind of very wild to me learning

(09:10):
later on that Dora is just supposed to be like
a Latina who's teaching like Americans Spanish. I was like, oh,
I guess. I never saw Dora as particularly like florign
I just thought she spoke English. So I did enjoy Dora.
I was more of a Blues Clues kid. They are

(09:31):
back to back. I just remember that. That's true the
golden age of Nick Jr. I don't know what arison
Nick Junior anymore. I don't know if no idea back
in my day, New Junior was better. It's not that
I grew up and I didn't watch the movie when
it came out. I just I just remember it came
out when I was very busy. But I just very

(09:53):
distinctly remember my friends being like, Oh, we're going to
the movies for my birthday. What should we watch? We
were thinking of seeing yesterday This was my friends here
in Colombia, and I was like, don't watch Yesterday, go
see the Dora movie. It sounds a lot better. And
they did, and you were right. Dora was way better
than Yesterday. I forgot about Yesterday. I feel like, did

(10:14):
the world just did we all agree? Like that never happened? Yeah,
and then someone will come up with the idea for
the movie Yesterday because everyone else forgot about it. Were
just this is our groundhog Day culturally, where for dudes
to continually watch the movie Yesterday, the world's worst, most
expensive idea. And to this day I haven't seen Yesterday.

(10:38):
Neither have them. But we've all seen Dora and the
Lost City of Gold. I saw it later on this
is we are my friends here in Colombia and I
was still in the States so I couldn't join them,
and I ended up watching that for research for my
video essay, and I ended up really enjoying it. It
was I didn't really know what to expect, but it was.
It was a wild time, truly of ways. Yeah, the twists,

(11:01):
the twists in this movie. Did I expect a poophole? No?
I did not, So, Jamie, what's your history with Dora?
In the Lost City of Gold slash Dora, the intellectual
property Dora as text know that I definitely like. I
think my younger cousins watched the Blues Clues Dora block,

(11:26):
a classic Nick Junior block. They used to have that mascot.
I hesitate to even call them a mascot. It was
a mascot called face and it was just just a
block of color with a face and then he'd be like, Hi, there,
face here. And I loved the face. The face would

(11:46):
just tell you what was gonna be on TV. It
was a little scary, but it was also kind of exciting.
I loved face right. Face changed colors all the time.
Face like would have holiday like face could saying I
have no idea what you're talking about. I feel like
there's probably porn of face, but that would be like
kind of but I don't know. I feel like, but

(12:11):
I'm sure it's out there. But that's actually really challenging
because it's the whole look. If you look up face,
it's just a screen. The whole screen was a face.
It was like if Rocky Horror was for children and
not scary, kind of like the beginning of Rocky Horror,
but a whole a whole face that was just like
Blues Clues again somehow the builder. So I guess I'm

(12:35):
saying I saw Dora. I liked Dora. Dora's like the sweetest,
most lovable kid character. And also I feel like in
the Nick Junior universe at that time, where like the
really young kids universe, there were like not really many
girl children who were like the leads of shows, and
especially non white girls. So I door is cool. I

(13:00):
hadn't seen this movie. I remember seeing the poster for
this movie and being like this could go a lot
of ways, like this could be so fun or so bad,
or like who knows. But I didn't see it until
preparing for this episode. And I know, I just remember
that you loved it, Caitlin, and you saw it like
four times. It was so perfect transition for what is
your history with Dora? Four times? I don't think so

(13:23):
you saged multiple times, not in theaters, not only saw
once in theaters. But I did watch it a few
times after that prior to prepping for this episode, because
I kept being like, hey, friend of mine, do you
want to watch the Dora the Explorer movie? And they're like,
I guess but then we would have such a fun
time anyway. So okay, So I did not grow up

(13:47):
watching the Dora animated series, of which there might be
more than one, isn't there, Like Dora the Explorer, and
then like Dora and Friends. Diego had his own show
My Little Sister wat Yeah, and I think later they
did like one where Dora was older, right, I think
that's Dora and Friends. She was like a pre teen.

(14:11):
The only thing I remember about that is that there
was an upset that always happens when a big company
ages up their I P. And they like drew Dora
to be over sexualized as a pre teen, and there
was a big issue, like anytime they redesigned the Disney princesses,
suddenly they're thinner, like there's you know, it was like that,
but for Dora, and I remember there was quite a

(14:34):
bit of upset and they ended up changing the design.
I think rightfully so, But it's just always I'm like,
how is that still happening? And I think that that's
something that this movie avoids in a way that I
was so pleased about. So I didn't watch the cartoon,
as you might have noticed, when earlier I said TikToker,

(14:58):
which I actually think is the right phrase. But anyway,
I'm so old. I think that's right. I think so
I was being I was being old. Yeah, yeah, Jamie.
The point is I had aged out of being the
target demographic for Dora and Blues Clues. I never watched

(15:19):
any of those. In fact, I never had Nick Jr.
I didn't have cable until I was an adult, so
stuck with Arthur and dragon Tales. Oh, dragon Tail slapped,
dragon Tails did slap. I feel it was underrated. Where
is the live action? Actually I don't want it, but
oh yeah, please don't. But I remember they introduced the
Colombian kid. I think it was a bit after I

(15:40):
had aged out of it, but my sister was watching it,
and they introduced like a Colombian kid in one of
the later seasons and becomes like a main character. I
didn't know that. I think I cried and I was
like too old to cry over dragon Tails. When that happens,
you're never too old to cry over dragon Tails. I
didn't know there was a Columbian character on Dragontails. That's

(16:01):
so cool. It meant, even though I didn't watch it anymore,
you're just like, well, good for children. Yeah, it's good
for the Colombian kids out there, including my sister. I guess.
I mean it goes to show how important representation is.
But so there was no reason why I was so

(16:22):
excited to see Dora and the Lost City of Gold.
But I was like, I'm going to go see this movie.
I think it's because again, like adventurers, trying to find
lost cities or lost relics is like my one of
my favorite subgenres. So I was like, cool a movie
where this like vaguely familiar character to me is doing that.

(16:43):
I'll go see it. So I went to see in theaters,
loved it, had a blast, uh, and have wanted to
cover it on the podcast ever since. So here we
are finally doing it. We got we got a fair
amount of we got a fair amount of request when
the movie originally came out to do this movie. Like what,

(17:04):
I'm excited. I mean, there's a lot of stuff to
talk about. But this movie does subvert a lot of
I mean because because we we did um Romancing the
Stone for our first anentry movie, which makes most of
the mistakes you can make in this genre. And so
it was it was interesting to watch an adventure movie

(17:24):
that centers on a woman that came out thirty years
later and see how things changed. Yeah, I haven't watched
that one because a lot of people would bring it
up when I mentioned that I was Colombian and I
was like, um, I don't want to see what like
depiction of Colombia is like, you can skip it, you

(17:49):
can skip it. Yeah. Very jealous of everyone, of every
Columbian who gets to move to the US now because
they won't be getting like, oh, like Narcos or like
like Romancing the Stone when they said they're from here.
Instead they having Canto, which huge improvement. Thank you. Um,
let's take a quick break and we will be right back.

(18:17):
And we're back. Um. Should I dive into the recap
for Dora and the Lost City of Full good Luck?
This is a wild one, okay. So we meet young
Dora and her cousin Diego when they're six years old
give or take. They love exploring the Amazon rainforest where

(18:40):
they live. We meet Boots the monkey, We meet Dora's backpack,
we meet her map briefly. I think these are all
characters in the animated series. Yes, and and you won't
believe us they're way less scary looking as cartoons. Yeah,
Boots the sign, Oh my god, Danny Trejo, Boots is

(19:03):
what they should have sonic to that, because it looked
Boots looked too much like like a very real monkey,
but like kind of blue. I didn't love it. It
is not a good design for Blue. I did not
care for it at all. That's like my base complained
of the movie same and the c g I animals
in general, because I think Swiper the Fox also has

(19:27):
a weird character design slash like c g I that
looks like it was from like two thousand five, Like
it seems really outdated. Swiper kind of has these bedroom
eyes and like, did you a scary c g I character?
For sure? But then like these piercing blue eyes, and
I'm like, wow, they really went above and beyond. And
that specific part of the character, which I don't think

(19:49):
is how the cartoon even looks, Like why they give
him these like flirtatious I don't know. I've had PMS
for five hundred days. Maybe maybe it was it's word
flirtatious and I'm just like fully removed from reality. I
don't know, though, because there are so many examples of
people seeing an animated fox in a kids movie and

(20:14):
it making them very horny because the Disney robin hood
is like, is a sexual awakening for a lot of people?
Isn't that like a famously furry like cornerstone? Yeah? Really yeah,
this has a good furry cornerstone that I didn't know
that that's wild. And then also like, I know, fantastic

(20:37):
Mr Fox. People get all all foamed up for for
that fox as well. I get it, but let's not
get into it too much. None of us want to
discover that tonight. No, but like swipers on screen and
there were moments where it's like, is this a date?
You know, like this is this is wild? Okay, it's

(21:00):
his voice, Yes, doesn't hurt? Does not hurt? I also
completely forgot the part of what was satisfying about this
movie when it came out was the just like when
you first see the trailer and you're like, that's so
many famous people for what this movie appears to be.
You're like the and Danny Traho as Boots, and you're like,
huh what because Boots in the Calan in the cartoon,

(21:23):
Boots is like a five year old. It's like Boots
that's funny. Certainly not an adult man, much less Danny
Trail like. Anyways, I love that scary looking boots. Okay,
So we meet scary Boots and other of Dora's sidekick characters.
We meet Dora's mom and dad, her mom Lena played

(21:45):
by Eva Longoria and her dad Cole, played by Michael Penia,
who famously, Chucky Cheese is favorite actor, also famously a scientologist.
Those are my Painia facts. Michael is a scientologist. Yeah, yeah,
he's pretty. He's not like a super like public like

(22:06):
you know, Tom cruising around about it scientologist, but he's
definitely a scientologist who. In one of my favorite YouTube
videos of all time, Chuck E. Cheese interviewed Michael Pania
on his channel he never interviewed anyone, and then out
of nowhere, he was like, today, I have an interview
with my favorite actor, Michael Pania. It was to promote

(22:28):
Tom and Jerry, another Michael Pania movie with a lot
of bad c G. I huh, okay, Michael pan your
rocks And that's literally everything I know about him all
in a row. I'm learning so much about Michael Pena right. Okay,
So Dora's parents are professors archaeologists, maybe not super clear

(22:55):
what their exact jobs are, but they're professors of some
sort explorers and they're explorers, right, not treasure hunters, but
we'll get to that. So they tell Dora and Diego
about the legend of Pata, a lost Incan city of gold,
which Elena and Cole are trying to find. But again,

(23:18):
they don't intend to keep the gold because they make
the distinction between explorers and treasure hunters, where explorers equals good,
treasure hunters equals bad. So it feels like they're working
more in like a historian, like documenting history. Yeah, right,
which is I've never heard that distinction made in this

(23:38):
genre before ever. True, it feels very like self aware
in that regard, right, which is, you know, pretty interesting
giving the fact that like even even very recent adventure
movies make a lot of mistakes in that regard, including
one that came out recently A k Uncharted, which sucked,

(24:00):
And then at the time of this recording, The Lost
City starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum has not yet
been released. But I would be surprised, honestly if it
makes any of those distinctions and is very self aware.
We'll see, but anyway, the next day, Dora has to

(24:21):
say goodbye to cousin Diego, who moves back to the States.
Then we cut to ten years later. Dora, now played
by Isabella Mer said, who was I think Isabella Monir.
At the time, she is running around the jungle, she's
still exploring, she's talking to animals, she's talking to the camera,

