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| ‘Flamin’ Hot’ Is So Bad, It Burns | |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| “Flamin’ Hot,” a movie released this month and recently screened on the South Lawn of the White House, is a piece of propaganda designed to make Mexican Americans, and Latinos more broadly, feel good about ourselves. There’s nothing inherently wrong with creating a film that seeks to make a person or a group feel good (see: the genre of feel-good movies). It can even be affirming to see yourself reflected in various media. | “Flamin’ Hot,” a movie released this month and recently screened on the South Lawn of the White House, is a piece of propaganda designed to make Mexican Americans, and Latinos more broadly, feel good about ourselves. There’s nothing inherently wrong with creating a film that seeks to make a person or a group feel good (see: the genre of feel-good movies). It can even be affirming to see yourself reflected in various media. |
| But “Flamin’ Hot” is not only a very bad movie. It is a poor piece of propaganda. Wittingly or otherwise, it bolsters the white supremacy it purports to combat. By depicting a world in which Mexican Americans (and by implication all Latinos) need the approval of white people to feel good about ourselves, it reinforces the myth of white superiority. Winning, in the world of “Flamin’ Hot,” means becoming like those who oppress you. | But “Flamin’ Hot” is not only a very bad movie. It is a poor piece of propaganda. Wittingly or otherwise, it bolsters the white supremacy it purports to combat. By depicting a world in which Mexican Americans (and by implication all Latinos) need the approval of white people to feel good about ourselves, it reinforces the myth of white superiority. Winning, in the world of “Flamin’ Hot,” means becoming like those who oppress you. |
| Given the gross underrepresentation of Latinos and our stories on bookshelves, small screens and silver screens, criticizing Eva Longoria’s feature directing debut may provoke fellow Latinos to paint me as an anti-Latina, as a race traitor, as a pocho, slang for a Mexican American who’s lost his connection to his ancestry. | Given the gross underrepresentation of Latinos and our stories on bookshelves, small screens and silver screens, criticizing Eva Longoria’s feature directing debut may provoke fellow Latinos to paint me as an anti-Latina, as a race traitor, as a pocho, slang for a Mexican American who’s lost his connection to his ancestry. |
| I should be happy that the movie was picked up at all, they’ll say, and by Searchlight Pictures, Disney+ and Hulu no less. | I should be happy that the movie was picked up at all, they’ll say, and by Searchlight Pictures, Disney+ and Hulu no less. |
| But I’m not content with crumbs. Nobody should be. Latinos deserve complexity and nuance, truth and beauty. Latinos deserve art, not insultingly simplistic, barely disguised agendas that undermine our inherent and inalienable dignity. | But I’m not content with crumbs. Nobody should be. Latinos deserve complexity and nuance, truth and beauty. Latinos deserve art, not insultingly simplistic, barely disguised agendas that undermine our inherent and inalienable dignity. |
| “Flamin’ Hot” is a film based on the life of Richard Montañez, a man who claims to have invented the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto. He almost certainly didn’t, a fact we know thanks to The Los Angeles Times. Even so, Montañez, played by Jesse Garcia, is portrayed as a janitor turned Flamin’ Hot Cheeto inventor and marketing whiz. Through hard work and initiative, he saves his factory and his co-workers’ jobs, earning a place among C-suite executives in the process. | “Flamin’ Hot” is a film based on the life of Richard Montañez, a man who claims to have invented the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto. He almost certainly didn’t, a fact we know thanks to The Los Angeles Times. Even so, Montañez, played by Jesse Garcia, is portrayed as a janitor turned Flamin’ Hot Cheeto inventor and marketing whiz. Through hard work and initiative, he saves his factory and his co-workers’ jobs, earning a place among C-suite executives in the process. |
| “Initiative” is an important word in “Flamin’ Hot.” Early in the movie, when Montañez is scrounging for a job, any job, a white shop owner tells him that he just doesn’t “look like the kind of guy who’s got an ounce of initiative.” Montañez’s arc over the next hour and a half reaches a thematic climax during a phone call with Roger Enrico, then the chief executive of PepsiCo and by extension, Frito-Lay. “I can’t stop thinking about your initiative,” Enrico says. | “Initiative” is an important word in “Flamin’ Hot.” Early in the movie, when Montañez is scrounging for a job, any job, a white shop owner tells him that he just doesn’t “look like the kind of guy who’s got an ounce of initiative.” Montañez’s arc over the next hour and a half reaches a thematic climax during a phone call with Roger Enrico, then the chief executive of PepsiCo and by extension, Frito-Lay. “I can’t stop thinking about your initiative,” Enrico says. |
| Montañez has won over a white man. | Montañez has won over a white man. |
