Imaginum

Typical Mexican movie for children! Tons of slapstick violence which causes laughter without being violence-free, and despite the annoyance of the voices which sound awfully affected, as in anything dubbed into Spanish. Children throughout Mexico are starting to use, in their everyday speech, the fake-sounding syntax and unauthentic phraseology they hear in dubbed animations, their own linguistic identities being threatened.

It gets worse: The story is OK but teaches children the "values" of racism, for not a single person of color is found throughout the film, which takes place in Mexico. Ironically, this is typical of Mexican mainstream TV and film. All the characters are fair-skinned and many are blue-eyed and have blond, brown, or even orange hair. As in any soap opera by Televisa or TV Azteca, the Mexican wealthy minority seems to be the target audience.

Children ride vehicles without wearing seat belts or helmets; they drive ultrafast wit no regard for the elderly or other pedestrians, this being portrayed as funny but clearly not the best values to teach children in a country where traffic etiquette has a long way to go. There is even a scene in which the Beatles are crossing Abbey road and have to run for their lives as the child's vehicle passes through. I don't find this funny, considering the number of deaths by impact we have in my "peaceful" Mérida.

I'm ashamed that Mexico still produces racist films and that movie makers aren't even close to understanding that this is wrong. Due to Mexico's poor educational system, both public and private —which teaches students to comply to, not to question, status quo as they learn the "how-to-do" of things—, most Mexican children and parents would not get my point even if I spelled it in Spanish. Yet, once you watch this film, you might agree in that I am merely stating the obvious.