(24:45):
and she is looking for Pata pata. She is so wonderful.
Her performance was giving me Amy Adams an enchanted, like
it was so like cartoony, but also are like grounded
enough and like she's just like lights up everything. She said,
I loved her. I've never I've never seen this actress

(25:07):
before and I just fell in love with her same.
That is a very good comparison because it is it
is kind of feel like like that kind of like
satire that doesn't really get mean. It's very like we're
having fun with the character without having to, you know,
make like cheap jokes about it. It's very very sincere
in a way that makes it so enjoyable, right, especially

(25:29):
because it gets commented on a little later when Diego
after they've been in school for a little bit and
Diego is like, don't you see that? Like everyone's making
fun of you for the way you are, and she's like, yeah,
I see it, but like this is just who I am,
Like this is how I am, and I'm not gonna
stop being myself because other people don't like it. And

(25:50):
Dora was just very sweet. I think one of my
notes when watching the movie is I would die for Dora. Yeah,
she is such a sweetheart. And like I did, like
like that's something that again it's like, oh wow, you
really there's a bad version of this. There's a lot
of times in this movie where it could have gone

(26:11):
down a very like generic boring road where it's like
Dora has to change to fit into high school and
like Dora gets a makeover from Sammy to fit into
high school, but she doesn't change. She stays herself, wins
people over, and then all of a sudden, the high
school portion of the movie suddenly ends and it's a
different movie. Um, which was wild, but I was on

(26:35):
board a very gracious transition. She's kidnapped out of the
movie that started, and then a second movie starts. Hey
it works for me, Like yeah, okay, so she, like
her parents, is now looking for Patata, and she finds
a big clue, which turns out her parents already know

(26:56):
about and they already have plans to head to Peru
to find but they don't think Dora is ready to
come along, so they send her to live with her
aunt and uncle and cousin Diego in Los Angeles. Ever
heard of it? She goes to think of fictional silver

(27:16):
Lake High School? Yeah, called silver Lake High School? Is
it really called silver Lake High School in the movie?
I think so? Yeah. I love that they keep calling
it the city. It's like, if it weren't for the
map that they showed, like when she's flying, we wouldn't
really know. They just keep saying like, yeah, you know,
they moved to the city and they live in the
jungle right right. It feels very like tongue in cheek

(27:39):
to the way that the show would refer to places.
I don't know if it was a purpose, but it
always got a giggle out of me when they were like, yes,
in the city, Dora, welcome to the city, like they
didn't know where they want to shoot, right, Like I
I didn't think about the fact that could have been intentional,
Like in a reference to the show, because I was
just like, there's there's a lot of this movie that

(28:02):
is like kept extremely vague that you're just like why,
I mean, at least location wise, I was like, Okay,
I don't know, well you talk about it, but well
the way that like the first Indiana Jones movie, when
Indiana Jones is like stealing an artifact from indigenous people,
the text on the screen just says like South America,

(28:25):
and it's like, do you want to be more specific
where in South America? No, thank you to the South
American Jungle? What else do you want? Um? Okay? So um.
Dora is sent to live with cousin Diego in the
city a k a. Los Angeles, and specifically the neighborhood

(28:49):
of Silver Lake, which is one of the cooler neighborhoods
in Los Angeles. Is we got brunch, come on by.
I do miss Silver League. It's great, definitely one of
the one of the best neighborhoods. Okay. So, her parents
want Dora to go to the city and make friends,

(29:10):
but Dora doesn't know how to make friends. Then Dora
arrives in l A. She reunites with Diego, now played
by Jeff Wallberg. He who Okay, I was having a
crisis this whole. One of the things that bothered me
about my top two maybe complaints about the movie that
are silly are that Boots looks like shit and that

(29:35):
whoever is playing Diego is the worst actor I've ever seen.
I was like, why is this teen actor doing such
a bad job to the point where like I feel
like the music was doing heavy lifting for him sometimes
and I was like, oh, I guess he's sad um
but he was just like sitting there. He's Mark Wahlberg's nephew.
That is why he's bad at acting. And in the movie,
that's why his name is Jeff Wallberg. That's why his

(29:57):
name is Jeff Wallberg. Because all the they're young actors
in the movie are doing I think, I thought we're
doing a great job, Like they were really fun. They're
doing kind of these like theater kid performances that the
movie requires. And then you just have like this guy
who's like, Dora, I am cool. I am cool, Dora,
I'm the cool guy at school. And then he's like

(30:19):
I have a crush And I was like, why is
this kid so bad? It's because he's like weird nepotism.
At first, I thought you were implying that he was
bad because he was related to Mark Wahlberg. I mean,
I think that is the subtext. It's not it's not
his fault, but he's that his uncle is his uncle.
It is his fault that he's not doing a very

(30:42):
good job. We can't blame Mark on that one. No,
unfortunately we can't, but maybe we should. He's promoted from
manager at Wallburger's to being in this movie. I mean,
maybe we can blame Mark Wahlberg if Mark Wahlberg gave
him acting lessons, which I'm fine with. That headcanon is

(31:03):
explaining why Jeff is not very good. He um was
always talking as if he had like a bunch of
marbles in his mouth. There was like one line in
the Museum where I was like, Jeff, Jeff, we need
another take from Jeff, Like he was just like, oh
here we go, ageain like he's he's And then I
was like, maybe he's just doing too convincing of a

(31:23):
job of being a teen boy who's not interested, because
teen boys weren't interested. Mumble all day long. But I'm like, Jeff,
do you know the cameras on I just it was like,
I don't know, I there's I don't mean to tease it.
I just had to check to make sure that he's like, yeah,
he's like twenty six years old. Jeff, you did a
stinky job. But that's okay. You'll get other chances. You're nepotism, okay.

(31:50):
So Dora goes to her first day of high school.
She meets a couple fellow students, including Sammy played by
Madeline Madden, who needs she needs to be the smartest
person in the room, and who Diego thinks is mean
and awful. And we also meet Randy played by Nicholas

(32:12):
Comb Comby. I don't know how to say that name.
He has been beamed in from two thousand and five,
Like what is this kid's haircut is like Hannah Montana.
I was like, children don't have this haircut anymore. It
was just that was another fascinating element that just felt
very outside of time. He had the haircut that all

(32:32):
the characters in the fourth Harry Potter movie have. Yes, yes,
it's like bad Rupert Grint hair. Like it's what I'm sorry,
I don't know why I'm tearing these young men to shreds,
Like Jeff Wolberg, no talent. This kid's your p MS, Jamie,
it's this is how your PMS is manifested, just bullying

(32:56):
young actors. Oh yeah, well, anyways, so Randy is kind
of a like quote unquote nerdy kid who is really
into astronomy. Both he and Sammy are social misfits, as
is Dora, who is super friendly to everyone, but everyone
thinks that she's a dork. Even Diego is embarrassed of her,

(33:20):
especially at a dance where Dora dances all silly. I
love I love that they did not again, it's just
like this movie is so funny to be where it's
like they called there like more like dork. I'm like, okay,
we need to punch up. Do we get one punch
up writer on this like Dorca Like, but again, you know,

(33:42):
high school bullies, like in real life, can't come up
with anything much more clever than that. That is true.
I had I had a theory Like Nicholas Comb, the
haircut guy. I've looked at him. I was like, I
think he's secretly thirty years old, and that does happened?
I feel like there's always it happened on Hannah Montana,

(34:03):
where that was like a seventeen year old who was
like five hundred. It was like wild and he was
he was he was twenty seven when this movie came out. Okay,
so that's like euphoria casting kind of you know, not
to grass to grassy is appropriate. Wow, that's wild because Dora,
like the actress, is like twenty now I remember looking up,

(34:25):
so she must have been like seventeen when she Yeah, yeah,
I think she was like actually a teenager. And I
think the other three actors are a little bit older,
which is fine and like normal for movies. But I
was like, my big haircut guy is uh running on
his doctorate? And okay, alright. So we then get a

(34:47):
montage of Dora going to school. She's also corresponding with
her parents and tracking their journey through the rainforest on
her map, but then she stops hearing from her parents
and she grows concerned about that. Then, on a field
trip to the Natural History Museum, Dora, Diego, Sammy, and

(35:09):
Randy all end up in a group together and then
all four of them are kidnapped by some bad guys,
these mercenaries who are trying to find Dora's parents, who
they know will lead them to Patapata, so Dora and
friends although they're not friends yet. Dora and company are

(35:31):
taken to Peru, but then they're rescued by Alejandro played
by Eugenio Derbez, a friend of Dora's parents, allegedly right,
they are all running away from the mercenaries, but then
Swiper the fox voiced by Benicio del Toro steals doors map,
but Dora and friends are able to escape once again

(35:55):
and they set off to find doris parents. They find
doors parents her and her family's symbol painted on a
nearby tree. Their family symbol is also a red just
a circle. Again, I'm just like a second draft, please
that this looks like a place all there. I was like,
is this a hilarious joke, because it wouldn't. It's a

(36:16):
very funny joke if like their family symbol is just
a red circle and they keep calling it a loop
diegos like the red loop, right, the mirror notion that
Dora's family has like a symbol was very funny that too.
That got a huge laugh out of me the first
time when She's like my family symbol and I was like,
I laughed, like everyone has one. It couldn't be like,

(36:40):
oh look a survey marker. Oh look, no, it's my
family symbol. Was like, oh my god, I don't know
if that was meant to be a joke, but it
got a huge laugh out of me. It is funny.
And then the fact that the symbol it could just
have been there by accident, because it's such a nothing
like it's like my family symbol would be a little
cigarette in someone's back pocket, like it would be you

(37:03):
would know when it's my family symbol. But they're like
red circle. So they find that, and Dora and company
head into the rainforest on foot to follow their trail.
They find Dora's parents campsite, but it's been ransacked, but
then Boots the Monkey shows up and joins the group.

(37:25):
Then there's a scene where Sammy has to pooh, that's
the whole thing. And then suddenly a bunch of arrows
are being we're just gonna go past that. I mean
we I guess we can unpack the pool. There's a
whole song. There's a whole song, right, Okay. I kept

(37:45):
trying to be like, is this progressive or is this
just something that happens in the movie. I guess it's
like whatever. It's like, oh, in adventure movies, no one
ever takes a ship and isn't that interesting? And it's like, oh,
women taking a ship. You don't see movies very often.
But I'm like, but do I want to? I guess
not really, but but people really, like, really loved when

(38:07):
Melissa McCarthy pooped in Bridesmaids. They're like, wow, this is
the first for some people. That's how that scene changed
cinema because a lot of women, a lot of people
didn't know women pooped before that were that scene. Let
women poop in movies, but only she had to poop.
And then she was like, I haven't pooped for forty
eight hours, and I was like what, Like, they've only

(38:30):
been gone for like six hours, So it seems like
she's having like a separate no one else has to
poop the whole movie. So I think she was just
like she went on the field trip constipated. Yeah, and
I'm not sure she even gets to poop because as
soon as she starts pooping, then these arrows are shot

(38:53):
at the group and they have to run away. Let
women have dingleberries and okay, that okay, that's your subsect.
Of my movement let women poop. Yeah you say that,
and then I stand up. I'm like and another thing. Yeah,

(39:17):
I'll have a little poo left over. Well, she didn't
finish and she didn't have i mean toilet paper. Right. Yeah,
So we don't know what's going on with Sammy, but
she's thrown into a love. Yeah, before you know it,
she's in she's in love. She's got tickleberries, she's in love.
She's anything's possible in this movie. True. Okay, so all

(39:40):
these arrows are being shot at them, and Alejandro thinks
it's the Lost Guardians, whose mission it is to protect Patapata.
They managed to get away, they nearly cross paths with
the mercenaries, who are also now in the rainforest following
the map to try to find doors parents. So they