| “Initiative” brings to mind another purportedly uplifting film, “Stand and Deliver,” the 1988 drama starring Edward James Olmos as Jaime Escalante, the Latino math teacher who transforms a class of underperformers into overachievers. In that movie, the operative word is “ganas,” a term that denotes desire, ambition, initiative. “You already have two strikes against you: your name and your complexion,” Olmos says in one of the movie’s most famous scenes. “You’re going to work harder here than you’ve ever worked anywhere else,” he tells the class. “And the only thing I ask from you is ganas.” Thirty-five years later, “Flamin’ Hot” conveys the same message: With hard work and initiative, you can dispel the stereotype of the dumb, lazy Mexican. | “Initiative” brings to mind another purportedly uplifting film, “Stand and Deliver,” the 1988 drama starring Edward James Olmos as Jaime Escalante, the Latino math teacher who transforms a class of underperformers into overachievers. In that movie, the operative word is “ganas,” a term that denotes desire, ambition, initiative. “You already have two strikes against you: your name and your complexion,” Olmos says in one of the movie’s most famous scenes. “You’re going to work harder here than you’ve ever worked anywhere else,” he tells the class. “And the only thing I ask from you is ganas.” Thirty-five years later, “Flamin’ Hot” conveys the same message: With hard work and initiative, you can dispel the stereotype of the dumb, lazy Mexican. |
| Stereotypes are a fact of life in a racist society. Understanding that they are reductive generalizations, rather than enduring truths, does little to drain racially coded behavior of its stakes. In college, for example, if a white professor or peer were late to a class or meeting, I’d assume they had a good reason. Were I late to a class or meeting, I couldn’t help but wonder if some thought I was on “C.P. time,” so-called colored people time, a concept I only learned about through the comedic stylings of Bill de Blasio and Hillary Clinton. | Stereotypes are a fact of life in a racist society. Understanding that they are reductive generalizations, rather than enduring truths, does little to drain racially coded behavior of its stakes. In college, for example, if a white professor or peer were late to a class or meeting, I’d assume they had a good reason. Were I late to a class or meeting, I couldn’t help but wonder if some thought I was on “C.P. time,” so-called colored people time, a concept I only learned about through the comedic stylings of Bill de Blasio and Hillary Clinton. |
| But haven’t we realized by this, the 2023rd year of our Lord, that the onus is on those who hold the stereotype rather than on us? “Flamin’ Hot” says “no,” that only through the gospel of ganas may we enter the kingdom of heaven. The film fails to realize that America is a Calvinist country — our works won’t save us. At this point, Latinos won’t persuade anyone to accept us who hasn’t already. We’re wasting our time trying. | But haven’t we realized by this, the 2023rd year of our Lord, that the onus is on those who hold the stereotype rather than on us? “Flamin’ Hot” says “no,” that only through the gospel of ganas may we enter the kingdom of heaven. The film fails to realize that America is a Calvinist country — our works won’t save us. At this point, Latinos won’t persuade anyone to accept us who hasn’t already. We’re wasting our time trying. |
| But, oh, how “Flamin’ Hot” tries. In one scene, a few white kids tease a young Montañez about his lunch, a burrito. “Looks like it came out of a toilet,” one says. Montañez loudly extols the virtues of his lunch: “Oh, my God” he says in a heavy accent, his eyes going wide. “So good! Delicioso! Want some?” One kid dares his friend to try it. A cascade of praise follows after he takes a bite. “Hey, this is pretty good!” he says. “I want some! Give me one!” says another. And thus Chipotle is born. | But, oh, how “Flamin’ Hot” tries. In one scene, a few white kids tease a young Montañez about his lunch, a burrito. “Looks like it came out of a toilet,” one says. Montañez loudly extols the virtues of his lunch: “Oh, my God” he says in a heavy accent, his eyes going wide. “So good! Delicioso! Want some?” One kid dares his friend to try it. A cascade of praise follows after he takes a bite. “Hey, this is pretty good!” he says. “I want some! Give me one!” says another. And thus Chipotle is born. |
| Later, when trying to convince a pessimistic co-worker that the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto is the key to saving the factory, Montañez looks back at that moment: “Sometimes, we just got to show them what the burrito’s worth.” He continues, “It may look like it’s worthless, but if people just took a bite, they’d see.” If it’s not clear — these lines are delivered with the subtlety of a brick thrown through a window — Montañez is talking about more than just burritos. There are more explicit and egregious examples of our people being analogized to food throughout the movie. In another scene, Montañez refers to workers in the endangered factory as “a bunch of brown chips on a conveyor belt, waiting to get tossed.” | Later, when trying to convince a pessimistic co-worker that the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto is the key to saving the factory, Montañez looks back at that moment: “Sometimes, we just got to show them what the burrito’s worth.” He continues, “It may look like it’s worthless, but if people just took a bite, they’d see.” If it’s not clear — these lines are delivered with the subtlety of a brick thrown through a window — Montañez is talking about more than just burritos. There are more explicit and egregious examples of our people being analogized to food throughout the movie. In another scene, Montañez refers to workers in the endangered factory as “a bunch of brown chips on a conveyor belt, waiting to get tossed.” |