(40:00):
nearly cross paths with them, but then Dora and friends
head in a different direction toward an old opera house.
But oh no, they step into some quicksand and Alejandro
almost dies, but then the teens save him and just
don't really save him though the plot saves him because

(40:21):
it actually was quicksand that just fell into regular sand.
It was like a ledge yeah right, yeah, but they
pulled him out from beneath, and then scorpions have sex
on his head. Did you say that? I did not
say that. That feels worth men. Scorpions do have sex
on his head. This is a pig movie, Dore excitingly saying, like,

(40:46):
the scorpions are mating. They're mating, but then when you
look at them, they're just kissing the scorpions. Yeah, they're
they're fucking french in each other. There. So they get
out of the quicksand situation, and and then they cross
paths with an old woman who tells them which right,

(41:07):
who tells them in the indigenous language of Quetchua, Yeah,
that anyone who is seeking pat is a curse, or
like we'll be cursed, or I forget exactly what it is.
But then she offers to guide anyone who wants to
go back home. So Sammy and Randy say goodbye to

(41:27):
the rest of the group and set off with the
old woman. But then they notice a tattoo of the
symbol of the Lost Guardians, which is far more intricate
than the Dora family symbol, which is again just a circle.
What if she also had a red circle, I'd be like, Wow,

(41:49):
she's part of doors family. But you see a milk cap,
You're like, wow, red circle. They must know, Dora, I'm
gonna get that tattooed on me, just red circle. And
then we're like, what is that. I'm like, Dora's family
will understand. Yeah, yeah, if you know, you know exactly.
So they see this tattoo on the old woman's wrist

(42:11):
and they freak out and they run back towards the others. Meanwhile, Dora, Diego,
and Alejandro make their way through this patch of giant flowers,
which release hallucinogenic spores that make them just completely trip balls.
The movie becomes animated for a few minutes. It's like

(42:31):
jet Apod and something like you're You're like, it's like
a Seth Rogan movie for like a minute. I like that,
say that was fun. I loved it. It was a
cute way of inserting all the like the show arts
because it's animated in this time of the show right right,
and they feature all the characters that they didn't make
it to a live action bit and it's just yeah,

(42:53):
and like the the iguana and like it was just
very it was just very cute in a very non
cute context. I guess right. It was like doors tripping
and suddenly it's like the animated show is like sure
because they just wanted to get that in there. Yeah,
I'm wondering if they're like, oh, let's like pay homage

(43:16):
to the animated show, how can we do that? What
if the characters trip balls and hallucinate that they're all animated?
This movie is so wild, Like I just it did
remind me how like I feel like this was true
when we were kids as well, but like how Nickelodeon
they were just always doing weirder stuff and you could

(43:37):
always count on a Nickelodeon cartoon to have stuff that
was like slightly not appropriate for children anyway, like Disney
uh simply didn't. So they're like, Okay, we're gonna make
our protagonists a teenager who's on drugs, and you're like, cool,
it's Euphoria. There are actually goes to you for your
high school that would have been that such it goes?

(44:00):
Does you I haven't seen Euphoria? Does it take place
in Los Angeles? I think so that would be pretty sure.
So funny if they had the movie with this tone,
they're like, oh, she's not in Euphoria, But they all
God did the same my school, and Dora's just dealing
with some very different problems. They're actually they're kind of
comparatively very innocent. That would be. I have seen the
first episode and a half of Euphoria. It's such a

(44:24):
heavy show that I like just could not keep watching.
But I'm pretty sure, Yeah, they live in the valley,
So put Dora in that show. It would she really?
You know? I again, I don't. I don't watch the
show because I I like one of the teenagers in
this movie. I'm five years old, But but I think
it would be. I think she would bring some much

(44:45):
needed levity. I agree, I agree. Yeah, Okay, So they're
all tripping and then Sammy and Randy find Dora and
Diego and Alejandro again, and then they all set off
to find the entrance of Pata Pata, but they then
fall into an aqueduct that starts filling with water. They

(45:08):
figure out how to escape that, and right then Dora's
parents find them and Dora explains why they're there and
the Alejandro rescued them, and her parents are like, we
don't know anyone named Alejandro, because twist, Alejandro is a
bad guy who is working with the mercenaries who right

(45:31):
then show up and capture Dora and her friends and parents.
That was very weird to me, like it was for
a twist that it's kind of obvious, Like it took
me by surprise the first time I saw it, because
I'm used to little bit as being kind of like
just like the funny sidekick. Like to me, he's just
to me, he's just Donkey from Shrek. Yeah, he does

(45:53):
the Spanish voice for Donkey, so whenever I hear him,
it's just like, that's just Donkey. And then we he
was the bad guy. Was like, oh my god, they
made a bad guy. Like I felt betrayed just like that.
I mean, there's also so much foreshadowing because right after
he's rescued from the quicksand he's like, I'm a bad guy.

(46:14):
I'm such a bad guy, and he's basically just telling
you that he's the bad guy, and the door was
like no, no, no, no, no, no, you're not. We
all feel like that sometimes that was Dora's one fumble.
But then I was like, she's an explorer, she's not
a journalist, so right, I can't believe that didn't that
didn't chew me in. I was gasped the first time around.

(46:37):
I was like, what that twist took me by so
much surprise when I saw it in theater. Really, yeah, guys,
He's like, I'm a friend of your prayers, but you've
never heard of me. Also, I'm wearing the scarf that
the villain of the movie always wears. He's wearing He's
wearing a next scarf. Look, no, it's always wearing next scarf. True.

(46:58):
In Paddington too, he wears a cravat. Yes, okay. So
they see Patapata often the distance, but before they get
to the entrance, Boots shows up and unties the teens
and they're able to escape, but they need to get
into Patapata so that they can get the gold and

(47:19):
use it to bargain for Dora's parents lives. And then
that's when we get the fund scene where Boots actually
talks to Dora. Boots is voiced by Danny Trayho. This no,
Boots is voiced by Danny Treyho. He I thought it
was so funny, but also the fact that Boots is

(47:42):
the one giving I was like, is Dora still on drugs?
Is this something that's still and he tells her like
friendship is important and growing up is is goals, and
you go girl boss and they never speaks again. I
liked it. It's comedy comedy. The real gold in this
movie is the comedy. I think we can all agree

(48:05):
that is true. It is surprisingly funny movie in terms
of how smart the humor is. It's just it's just
very rarely did they go for like a very obvious
joke except for the poophole. I wouldn't even call that obvious,
but that was still subversive. That was it was. It
was just a weird choice, right, That was intellect. That

(48:25):
was an intellectual I kind of expected that kind of
humor when I found out that it was directed by
James Bobbin, who directed The Muppets the two two eleven
reboot that I adore, and I feel like that takes
that same kind of like half joking but very sincere
approach to it's I P. And I was very pleasantly

(48:49):
surprised when watching this that I was like, oh my god,
they he managed to keep that same tone. It's just
just very fun. When they reboots don't feel the need
to like make fun of the I p to be like,
oh we get that there's a silly uh, we're making
fun of it with you. It's just very Yeah, I agree.
The real gold is the comedy. Thank you, thank you

(49:11):
so much. Um uh. James Bobbin also wrote for Fled
the Concords. I believe so lots of good humor here anyway. So,
after solving an astronomy based jungle puzzle, the teams are
able to open the entrance to Patapata. They go into

(49:34):
a temple. They have to solve some more jungle puzzles.
There are various booby traps and dangers along the way.
Then they come upon a couple of piles of treasure
and the last puzzle they have to make an offering
to the gods via a small golden monkey statue. And

(49:54):
then the offering has to be what the incas revered
the most. So all I hun Row shows up and
he thinks the answer is gold, so he makes an
offering of gold, but he's wrong, and the ground opens
up beneath him and swallows him. Except he doesn't die
because it's a kid's movie. Yeah, so he's just kind

(50:15):
of hanging. Although this does feel like a movie that
is like wild enough and enough, like surprising thing happened.
Things happened that I was I was prepared for someone.
I mean, not like a main character, but I'm like,
someone can die in this movie. Someone. I don't know why.
When I rewatched this, I had the vague idea that
Swiper had died, and then I was like, and then

(50:38):
I watched this, I was like, oh, maybe I imagined it,
but I don't know why. I didn't really was like, yes,
Whiper died in the door of a movie. It's very
It's just like and it's like, oh, no, I guess
I made that up. That's like the sort of thing
that where if you told me that, I wouldn't doubt
you for a second. And like, that's a lie that

(50:58):
that has some legs. Yeah, four legs, Swiper's legs. Whoa, Jamie,
thank you, I have PMF. So you keep saying okay.
So then the old woman from earlier shows up with

(51:21):
the Lost Guardians of Pata. The old woman turns out
to be a young inc and goddess question Mark I
thinks princess right. She's played by Coryannka Kilchure. Dora explains
to her that they are explorers, not treasure hunters. And

(51:45):
then Dora makes an offering to the monkey statue of water,
which is the correct answer, and then doors open to
reveal an enormous golden monkey statue. But then Swiper shows up,
who has not perished. He shows alive, and well, he's alive,
and well he shows up and swipes the little monkey statue,

(52:10):
and then all hell breaks loose, so they have to
rush out of Patapata. Dora puts the little monkey statue
back and then Patapata seals itself closed again. So then
Dora and her family and friends returned to their house
in We're not sure where, maybe so the map that
we see Dora leaving from, she's either in Columbia or

(52:33):
Brazil or like right on the border there she's in
the Amazon. I guess she's in the Amazon, right. So
they returned to her house there, and her parents invite
her on their next exploration, but Dora tells them she
wants to return to l A and learn more about

(52:54):
high school culture, that idea at Euphoria High. She wants
to go back to Euphoria High. That's the one thing
you don't do. Don't go back there. Horrible ship happens
that including a big song and dance number, which is
how the movie ends, where Dora and her friends are
singing and dancing about the adventure they were just on.

(53:17):
And that's the end of the movie. So let's take
another break and then we will come back to discuss
and we are back and where to begin. Yeah, I
think we didn't establish how hot Swiper was like enough, Yeah,

(53:41):
could we actually talk about that? I mean, I want
to make sure that we really are hitting on everything,
and I think that that is obviously the most relevant
of course of discussion here. Swiper. Look, Ciper is very hot,
not very I take back the very. Let's not get
ahead of ourselves. Let's let's you know, I'm going to

(54:03):
feel so differently about it tomorrow. Um anyway, um I was,
I am. I would love to sort of start this
discussion by talking about looking at this movie and and
looking at this genre for your video essay and kind
of taking us through through that journey and sort of
starting the conversation there. Yeah. Just like Caitlyn said, I

(54:25):
feel like I've always been also really into that lost
city kind of story. I mean, I grew up watching
Indiana Jones and uh, I remember watching the Road to
Eldorado a lot. But even though it didn't, I didn't
really like it. The El Dorado myth was originated here
in Colombia, so I always was like, oh, it's kind

(54:49):
of like Colombia, and I watched it a lot, even
though the movie does not take place in Colombia. It
is it is just like a very like Messo American aesthetic,
which is, you know, it's own thing. But I feel
like I always really loved adventure, and the more that
I started learning, you know, growing up and everything, I

(55:09):
really like, oh, it's always so uthering, like the adventure
genre almost by definition. And as I started to realize
that the uttering, like the object of the mothering was,
among other places, my country, it was even weirder. It
was kind of like, Oh, this thing that I've always enjoyed,

(55:30):
it's just like it has this like kind of like
dark underside. It's underside of things, make up words sometimes, underbelly,
side boob, whatever, underbelly. That's what I was thinking of
dark side. It has it has an underbelly, a dark
underbelly that I don't know that I was. I started

(55:51):
to get very curious about exploring. So you would you
say that you're you yourself are an explorer. Yes, Actually,
if you're exploring this topic, I am exploring the explorer's exploring.
Who explores the explorers, it's you. But who explores the explorers?