| “Flamin’ Hot” offers a road map to winning over the White Man: Try our burritos, get to know us and see that we’re not all bad! And the movie is book-ended by scenes in which Montañez wins a seat at the literal and metaphorical White Man’s Table. The camera opens on a shot of Latino chefs cooking, then follows a Latino waiter around a restaurant that, save for Montañez and his wife, looks to be patronized entirely by white people. As Montañez exits the restaurant, he doles out generous-seeming tips to the wait staff, the busboy and the valet, all Latino. | “Flamin’ Hot” offers a road map to winning over the White Man: Try our burritos, get to know us and see that we’re not all bad! And the movie is book-ended by scenes in which Montañez wins a seat at the literal and metaphorical White Man’s Table. The camera opens on a shot of Latino chefs cooking, then follows a Latino waiter around a restaurant that, save for Montañez and his wife, looks to be patronized entirely by white people. As Montañez exits the restaurant, he doles out generous-seeming tips to the wait staff, the busboy and the valet, all Latino. |
| “Flamin’ Hot” isn’t even effective propaganda. There can be a successful Latino, the movie says, but only one; the people who serve him must also be Latino. Almost all the white people in the film are cast as villains, but in the end, they are bafflingly worth joining rather than defeating. You can be a Latino and take a white man’s place, but once there, you have to maintain the existing racial order. | “Flamin’ Hot” isn’t even effective propaganda. There can be a successful Latino, the movie says, but only one; the people who serve him must also be Latino. Almost all the white people in the film are cast as villains, but in the end, they are bafflingly worth joining rather than defeating. You can be a Latino and take a white man’s place, but once there, you have to maintain the existing racial order. |
| I don’t tend to watch movies that speak so directly to this aspect of my identity. It’s not because they don’t affect me, but because I fear they will affect me too much. Feelings can be overwhelming, feelings about race unbearably so. But when I saw that much of the criticism around the movie dealt with its lack of veracity, I wanted to see it for myself and take it on its own terms. | I don’t tend to watch movies that speak so directly to this aspect of my identity. It’s not because they don’t affect me, but because I fear they will affect me too much. Feelings can be overwhelming, feelings about race unbearably so. But when I saw that much of the criticism around the movie dealt with its lack of veracity, I wanted to see it for myself and take it on its own terms. |
| A movie can depart from the strict truth and capture a broader, deeper truth, so I hoped “Flamin’ Hot” would surprise me. Watching it was an utter disappointment, and I can only hope that the people who are enthusiastic about it soon train a more critical eye on it and on what it stands for. Once we realize that it’s asking us to grovel for white acceptance, to join the ranks of the oppressors without meaningfully improving the lots of all of us, we should never stream this movie again. | A movie can depart from the strict truth and capture a broader, deeper truth, so I hoped “Flamin’ Hot” would surprise me. Watching it was an utter disappointment, and I can only hope that the people who are enthusiastic about it soon train a more critical eye on it and on what it stands for. Once we realize that it’s asking us to grovel for white acceptance, to join the ranks of the oppressors without meaningfully improving the lots of all of us, we should never stream this movie again. |
| I hope Ms. Longoria makes another movie. I hope that more stories about Latinos, by Latinos, make it into our various media. But I also hope those stories cover new ground in the quest to map the reality of being Latino, of being human. “Flamin’ Hot,” rather than expanding or even aptly describing that reality, constricts it. | I hope Ms. Longoria makes another movie. I hope that more stories about Latinos, by Latinos, make it into our various media. But I also hope those stories cover new ground in the quest to map the reality of being Latino, of being human. “Flamin’ Hot,” rather than expanding or even aptly describing that reality, constricts it. |
| Adrian J. Rivera (@lwaysadrian) is an editorial assistant in Opinion. | Adrian J. Rivera (@lwaysadrian) is an editorial assistant in Opinion. |
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