(56:13):
That explorer the explorers? And why is Swiper sexy? There's
so many questions that we need to answer here. Yeah, so,
I don't know, I mean, I just remember that that
as a little kid, like the thing that I always
said that I wanted to be when I grew up
with like adventurer, explorer, etcetera. So later, as a grown

(56:36):
up like kind of like investigating while that was so,
it drew me so much to it. And yeah, you
you run into all these like lost cities stories that
are kind of like these outsiders finding a culturally important
relic or place for this often extinct, sometimes hidden civilization,

(56:57):
and it just has all these like colonial bagage to it.
It's very like it's it's kind of like, you know, oh, yeah,
we we have to uncover this puzzle that was probably
not ours to solve and find this place. And you
get that in a lot of things, like you get
that in in the Road to Alorado, in all the
Indiana Jones movies in like National Treasure. I don't know,

(57:21):
and all in all these lost cities are like lost
treasure stories, and I guess I approached Dora and the
Lost City of Gold with a similar mindset. I was like, Oh,
it's probably gonna be like that. But it feels so
um aware, like we said, it's feel it feels very
self aware of how this is often an issue, and

(57:43):
it kind of like has it's like built in disclaimers
to kind of have like kind of like have its
cake and needed to. It's just like, oh, we get
to do like a fun adventure romp, but we also
get to do it, you know, without all that baggage,
which I don't think that's like very successful. I think

(58:04):
that kind of baggage is harder to get rid of,
but it is. It is very cool that we are
finding ways to tell these exciting, like lost city stories
that I really enjoy in ways that are more aware
of the context in which they exist, because you know,
like the City of Gold as a myth was kind
of made up by the Spanish and that propelled like

(58:26):
colonization across the Americas. So it is something that has
very specific historical baggage that is now kind of like oh,
fun little goal, fun little quests, and it's like yeah,
but but uh so, I don't know. I guess that's
what always draws me to this kind of story, is
that kind of approach that they will take and it's

(58:49):
just exciting, Like the jungle puzzles are fun, Randy. Randy
says that right, just like in the movie. So, yeah,
I don't know. I don't know if I answered your prompt.
I felt like I derailed at some point, not at all, No,
I I first of all, we're gonna link your video

(59:11):
in the description. It really is wonderful and like so
well done, and I did. I was. I was pleasantly
surprised by this again, just like a simple choice that
the movie makes that I thought was like a like
a lesser movie would have complicated needlessly. It's like all
of the kids are on the same page of being
anti colonial. They know it. They all agree to the

(59:33):
point where they're like citing very specifically examples of like
intense imperialism and colonialism as it pertains to adventure stories
where they're like, oh, yeah, you know, England, France, America,
like yeah that when when she says America and then
she says, like the United Fruit Company. I was like,
oh my god, I United Fruit Company mentioned in Dora

(59:54):
the Explore the movie. It was like, it was like,
who writing this movie was like, let's talk about corporative
colonialism in the Americas by way of a joke Indoor
the Explorer, Right, It's kind of amazing. Oddly the people
who wrote this movie where three white men, and then

(01:00:16):
also the director is a white guy, which does lend
itself to a few things about this movie that are
still trophy and like not very thoughtfully done. And we
can get to those in a moment. But one of
the reasons I liked this movie so much when I
first saw it is that it was such a departure

(01:00:39):
from you know, like the Indiana Jones movies that I
also grew up loving. But then once we unpacked one
of those movies on this podcast, I was like, oh
my god, like oopsies, my bad for loving this movie
so much. It's kind of it's kind of wild the stuff.
But the Indiana Jones movies get away with even the

(01:01:00):
latest one, yea and hopefully the fifth one is different.
But like, because I will be watching it, I'll go
see it at least twice. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's
like I was going to watch it and then you
cast Phoebe walder Bridge, like I'm going to be there. Yeah,
but it's it's it is kind of it is kind
of I don't know, the things that they get away

(01:01:22):
with in Someone in the in those especially the Temple
of Doom and Crystals Call, it's just like yipes. Yeah.
So much of it is just I mean, like so
much of the genre, like you're like you're saying earlier,
Jose is just like to a point where I feel
like it's uniquely so ingrained in like anyone who grew
up with Hollywood movies that it took me, I think,

(01:01:45):
probably embarrassingly long to interrogate. I was like, oh, there
stealing from an indigenous culture and we're rooting for that
the whole movie. Like that is such an insidious, absurd
idea to to grow up with, to the point where
it even when I think we're having a lot of

(01:02:05):
larger cultural conversations, we weren't having, you know, ten twenty
years ago, there's still huge movies that can get away
with doing the same old ship like you were saying,
with that, was it a shitty Tom Holland movie that
came out Caitlin Oh starring Jeff Wahlberg's uncle as well,
that's what we should start calling him. God. Yeah, Dora

(01:02:26):
just feels like such a departure from this, not in
every single way, but in the way that again, as
you point out in your video, when it comes to
the El Dorado myth, and then you can extend this
to basically any movie about adventurers looking for any lost city,
any lost treasure, any lost relic, anything like that. These

(01:02:48):
stories are so steeped in imperialism and colonialism and asking
the audience to root for white explorers who are trying
to claim the treasure is their own, or at the
very least they're just showing up uninvited to other people's
homes and cities and territories and trespassing. And the indigenous

(01:03:11):
characters who the white characters are normally stealing from or
invading their space, are never the protagonists of these movies.
They're like aggressively troped and mothered and villainized and like
because it's also it's like even the way we use
the term explorer as it pertains to white protagonists, Like no,
they're colonizers. They're thieves, right, They're not good people, and

(01:03:34):
we should be rooting for them to funk each other
at the end of the movie. Like it's just so
obsert and frustrating. And the movie also does not frame
the indigenous people who they are trying to learn about either,
So that's you know, problem number one, where it's still

(01:03:58):
Dora and her friends who are largely non white, So
I guess there's that, But they're still invading the Lost
City and the people who still live there, who are
also again another trope here, but like magical mystical, Like
they are the only like magical aspect of the movie,

(01:04:21):
like before, I didn't notice that until the rewatch was like, oh,
there's no other magic other than the indigenous transformation and
the curse in the city before that, it's kind of like, yeah,
like that trope of the I don't know if magical
Indian quote unquote is a trope. I think like it

(01:04:42):
sounds like the name of a trope. It sounds like
the name of a trope. I just don't know if
it's like a term. I think I'm thinking of like
a similar trope when it comes to black characters. But
it does feel kind of like that thing where like
it's the contrast between like the the science explorers and
the magical indigenous, like the mystical indigenous, which is very routed,

(01:05:08):
and you know, you know that those kind of like
reasons for colonizing people. It's like, oh, well, they're doing
witchcraft and they're you know, we need to stop them.
Even the whole like hiding thing, it's like it's also
very rooted in this kind of here in Columbia. They
talk about this indigenous malice, which is like it's when

(01:05:31):
it's referred to like this habit of like you know,
like tricking and like hiding, and it's just that it's
a very very bad concept that people just mentioned a lot.
When I'm talking about how people white people here are
so sneaky, it's just, oh, you know, we inherited the

(01:05:51):
indigenous malice, and it's just like, mmm, I feel like,
you know, not wanting people to steal your things doesn't
mean that you're like hiding some thing that's not malicious.
So that brings me to another thing about this movie
and many movies in this genre, But Dora is still
guilty of it, and I Dora meaning the movie not

(01:06:11):
the specific character because did nothing. Dora is seven years old, Caitlin,
So this Dora movie is what I mean. But okay,
so think of like the eraws that the indigenous people
fire at Dora and her friends. Think of the aqueduct
that Dora and her friends get trapped in that belongs

(01:06:33):
to the indigenous people. I think of the various jungle
puzzles and booby traps and all that stuff that Dora
and her friends have to solve and get past. So
it's obviously completely understandable that these indigenous people would want
to protect their land and in their city and set
up defenses against people invading their space and stealing from them.

(01:06:56):
But these things are all presented as obstacles for Dora
and her friends to overcome, and from a storytelling perspective,
the audience is rooting against the obstacles and rooting for
the hero and her friends to overcome these obstacles. So
in this way, the Indigenous people are framed as an
antagonistic force the people and their defenses, right, So it's

(01:07:22):
it's so it's I it's so frustrated because it's like, yeah,
there're like moments where you're like, oh, the movie is
doing the thing that the movie is very self aware
that it shouldn't be doing. And I understand why. It's
like because these are so entrenched in what this genre is.
But it's like this movie gets around so much that

(01:07:42):
there is a way for that to not happen, because
I guess that that is like the trickier part of
I really like, like we were talking about, I really
appreciate and like, how immediately Evil Longoria, I don't know
the character's name. Evil Longoria is Evil Longoria is Eva Longoria.
But she says at the beginning of the movie, we

(01:08:03):
are not treasure hunters treasure she loses treasure hunting bad,
exploring good, which is like, okay, cool, but exploring also
seems to permit and involve like clearly just blowing past
boundaries right that are clearly set. I mean, I guess
that that's somewhat complicated by the fact that they're on

(01:08:24):
a rescue mission. But it's like, I don't know, it's
kind of like that the Indiana Jones thing about how
he's got he's good, he's the good exploring Indiana Jones
because he's like it belongs in a museum, you know,
he's not like he doesn't want to sell the things
for profit or anything. He wants to put it in
a museum. And that's like framed the good thing, but

(01:08:46):
like it's like you're deciding if that should be in
a museum that doesn't belong to you. It's not your
choice to make, right, Yeah, And it's a museum that's
like a shrine to imperial yeah exactly. And so here
it's kind of like, well we're exploring. It's like you're
encroaching upon other people's territory. And I get that they
think that this the city is abandoned and they're like

(01:09:08):
in an anthropological like mission to discover And it's like, Okay,
I guess that's understandable in a in a way of like, well,
you know, but you also don't have any like Inca
people around to help you. You know. The Inca people
are still there, right and want nothing to do with Dora,
Like it's yeah, when they discover that the guardians are

(01:09:31):
still like trying to save a guard the city and everything,
it's just kind of like, oh, okay, well, I guess
we should keep going there, exactly. Deal they're trying to
kill us with arrows but maybe we should just keep going.
And it's like, well, no, that's not the takeaway. Yeah,
it is a tricky thing that again it could be
like just like oh, we're working with Inca, you know, anthropologists,

(01:09:56):
and they also want to discover their city and something
like that, Like, this is not a problem that doesn't
have a solution. I think I always use as a
good example of what an adventure lost X thing could
look like is Mohanna, because it's just it's just kind
of like, oh, she's discovering something that belongs to her

(01:10:19):
own culture, and so she's going through this quest that
she has a personal connection to. So it's like, I'm
not saying that they should have made you know, Dora Inca.
I guess that would come with its own thing, especially
with no indigenous writers. They don't even have like Latin writers,
much less Native Americans in a in a more like

(01:10:42):
general way, not just the United States, like Indigenous Americans
from the two content from the Home. It's weird. It's
I still haven't figured out how to go around the
fact that people in the US called their country America.
It always it always provides a bit of a language
here for me, right, Yeah, I always try to say

(01:11:03):
the states, not that other countries don't have state Like
it's right, it's likes to call it the big old
piss pot, to call it the big toilet. I like
to call it the pooh hole, the pooh hole that
they dig for Sammy to poo in. That's what our
country is wild anyway, that's I mean, that's an excellent

(01:11:28):
I mean, that's an excellent point of just like a
way that you can keep the adventure story and ground
it in a way that isn't taking great pains to
other another culture, which the movie keeps telling you, and
we know we shouldn't be doing that. So then when
it starts to happen more and more like into the
second and then the third act, especially when Dora meets

(01:11:52):
the Ink and Princess, I guess, I mean, it's barely
a conversation. Dora is essentially just like no, I'm good it,
and the Incan Princess is like, oh okay, and like
that's kind of it. You're just like, no, no, no,
that's not what it's interesting because I don't know, I

(01:12:14):
feel like again, like I said, like the movie wants
to have it both ways. It wants to enjoy this
while also being more aware of it, which is the
thing that I want for it because I love the
adventure genre and I don't want it to die. You know,
it needs to evolve kind of like Westerns. It needs
to find something that's not colonialism to attach itself to.

(01:12:35):
And I think like part of where it begins is
to start treating the cultures around the object. It's like
real cultures and not just like set dressing. And I
feel like this movie gets so much of it right.
It's like very it's very kind of quote unquote faithful
to the idea that we have of the Incas in
that time, but at the same time, it's very like

(01:13:00):
gets a lot of stuff weirdly wrong. It uses a
lot of shorthand that is like, oh, I don't know
if you needed that. Like at one point in the
in the aqueduct thing when they're trying to escape it
or I don't know if it's the aqueduct. In one
of the jungle puzzles, there's the golden ratio, really the
golden ratio, and I was like, that's Greek, Like why

(01:13:22):
couldn't you find, like, you know, an inc and mark
of wisdom? It's just like a like knowledge. It's just
always yeah. It's like when in in other movies they're
in like South America, but you see like Mayan pyramids
and it's just like, no, yeah, that's not what this

(01:13:44):
architecture looks like. So like they have so much of
the oh, the astronomy thing that's pretty good, and it's like, yeah,
that's you're you're on the right path. But then they're like, oh,
they this movie does a lot better job than others
treating this is like an actual culture and not just
the generic South of the Border indigenous right, which is

(01:14:08):
always like colorful feathers and pyramids and gold right, which
is which is something we we discussed a little bit
in our Romance of the Stone episode because of the
many ways that that movie completely fumbles representing Colombian culture.
It's like what you're describing of the all over the place,
just lumping in everything other. They didn't shoot the movie

(01:14:32):
in Columbia, it was shot in Mexico. It's like just
all of this stuff that is not furthering a conversation
that needs to be happening among movie goers about, you know,
resisting this urge to lump every non white culture into
one villainous force, like it's just absurd. How yeah right, yeah,

(01:14:55):
it's this generic other it is like, yeah, that's them.
That's why indigenous people look like. And it's always like, oh,
if you're doing an adventure movie that is specifically about anthropologists,
I guess explorers, but I think they're probably anthropologists. They
seem to be bad at the actual like archeology aspect,

(01:15:17):
so they don't seem to know what their job title is,
which I'm just they're like, we're professors, Like okay, so
there are no professors of exploring right other than Indiana Jones.
I guess I guess that is true. I mean that
felt like more tongue in cheek where I'm like, wow,
these five year older like I explore, Um, it has

(01:15:41):
that same energy of the city the jungle, very like
it's kind of like a kid, like a kid kind
of wrote that. I like that. Exploring another thing I
wanted to talk about, and I'm I'm curious as to
what your thoughts are on is so for the ink

(01:16:03):
and Princess, who also has magical mystical powers because she
transforms from an old woman into a young woman. So like,
like we said, there's that kind of like trope of
like the mystical, magical Indian. I feel like there's also
maybe the stoic Indian stereotype at play here, and then

(01:16:28):
Indian just being a term to refer to indigenous people
in general. But I think that's the name of that trope.
But all this to say that this princess slash goddess character, again,
we know nothing about this person, so I don't even
know how to describe them or identify them, because that's

(01:16:48):
how little princess, right, Okay, not that we know that, yeah,
exactly from the movie and the movie it's just like
she she might as well be, you know, like the
security guard, very nicely addressed security guard. Right. So when
she's on screen, she's barely speaking, she's not really reacting

(01:17:11):
to anything that's happening. In this whole climactic sequence. These
intruders have come in, some of whom to steal the
treasures of the city, others too archaeologically document the city. Um,
they're just visiting. There's this tourists. She's really not reacting

(01:17:33):
at all, mostly just kind of standing there stoically and
totally permitting Dora to make this offering to the gods,
and it just confused me as to why if there
are these like lost guardians who have all these measures
to deflect intruders and all these like defense defensive things

(01:17:59):
exactly jungle puzzled to deter intruders, why then when they
do find when the intruders are there, is she just
like mm hmmm, go ahead. So I feel like there's
that stereotype at play. And either way, it's just an
example of the one Indigenous character with this Actually no,

(01:18:22):
because well Tomura Morrison shout out to that actor who
plays one of the mercenaries, who is Maori. We've talked
about him on the show before. He's an aquaman among
many other things. Oh yeah, he's and he's like Mona's bad,
isn't he? Yes, I have to double check that, but yes,

(01:18:44):
So he plays one of the mercenaries, which is also
weird casting to cast an Indigenous actor as one of
the people who is like trying to steal from Indigenous people.
This movie is too inclusive, like more in in his
mercenaries treasure hunting a right, right, that's not the representation

(01:19:06):
we need. You're like, who who's that representing? Like that,
who's that helping. Yeah, and I don't think I even
recognized him, but because he's usually like Boba Fette and
so he's got like a mask on. But yeah, so
that's weird casting. I guess I know him from being
as Dad, so I couldn't have recognizing from that either cartoon, right,

(01:19:31):
So anyway, this princess is um income. Princess is at
the very least someone who we don't know anything about,
which is just another part of this issue of these
stories never being told from the point of view of
the characters who are being invaded and stolen from or
just like you know, these these stories rarely center and

(01:19:54):
again like Mowana is one of these few examples of
an adventure story that you know does center an indigenous
character learning about her own history and heritage. But this
movie leans into too many of these tropes. Yeah, and
like you said, I the whole like stoic affect is

(01:20:17):
very It's like it's like in most and most of
these kinds of movies, like the indigenous women who women
tend to be either you know, very for lack of
a better word, very like slutty, I guess, very like sexualized,
totally available, I guess that's the better word. Found it

(01:20:38):
found it. It's just like the way that they're portrayed.
I'm just tends to be like very American slutty kind
of trope, or like the very stoic you know. It's
just kind of like I think, like Disneyspacajonda's kind of
is somewhere in between. She's very stoic, but she also
falls in love with this guy like very soon. She's

(01:21:01):
just like dressed differently. Yeah. Yeah, she's just wearing less
than any other Disney princess. Yeah. Yeah, so it's kind
of like that. I guess if you have to choose
between her being one or the other, I guess Stowe
gives the better option. But you know, she can also
be fun or angry or like, you know, more interesting

(01:21:26):
emotion than just like blank, right, but yeah, it is
kind of interesting. I mean, I guess we did see
her as the old lady, right, because she's like the
two characters, right, She's the old lady that they run
into that kind of warns them against it. Who is fun.
She's smashing things with rocks. That was like another trope

(01:21:47):
of like older woman, bad and scary and confusing, and
she don't know anything about her, but for some reason,
when she turns into a younger woman, you still know
nothing about her. But it's just but it's good. Now
you're like, because old women are bad. She's young and
hot now, so now we like her. Yea, So now

(01:22:08):
we're like, oh, I'm not afraid of her anymore. It
turns out I'm afraid of older women because kind of
like the beast, if you need the beast, Like, oh, sorry,
I didn't know you were a hot young sorceress, right,
I'm like, she's just fucking your life up like she's
and statistically, sexy people are more likely to ruin your life.

(01:22:31):
That's just a fact can confirm. Yeah, so it is,
it is. It is a very again. The the indigenous
portrayal in the movie is like, I guess, the most
confused aspect of it, the kind of like they keep
validating the indigenous claim over their own territory. They keep
saying like this is not ours. When you have to

(01:22:52):
return that Dora returns the gold that Swiper stole. It's
just kind of like Ciper is a colonizer, right, so
person call sir. In the credit song, they have that
monkey statue again, So apparently Doris family did steal it? Oh,
I thought that was just the one that they already had.

(01:23:14):
Oh did they already have one? Yeah, the one that
I think that's the one that Dora finds. Okay, okay, right,
was like that would be a huge mess. I thought
you were going to mention. I thought, for a second,
I thought you were mentioned. My one qualm with the
credits musical number is that they have to have that
very tired joke of like, oh, indigenous food grows, and

(01:23:39):
that they have that one bid in which they forced
the hand that the best to eat bugs, and it's
just always like right, there's like I can't believe we
haven't gotten rid of that. They even I don't think
a lot of people watch the Jungle Cruise movie Hello five.

(01:24:00):
I mean I watched it because I kind of love
the ride and I love that aesthetics. So I was like, oh,
maybe this will do something interesting like Dora Dead. No,
but they have this one moment in which they're like
at the and one of the indigenous like villages and
the guy's like, oh, this beer is very nice, and

(01:24:21):
then the Dwayne Johnson is like, that's massato, it's fermented
spit and you know, it's very much like the joke
of like, oh, indigenous food is girls, but like, guess what,
that's not what massato issat is one of the most
popular drinks here in Colombia, and it's not fermented spit.
And it's just like kind of like, why do you
feel the need to keep making that same joke over

(01:24:44):
and over again. It's like the Temple of Doom dinner seat, Yeah, exactly.
It's like, do you know what European z eats is? Like, yeah,
but I was about to say, I was like, meanwhile,
you got I'm just dunking on my own and Irish
is over and over it, but like canonically nastiest food
on the planet. I mean, we eat hot dogs. Hot

(01:25:05):
dogs are shut up there, and I love hot dogs. Yeah,
that's right, but it's ape My hot dogs book is
coming out about how awesome, No I'm kidding, guess about
how it's pretty fly, it's pretty fucked up and colonial.
Oh no, okay, I can't believe you would dunk on

(01:25:28):
hot dogs in front of me. Unfucking believable. I'm so sorry.
So one question that I had as I was watching
this movie that required going back to interrogate the source
text of Dora is. I guess Dora the Explorer is
a cartoon that started in two thousand. It was on Nickelodeon,

(01:25:50):
and specifically where Dora's heritages is never specified by the show.
And I was wondering, like, did I misremember that, like
is a certain culture referenced in regards to to Dora
and her family? Could you meet her family in the show?
You see her all the time. But I I went
back and did some research on it, and you do

(01:26:12):
not find out, um and I and I was wondering
how intentional that was? And it was extremely intentional, um,
going back to when this show was first developed. So
bear with me, uh very much to two white women
hosting this show. But there there's a really fascinating paper

(01:26:33):
I found by Ellen Berkman called Dora the Explorer, Latino
Dad and the Crisis of Identity in the Transition to Neoliberalism, which, honestly, like,
that's a mouthful. And I'm also like, this is the
ship that I like to read, Uh, like the same
you said that title, and I'm like, where do I

(01:26:54):
find this? It's a very good paper. I I only
read the first couple of sections. I read the first
twenty pages because the answer to the question is very
thorough and there's more shades of gray than what I
was expecting. What I expected was that Dorothy Explorer was
a show developed by white executives Drew that did what

(01:27:14):
a lot of adventure genres do, which is, you know,
take every single Latin culture and just turned it into
a extremely generalized culture without any specificity, which is what
happens with Dora. But the reason it happened because there's
there is another There's a great radio segment as well
on NPR called the Legacy of Doraty Explorer that came

(01:27:36):
out when this movie did. That unpacks the development of
the show, because Nickelodeon, for you know, all all of
their faults did at this time, especially in the early
two thousands, have by a long shot, the most diverse
slate of shows there. There was like quite a bit
of representation before this time at least, but all these

(01:28:00):
as were run by white executives, usually with consultants, which
is something we'd come up against in movies all the time,
of like why can't not a white guy direct this
movie instead of like we gotta have a white guy.
But we'll hire consultants. It's like, there there's a better
way to do this. But I wanted to quote from
this paper because that is a quality of Dora that

(01:28:23):
very much follows through to this movie. I don't think
that it's specified her country of origin. We just know
that she lives in the jungle, she moves to the city,
and she's from a Spanish speaking family. So this is
about the development of the original animated series. Quote. In
order to make Dora marketable to the widest possible audience,

(01:28:43):
Doris producers took the tact of rendering her as pan ethnic,
that is, the blurred lines of cultural and national identities,
in order to envelope as many Latin identifying communities in
Dora's Latini dad as possible. At the advice of historian
Carlos Cortes, Dora's creators decided to avoid specifying Dora's national origin. Instead,

(01:29:05):
they placed her in a fictional and unnamed world full
of mixed Latin signifiers which cannot be located on any map,
but recall real world locations and elements. Cortez argued that
this would allow all Latin children to see in Dora
a hero that they related to and we're proud of
while non Latin children could quote embrace someone different unquote,

(01:29:25):
Dora's creators enthusiastically admit to designing Dora according to this logic,
that is, to giving her what they call quote pan
Latino appeal unquote. Their phenotypical design decisions reflect the same intentionality.
For example, they changed Dora's eye color from green to
brown after content supervisor pointed out that the majority of

(01:29:45):
Latino's have brown eyes unquote. Though delocalizing, dehistoricizing, and despecifying
uh Dora's identity in these ways maybe a financially advantageous tactic,
it creates a glaring contradiction that destabilizes Dora's character when
partnered with her alleged quote unquote authenticity. To create a
pan athic stereotype of Latino Dad and then to label

(01:30:06):
it as authentic is to erase, reduce, essentialized, and fetishize
a multitude of national, cultural, ethnic, racial, historical, and linguistic identities.
And then to claim that the products still perfectly mirrors
reality unquote, which that totally scans for me. And then
on the other side of this very of this very

(01:30:29):
real reality, Okay, Jamie uh uh sounds like your PMS
is acting up again, that my pms make me forget
word um wow feminist podcast. Uh well, and well this
is true. On the other end of that, it sounds like,
based on this oral history that was put together that

(01:30:52):
one of the reasons that decision was intentionally made was
because Nickelodeon was going on the assumption that there was
only own to be one shell that would have a
Spanish speaking protagonist, and they wanted so there was like
almost a pressure to represent as wide a net of
of children as possible, because of course we're not going

(01:31:13):
to have two shows with Latin characters from a specific culture.
That would be ridiculous. And so it's it's a very
like early two thousand's style paradox. But I will link
the paper if if you if you want to dig
into it. It's a really really fascinating read that very
much like Unpacts. Like, while Dora was certainly a huge stride,

(01:31:37):
there is still a lot of marketing Hollywood over sanitized
bullshit attached to the franchise. Yeah, I the quote that
you read, I feel like, more concretely and more eloquently
than I ever could have put together, like a very
good idea that I like, that idea of that pane look,

(01:32:01):
that pan Latino aesthetic that is so popular in a
lot of Hollywood media. It's always kind of like a
one hand, it's like, oh, that's nice. I mean we
you know, I certainly did not grow up watching a
lot of Latino kids shows other than like, you know,
like ones that were made in Latin America. But you know,

(01:32:25):
I being a little kid, sometimes you like the cooler,
shinier foreign stuff better. I guess that's not an experience
that Americans have, but it is an experience that not
kids usually know. Yeah, exactly like I guess it's not
until like you're old enough to recognize that American booze
is not very good and you start looking for European one.

(01:32:46):
But Mike's hard lemonade, Mr Hard, Mr Hard lemonade with
like a word. I guess I was thinking of like Champagne.
I don't know. I drink. I only drink the cheapest
thing I can find, So I'm not a good I'm
not a very good reference for this. I don't know
why I chose that. Similarly, I need a drink um?

(01:33:11):
Are you also? Pms sing? I don't know mabe it
can be transmitted through contagious Uh. You know, ever since
I watched Turning Red, it's been, it's been, it's been
feeling very much like that. I forget what I was saying. Oh,

(01:33:35):
the pan Latino thing. Yeah, so you you grew up
wanting to watch for and stuff because you know, it
has like a better budget, it has like cooler things.
I don't know, it's like kind of like preferring Nickelodeon
or Disney Channel to like PBS Kids. I guess kind
of like that same thing applied to like, oh that country.
It just has a better budget, so those shows always

(01:33:55):
look nicer and stuff like that. So I guess I
grew up watching stuff about Latina people, but it was
more like Latina made content. And when he came to
like four and one is like, yeah, there's Dora and
there's um I'm drawing up link here about like TV
shows or something like that. I loved The Brothers Carcia.
That's a very specific early two thousand show that I

(01:34:17):
loved on Nickelodeon is The Brothers. I was. I'm only
remembering it because the show's about Latin kids and teenagers
were like heavily referred to in this paper. But the
Brothers Garcia was really fun. And then Tyina. Did you
ever watch Tina? No, I don't know what this is?
Was like the best. She was an Afro Latino girl

(01:34:40):
who lived in New York and went to like an
art high school, and she wanted to be a famous singer.
And it was everyone in middle school was like Tyin
as a hero. She had like a pink denim jacket.
It was very exacting. I don't think this show made
it here. I don't. I don't think I had heard
of it. I wonder how it holds up. Just remember

(01:35:00):
thinking Tina was the coolest, and um she was. She
also has played by the same actor who plays Lindsay
Lohan's bandmate and Freaky Friday. She plays like the goth
girl who's like, yeah, yeah, I really love her. She
is amazing. Yeah kind of on another side, So the

(01:35:25):
paper you cited obviously made a ton of amazing points
which extend to the Dora movie as well, because Dora
and her family's specific heritage is not identified. But as
I was looking for a specific review of this movie,
which is a whole other section that will get to

(01:35:47):
in a moment, but I was looking for a specific review,
and I thought it had been published in the l
A Times, So I just like googled, like l A
Times Dora and the Lost City of Gold review, hoping
that I would find it. I didn't, because it turns
out the review I was looking for was in the
Hollywood Reporter. But what I did find was like several
different articles in l A Times alone about Latin A

(01:36:12):
writers talking about how it was so meaningful for them
to see Dora and the Lost City of Gold just
for Latin a representation in a movie. So even though
it genericizes the culture and basically just says, oh, Dora

(01:36:32):
is obviously Latina because she speaks Spanish and other reasons
because like and again, there's no specific cultural things that
really get mentioned, so there's not a whole lot to
go on. But despite that, there were a lot of
people because I don't remember anyone talking about this movie

(01:36:53):
except for me when I saw it in theaters, Like,
I don't know if I just missed the Twitter conversation
about it. I think maybe just like people my like
our age weren't talking about it or what. But like,
it is also the kind of movie where it's like
the audience of this movie is a little unclear to me, Like,
I guess it's yes, it's adapting a show about a

(01:37:15):
seven year old turning her into a seventeen year old,
but she still acts like a seven year old. And
it's for a show that is like low key not
really on as much as it used to be, which
is a lot of like reboot culture issues where you're
like is this for me? If so, thank you? Like right,
it does feel like a family movie that like, it's

(01:37:37):
kind of like, yeah, if you're a kid who watched
the show, you'll enjoy it. But also if you remember
watching the show, you'll enjoy two because it's a little
bit grown up. Yeah, but I didn't they don't know
if they marketed that way. It was a very confusingly
made and marketed movie. And in regards to tone and audience,
it's like, I guess you just want to catch everyone. Yeah, fair.

(01:38:01):
I mean I enjoyed it as an adult. Kids probably
did too. So there was a bunch of fart jokes,
so an extended pood joke, I don't remember. I also
don't remember people talking about it though, right, no one
was talking about it, and if there was any conversation

(01:38:22):
about it. When it came out, I just kind of
missed it because I was the only one of my
friends who saw it in theater. Like no, like no
one was talking about it that I was aware of.
So anyway, so I was looking for a specific review
and I found all this other writing that had been
done about it that I just missed. But there was

(01:38:42):
a lot of appreciation for the movie. It's Latin a family.
Many of the main characters, voice actors included are Latin. Yeah,
so there's just it just like it is a story
about Latin a family and they're going on an an adventure,
and there was just a lot of excitement about that

(01:39:04):
as far as representation goes in a Hollywood movie. I
want to be clearance that that paper has written about
the animated series. That's not a criticism of the film
at all, but just that that was like a question
I had. That is something that was like carried over
into the movie. But I mean, I totally agree that
it's like I don't think it's a bad thing that

(01:39:26):
her going on an adventure isn't inherently connected to her culture.
That happens in adventure movies more often than not. I
guess the cool thing that I don't know if this
is what the writers that you were mentioning in the
article we're talking about, But I think it's cool that
you have this like Latino family at its core, which

(01:39:47):
if I were to guess, it's probably like a Mexican
American family, just because of the esthetics of like, oh,
they're like their life in l A. It feels very
kind of like Chicano to me. I might be wrong,
but it does feel kind of like that. It's very
weird that they didn't decide to then set the movie
in like Mexico instead of the Amazon, But you know,

(01:40:11):
I guess they were still going for that pan Latina
like appeal. But regardless of whether or not their specific
caricages reference, I do understand that there's something meaningful in
the fact that they themselves, at no point in those
stories are like mothered for that there's no reason to
justify them being Latina other than the fact that the
I p s. So I don't know, you get so many,

(01:40:35):
so many stories that feature Latinic characters have to justify
it in some regard. Sometimes sometimes you can be very specific,
and sometimes you can be very like oh look, I'm
representing this very specific culture, but it doesn't land the
same way because you're still centering the story on wideness,
which is kind of my main complaint about the New

(01:40:56):
West Side story. For example, It's just like, yeah, you
can go all in on the Puerto Rican components of it,
but this story still centers itself so much on whiteness
that it is kind of a little tiring. It was
a little tiring for me to watch in some regards well,
mostly because the movie taunted itself as being a very

(01:41:17):
relevant and modern update. You have to say, yeah, it's like, okay, sure,
I guess there's no Natalie Wood and Brown phase anymore
so points, but um, that's a very little bar. But
in Nora, there's no need for that, you know. You you
you can just have these people exist in their own

(01:41:41):
little adventure movie and it doesn't have to justify itself
like oh yeah, I don't know. It's uh, it's kind
of refreshing the pressingly, so even if we don't get
into the specifics. Even even when you get into the specifics,
a lot of Americans don't care. I saw so many
people being like, oh, I didn't even know that Encanto

(01:42:05):
was said in Colombia, I just looked like the generic
Latin American country to me. And it's like, well, maybe
you are the problem here, like that movie tells you
where you are exactly. It's like maybe if you if
you don't think they all look like Mexicans or something
like that, then you won't have that problem. So I

(01:42:26):
don't know, I do wish and I always talk about
how important it is that we are more specific in
our stories, Like, especially when I lived in l A.
It was very easy to get branded as like, oh,
a Latino storyteller, and it's like, yeah, I mean, I'm
more of a Columbian storyteller, but I guess you could

(01:42:46):
call my stories Latina, even though they tend to be
very Columbian in point of view. So I always appreciate
that kind of specificity. But I do recognize that something
that what Dora does is also valuable and uh, not
having to question the ethnicity of their characters and doing
so in a way that it's fun and I don't know,

(01:43:10):
it doesn't have to deal with baggage that much, like
it just allows allows Latino people to exist without having
to question their validity to be there at all. Right,
did that have to do with what we were talking about?
I feel like, again, exactly what that makes totals it's

(01:43:31):
such a dense, complicated but it's like I think, for
the especially for the tone of what this movie is,
it makes total sense and it probably behooves the story
to like no, I mean, and then it's I don't know.
In my mind, I'm like, Okay, there's a way to
be specific without centering the story around it. But it's
I don't know. I mean, it's like, it's not like

(01:43:53):
agent Cody Banks is trapesing around wherever the funk he
is being like I'm irish, like you know, Like, so
that was No, I loved it. Maybe that I don't
remember what happens to that movie. Maybe that is what happens.
Maybe no, don't. Yeah, don't you remember that Cody Banks

(01:44:13):
goes in an extended tirade of would United Ireland. Yeah,
that's how I how I learned about that conflict through
through Cody Cody. Oh my god. Okay, So the review
that I was trying to find was a Hollywood Reporter

(01:44:35):
review by critic Todd McCarthy, who did not like the movie,
and some of the reasons I mean, all the reasons
he sites are I would say, not valid. I don't
agree with his review, but some of them are just
like just fucking gross because he's basically saying the movie
is to like sanitized and squeaky clean, which was refusing

(01:45:00):
for him because Dora is too sexy, basically like she's
aged up to be a teenager. So like people telling
on themselves like this. Do you remember that review of
The Little Mermaid that was like, I want to fund
this Mermaid so bad? I hated the movie because like

(01:45:20):
what stop? Like, do you know you're writing this down? Like? So,
I'll share an excerpt just to demonstrate what film writing
by some critics still is. So this is what Todd
McCarthy said about the movie quote, what keeps things alive

(01:45:45):
up to a point is the imperturbable attitude of the
titular heroine, who was invested with try and Stop Me
spirit by Isabelle Emer said, who's actually eighteen and looks
it despite preventative measures. The same goes for Jeff Wahlberg,
whose nineteen. There's a palpable gap you can't help but

(01:46:06):
notice between the essentially innocent, borderline pubescent nature of the
leading characters and the film itself, and the more confident
and mature vibes emanating from the leading actors. The director
seems to be trying to keep the hormones at bay,
but there are some things you just can't disguise, perhaps

(01:46:28):
human nature first and foremost. Dora seems committed to projecting
a pre sexualized version of youth, while throbbing unacknowledged. Beneath
the surface is something a bit more real, its presence
rigorously ignored. End quote. Is he like in jail? Yeah? Like, dude,

(01:46:55):
Dora isn't protecting anything you're doing projecting. I do like
this is so nasty for so many reasons. And I
also feel like there's the additional racially charged tendency to
over sexualize Latina actors. And then there also is a
part of me that is like someone publishing and l

(01:47:16):
this severe is so bizarre, like it was bizarre in
nine when maybe it was that guy. Maybe this is
just his claim to fame where he's like, I want
to have sex with cartoons, but I can't and that
makes me mad, and I'm a give me my paycheck.

(01:47:38):
Wow wow wow, wow wow stop. Absolutely wild that this
would get published It's just I'm just horrifying and just
getting worse. It's just getting worse. It's like, oh, she
was she was like sixteen with an Adultie would be
weird to talk this much about her throwing under a surf,

(01:48:01):
but we're talking about a character. Yes, Oh so jail,
jail jail. Oh that was brutal. I was I was
going to say, because we have a few more plot
things to kind of zoom through, is that the way
that Dora was dressed I thought worked for the movie.

(01:48:24):
She's you know, she she wears a couple different outfits,
like none of them are drawing attention to her body.
And I feel like if this movie was made even
ten years ago, it would have been like Dora's all
grown up and it's like, yeah, she's all grown up
and she's you know, wearing a shirt like it's all good.
And the fact that we even have to point this
out is like, Wow, she's dressed appropriately and not over sexualized.

(01:48:47):
But that's an issue that exists in Dora the Explorer
Cannon because in that show Dora and Friends, she's like
aged up to be twelve or thirteen, and they change
they give her like a curvy body shape and like
pink a her or like you know, not not the
original pink, you know, like pastelify her or whatever it is.
And so I did appreciate that, at least I do appreciate.

(01:49:10):
It's not like, you know, no one's getting a metal
about it. But like when a franchise or an I
p like gets flak for some ship like Dora did
an oh nine I checked and then course corrects it
and future iterations. I feel like that is net good
and which also makes this writer even more of a

(01:49:32):
perfect because I'm like, she's wearing a fucking crew neck
T shirt. What is wrong with you? Yeah? If you
walk into Dorothy Explorer being like, god, I hope it's sexual,
It's like what, Yeah, what are you expecting? Todd McCarthy like,
what what talking about? Todd? Buddy? Buddy, buddy, We're worried

(01:49:56):
about you, buddy. That's the nastiest thing I've ever ready
speaking of inserting sexual stuff, not sexual but like love
stuff where it doesn't need to be. I didn't like
Marky Mark's nephew and Sammy with the forced love story.
It didn't fit, It didn't make sense. The chemistry wasn't there.
Between the characters and there's already a more interesting thing

(01:50:17):
going on with Sammy and Dora, and that took away
from it. Yeah, I didn't like the Shoehorn love story
at all that moment. I think when they wake up
in the box and like they're like kind of like
leaning against each other. No, it wasn't there. It was
when they were in the museum and they were like
kind of like bantering a little bit. I was like, Oh, no,
they're gonna fall in love. And every time that is

(01:50:40):
something Games happened, it was like who needed this questions,
especially because I kind of love Sammy's characterization. Yeah, it's
just kind of like her and Dora are kind of
very like girl bossy in a way that sometimes feels
a little bit uh pandery, like in the in that
like faux family an ism of like movie studios like

(01:51:02):
to plug I guess, but it made it was kind
of endearing because I was like, Oh, this is kind
of how a lot of like like you know, like
model u N teenage girls behave. It's kind of like
kind of like that girl bossy behavior that is kind
of they're projecting it because they're learning about it, but

(01:51:24):
they're not like yet in the nuances of it, and
I thought it was very fun. It felt very sincere
to how high schoolers behave, at least that kind of archetype.
I also thought it was interesting the and this is
maybe kind of corny, but Diego calls Sammy bossy and

(01:51:45):
she responds by saying, oh, what what next? Are you
going to call me shrill or too difficult? And then
she alludes to the fact that he has taken a
misogyny one oh one class, which is pretty funny. I
hated that that was like, I was like, good job, whatever,
it's fine, it's for kids. It's like it works for

(01:52:05):
the genre. But I was just like, wow, two white
dads really are fucking clapping themselves on the back at
home for that, Like that is what it feels like
to us. But I will say I thought it was
since we we see characters say problematic things in movies

(01:52:26):
all the time, and it's rare that it ever gets
called out or challenged, like Sammy actually challenging that. I
was like, Okay, that's at least something we don't see.
And if kids are seeing this movie and they see
an example of a character being the recipient of sexism
and then that being challenged like that could set an

(01:52:47):
example for a young person watching this. It's totally fine.
I just I just remize it like that. But also
I'm not you know ten so sorry, I just insulted you. Friend.
That was kind of the scene that made me realize,
like what I was just said, like like you said
to me feels very like patting, like self congratulatory. But

(01:53:09):
at the same time, I was like, I I do.
I do think that some high schoolers speak with that
kind of thanks. So I don't know if it was
on purpose in that way. It was probably not, but
it worked that way. It was kind of like, yeah,
it is, I don't know. Like she she goes to
the costume party to the Halloween ball dressed as like
Ruth Bader Ginsberg. It's like, I know. I was just like, okay,

(01:53:30):
first of all, she's going to grow out to be
fucking Jen Saki or like something kind of bleak. Actually,
she's gonna grow up to be a centrist, Sammy the Centrist,
so real quick back to the wedged in Diego Sammy
love story. I also did not care for it for
a number of reasons, not the least of which is

(01:53:51):
the Sammy surprise kisses Diego at the end, which I
feel like it's a new trend of like more contemporary
movies of like now the girl to probably kisses the boy.
Isn't that so subversive? Isn't that feminism? And it's like no, no,
people of any gender should be surprised kissing anybody else
of any gender, So that was annoying. I also kind

(01:54:13):
of thought that maybe they would wedge in a Dora
and Randy romance, especially because they bonded so much over astronomy.
My guess was that it was there and then they
wrote it out or something like that, because it felt
like that was planted because he kept he was doing
that like weird guy from a Disney Channel show thing
where you keeping like, yeah, we have so much in common.
I'm like, I hate this. I feel like he kept

(01:54:35):
planting like, oh, maybe something flirty is going to happen,
and it seems like maybe I got scaled back or cut. Yeah,
that meeting seed that like when they meet, it definitely
feels like a crush set up. And then it was like, oh,
they didn't feel the need to follow up on that.
They probably it might have been cut in the editing,
you might have not even been like in the writing
right because they shot it that way, right, because so

(01:54:59):
many movies would be like, oh, well, it's a boy
and a girl and they're close to each other and
they have one thing in common, so obviously there they
should kiss at the end. Again, the bar is so low.
But the fact that the movie didn't do that, I
was like, okay, point for the movie, have a point
like the others the other right, so they can't slay

(01:55:20):
each other out. So that's disappointing. And then I think,
Jamie you mentioned. The more interesting relationship dynamic that's happening
here is the one between Dora and Sammy, where it
starts out antagonistic and you know, Sammy is threatened by
Dora for a specific reason. It does feel a little

(01:55:40):
petty to me, but you know, Sammy's used to being
the smartest person in the room and she really likes
it that way, so that when Dora comes along and
she also knows things, she's like, who is this other
person who is smart? There can only be one girl
kind of how that the beginning of that storyline, But
it changed just quickly enough that I was like, all right,

(01:56:02):
we got out a trope territory. I do think it
started in trope territory, right, Yeah. I am a girl
that's smart, and more than one smart girl is is
poison to me, and I'm a bully. Now you're like, man,
that's not really how that goes. Smart girls in high
school actually desperately cling to each other because you're not safe,
you know, right, so um, but yeah, they become friendly

(01:56:26):
and I appreciate that arc. I like that it is
kind of an arc like Dora's arc. It's like, like
you said earlier, because it kind of set up was
like Dore, it's to change or something like to fit in,
and it just becomes an arc about like her learning that,
you know, having friends is good. It's just very sweet.

(01:56:47):
It's kind of a sweet coming of age adventure movie,
I guess. But it is cool that she has an
arc of friendship with this, with her cousin and the
two kids, that it's like she doesn't have to be
in the romans with any of them. It's just kind
of like a like, oh, having friends is cool, and

(01:57:07):
it was just very sweet. I was I was very
endeared by Ed. Maybe I was just a weird kid. No,
I I also appreciated it, So those stories always get
to me. Yeah, um, does anyone have anything else that
they want to discuss about Dora in the Lost City

(01:57:27):
of Gold? Um, I just went to shut out the
other women in Dora's family. I liked Dora's connection with
her parents. It didn't feel like it leaned too heavy
on one parent. I feel like sometimes you get like
dad is the best one and mom is yelling at
me or disappears, and like, I appreciate it seems like

(01:57:48):
there was sort of even parent distribution. Evil Longaria and
Michael paniar having having a blast. Michael Pane is like,
did you hear I'm Chuck e Cheese favorite actor? Also,
I love antology whatever. Like anyways, UM, I wanted to
also shout out Dora's grandma, who has played by um.

(01:58:09):
I want to pull her name up because I recognize her.
She's a character actor who's been in a ton of stuff.
Adriana Barrazza. I remember her most clearly from I mean,
she works with in Or Too a lot. She's a
Mexican actress and she also like I didn't realize this
before I was doing research for this episode, but she
also developed the Mexican method of method, acting like she

(01:58:34):
has a super successful performance school and that she runs
in Mexico. She's like a huge fucking deal and I
wish that she was given more to do. She's barely
in the movie. It's basically a cameo for someone who's famous.
As her She's been in huge movies. I personally loved her,
and she then dragged me to Hell, a movie I love.

(01:58:56):
She kicks as in that movie. I don't know how
that movie ages, but I used to really love it.
Um because we'll have to do it on the podcast. Honestly,
I feel like there's so much to talk about and
I never want to cover a Justin long movie for
some reason. I don't know what it is. Maybe I
just didn't like those commercials he was in, but I
I don't like to look at him. But I love

(01:59:16):
dragging me the hell being so mean to all boys today.
I appreciate you haven't been mean to me, No and I,
and it's not going to happen because I would never
put you in the same category as Mark Wahlberg's nephew.
That's insulting. I think the first time I watched it,
I thought he was fine. I agree that. In the rewatch,

(01:59:39):
I was like a little like, oh, he's not very good,
especially because the other three kids are pretty good. But
it was kind of like the first time I was
just like, Oh, he's a very accurate, like straight Latino
kid like that, like you know, doesn't show emotions, and
mostly because he wears a soccer jersey to the Halloween
ball as a cost him. And I was like, that's

(02:00:00):
like straight Latino culture right there. I've seen that first hand.
They think that that's like a costume and it's just like, no,
it's not. But so I was like, oh, yeah, he's
the quintessential like straight Latino. And then in the second
time around, I was like, oh, maybe he's he's not
quite there yet. Watch him become the most famous actor

(02:00:22):
in the entire world and this will aid so poorly
and actually nepotism is genius. And then in a few
years they'll talk about Jeff Waldberg's uncle. Yeah, well do
you remember Jeff Alberg's uncle. Hey, you know how we
have not been passing the Bechtel test for the past
couple of minutes because we were talking about Jeff. Well,

(02:00:45):
what about any scenes in this movie that do pass
the Bechdel test. I really don't specifically, I don't know
if it's the only one, but it's definitely the one
that just made me realize, like the conversation that passes
the Bechdel test. He's about poop. Yeah, there is a
conversation that passes. Yeah, there's a full poop conversation. There's

(02:01:05):
also between Dora and her grandmother. They talk about high
school and being and like Dora feeling lonely. And it's
an extended scene and I don't think there might be
mentioned of like oh Diego said, called me weird? Do
you think I'm weird? Grandma? But other than that, yeah,
he's not like the topic right, it's about Dora's feelings.

(02:01:26):
That's so much better is to use as an example
than the one about the poop. No, that's one of
my I think that that's entering the pantheon of fun
passes because there's no way around it that passes. With
flying brown colors, I like saw you hesitating, and I

(02:01:47):
was like, what is Jamie gonna say? I got p MS.
I'm being a fucking misinterested and I'm talking about poo poo.
Louis Cannon, Wow, much like a a loose butthole. Remember
we talked about shreks loose. But I was like, huh, yeah,
we did talk about We've talked about We've really just

(02:02:09):
talked a lot in this lifetime. We gotta stop. Sometimes
people will say it say the listener will be like,
do you remember when you said this? And then they'll
say the most fucked up thing I've ever heard. I
was like, no, I have no recollection of saying saying that,
but I believe you. Oh gosh, yeah. I think that's
why I can never have my own podcast. But I don't.

(02:02:30):
I can't have so many of the stuff I say
out there on the record. It's brutal. It'll come to
haunt me. Not in like old tweets kind of way,
but in like, remember when you said that that was
kind of my stuff, and it's just like like in
a very weird way. And it was like, yeah, I
would see. I usually don't remember that stuff. I don't

(02:02:50):
need to say them to a mike. Fast forward to
me like three years from now, being like Caitlin, I
am working with Mark Wahlper's nephew. I need you to
take down the Dora episode. This is literally already happened
multiple times, and I refused to learn my lesson. Yeah,
we really do dig ourselves into a hole, a pooh

(02:03:14):
hole poo Okay, and we're back. The movie passes the
Bechdel task. Should we gick it to the nipples? Let's
do it? So I would give this movie m M.
I loved it so much, and it definitely gets ten
out of ten on the Caitlin Rombo meter. And even

(02:03:35):
though it is far more self aware than other movies
of this genre and calls out and challenges several of
the weaknesses of this genre, it's still does the things
for the most part in its representation of Indigenous people
and culture. Some of the stereotypes that are used, the

(02:03:59):
failure to care drives the indigenous characters even a little bit.
Those things are not great. On the other hand, you
have a female protagonist, which is rare for this genre.
You have a teen girl driving the narrative. She's comfortable
and who she is. She's such a likable character. The

(02:04:22):
Latina Latina latin X representation that is again sadly all
too rare for a major Hollywood movie. Um, And it's
just these characters, they're living their lives they're going on
an adventure, they're doing the things they like to do.
Is again unfortunately still quite rare. That was exciting to see.

(02:04:48):
Uh so it's complicated. There's a lot of things happening here.
I would ultimately give this movie. I would give it
three nipples. It's got many strengths, that's got many weaknesses.
I think it's a good stepping stone movie in terms
of like, maybe the next adventure movie you know will

(02:05:08):
be even more self aware and subscribe to fewer of
the tropes, will be less directed and written by entirely
white guys, which I feel like we yes, right, even
when white guys are doing a pretty good job, if
it's still all white is not good. Yeah, and they're
still kind of doing a bad job. So, uh, this movie,

(02:05:31):
this movie again, it feels like a stepping stone for progress,
but not all the way there. So three nipples. I
will give one to Dora, I will give one to Sammy,
and I'll give my third nipple to the mention of
monkey Facts, which is not unlike Cat Facts with Caitlin.

(02:05:55):
But there's a character who I don't even think we
talked about, um one of the mercenaries. I think his
name is a viper. He says something like monkeys can
carry three times their own body weight. That's just a
monkey fact. So I was like, wow, we're learning so
much truly, Um, I'll meet you at three as well.
For for I mean, we've we've a boy if we

(02:06:17):
discussed a lot, We've discussed longer than the movie, and
I think that there is Yeah, it feels like a
stepping stone movie that certainly moved things in, moves things
in the right direction. It also is like we we
didn't discuss in this episode. There's always like, especially when
a movie is providing heightened representation for anybody and the

(02:06:39):
supply is kind of across the board. But because this
movie does have such strong Latina representation, there is always
undo pressure put on those movies that doesn't exist for
movies y protagonists, and that's not a fair or you know,
reasonable thing to do, and that is always kind of
a tricky line to toe as well. I think this

(02:07:03):
movie is so sweet and fun and does not treat
indigenous culture with any of the sensitivity that the politics
of this movie seem that you would think like it's
it's so bizarre, and I you know, the white guys
at the top of the production. Don't love that, but
the performances are so fun. The movie is a blast.

(02:07:26):
I love poop pole uh, and I'm getting all three
of my nipples to fucking so wiper my boyfriend. Yeah, cool,
Jamie Cool, I'm going to jail. I'm like Todd, I'm like,

(02:07:47):
like the swiper was throbbing and I was upset by
that much rather you talk that way about Swiper is
portrayed by very of age Nico, So I first, he's
a ground man. All right, let's get off this. And

(02:08:09):
what would your nipple rating? B Um, I am going
to give it three and a half of my poles.
Everything that you said I agree with, and that you know,
it has very good female characters around, which is the
story like revolves, and I enjoy that. It's just it's
just it has a very good cast of characters, and

(02:08:31):
like half of it is like female, and they're all
very good. It has that, like what I said about
like that Latin, a core cast that doesn't have to
justify its own identity in order to be part of
the story, which I always appreciate that. That's always fun, um,
and I appreciate that it means well on paper in

(02:08:53):
terms of bridging those gaps between what the adventure genre
has been and what it could be. But I also
so agree that it stumbles near the finish line in
terms of depicting its indigenous characters as more than just
magical beings that are there for plot reasons. It's just

(02:09:16):
it's a shame because, like you said, the rest of
the movie is very fun, it's very entertaining, very creative.
If if if all reboots were like this, then maybe
people wouldn't complain so much about them, right, Yeah, so
three and a half seems fair, and I'm going to
give one to Dora want To Samy just like you did,

(02:09:37):
just because they deserve them. Want To was always kind
of very charming, and he was donkey Shrek, so like
I have to pay my respect. I did not know
that until you mentioned it earlier, and that's very exciting
to me. That to me as like he probably has
a boat, like imagine, that's so that's so much money.

(02:09:59):
That's why, Yeah, I can't watch Shrek or Shrek two,
the ones that I like in English, because the Spanish
dubbing is so good. The Latin American dubbing is amazing.
I should watch those. Oh my gosh, it's very good.
Anton is also doing puzzing boots and I don't know,
there's something about Shrek having this very thick Northern Mexican

(02:10:22):
accent that it's just a lot of fun. Um. And
I'm going to give the half nipple to Mark Wahlbrick's
nephew because we've been very mean to him throughout this
and I think he deserves has potential something. He's young,
he'll learn, he'll get better. Your nipples are your nipples, man.

(02:10:42):
Just I'm giving him the half for a reason. Well, Jose,
thank you so very much for putting up with us
for two and a half hours. Thank you for having me.
I had a lot of fun for most of those
two and a half hours. All of them. Well, I

(02:11:03):
was like, whoa the twist. I was like, which minute
sucked there? When we talked about our pms for forty
five minutes, that was the highlight. Yeah, of course, okay, truly,
thank you so much. Um. Everyone should watch Jose's video.
We will include it in the description of this episode.

(02:11:24):
It's an excellent watch. And yeah, tell us what else
people can check out of viewers, tell us where they
can follow you on social media all that stuff. Well,
you can find me on Twitter at jose M Luna.
I also have like my YouTube channel I guess where
I occasionally dropped some essays if the time allows for it.

(02:11:48):
I just finished one on incanto and its roots in
Columbian literature. I'm very proud of it. I think it's
my best one. Yeah, I've done three, so it's not
a big compliment. But yeah, yeah, I think my YouTube
channel is just my name. Nice, but we'll link to
that as well. Yeah. Your your essays are truly so brilliant.

(02:12:09):
Big fan of your work. Thank you for coming by.
Thank you. That means a lot. This was I had
a blast. Oh gosh, Well, folks, there you have it.
That was our unlocked Matron episode on Dora and the
Lost City of Gold with special guest jose Maria Luna.

(02:12:31):
If you liked it, you should, I don't know, maybe
subscribe to our Matreon to hear more episodes like it.
Truly like not to We're kind of on a role
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You know, not to sell you on it one more time,

(02:12:53):
but it is so fun. It's where we cover popular
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Back to School September, um, but we had never been
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(02:13:13):
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Caitlin and I once again get back toel Cast unleashed.
During our birthday months, we cover the Netflix holiday movies. Um,
it's really a welcome It's really a place of chaos

(02:13:36):
and beautiful chaos. Absolutely, and so thank you for listening
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(02:13:56):
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(02:14:17):
picture of Brendan Fraser and I got distracted. I understand
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public dot com slash the Bechdel Cast for all of
your merchandizing needs. If those are needs that you have.
And with that, why don't we put on our backpacks

(02:14:39):
and get our little monkey sidekicks, get my little map.
I go on a little adventure, and I promised to
be nicer to Mark Wahlberg's nephew this time. Bye Bye,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dora and the Lost City of Gold with José María Luna