Matthew's Honors FYE Blog: Week 7: Diversity & Inclusion III

Introduction

In preparation for the week's FYE classes, we watched another film called "Instructions not Included" and discussed the themes and issues presented in the movie. This film was released in 2013 and featured Eugenio Derbez who also directed it, and was one of the writers.

Eugenio Derbez (It's hard to believe that he's actually 58😲) (1)

Movie Review

Movie Poster (2)

I'm probably one of the few people who found the entire movie ( with the exception of the ending 😢) to be hilarious. Some of my favourite jokes in the film were the Angelina Jolie adoption idea or when Valentín says,"I think Julie gave me something but I got rid of it with penicillin" and of course, Johnny Depp's cameos on the film stage and courtroom. All of the actors gave a wonderful performance to bring their characters to life. I love the symbolism of fear being equated to wolves. Valentín's soliloquy was really impactful to me, because it effectively summarized his views of his life experiences. This is also the first blockbuster film in Spanish that I've watched. I just hope that there was no significant change in the dialogue's meaning when it was translated from English to Spanish, but there are some scenes that featured American characters who spoke English. There was no difficulty in understanding the film because of the subtitles. This may sound weird, but I watch videos that are in English with English subtitles on as opposed to without subtitles.

Spanish Title for the film (3)

Annlee Ellingson of Los Angeles Times, wrote a review (4) about the film which held similar views to mine. I also believe that the movie is "a sweet, funny and poignant comedy" . She also provides interesting points such as her belief that the Spanish Title , "No Refunds Accepted" , is "a much more appropriate description of this story about a daughter no one wants". Ellingson thinks the film "speaks to universal themes about love, fear, parenthood and death in the context of a quintessential L.A. story in which immigration is touched on, if not significantly engaged".

However, there are some parts of her review which I don't agree with - when she says that the film is "aimed squarely at a Latino Audience. Almost anyone can enjoy the movie because the majority of the jokes aren't specific to Latinos. Furthermore, the issues and themes presented in this movie aren't exclusive to one region since parenting, crime, poverty, immigration,etc. are worldwide issues.

Overall, it's a really funny film that you can both laugh and cry. My only concern with the film's plot and logic is why did Julie give Maggie to Valentín if he wasn't the father. Furthermore, the movie made it look easy for Valentín to hitchhike to Los Angeles with his baby.

Class Discussions

In class this week, we discussed some of the themes in the film and their relation to real life. The first topic we discussed was the stereotypes in the movie such as the role of women as caregivers, busy movie directors who don't pay attention to their surroundings, Mexicans trying to cross the border illegally in a trailer, transgendered women who have deep voices,greedy landlords and the belief that all American girls are pale,tall and have blonde hair and blue eyes. We focused more on the transgender stereotype and Dra. McGrath explained to us that the truck driver,Lupe, has a Latina girl's name which is a joke we wouldn't have caught on. We also talked about the unexpected ending 😭 - Maggie dies in Valentíne's lap next to Julie.

Valentín and Maggie (5)

No one saw it coming, because we all thought that Valentín was terminally ill. The majority of the class said that scene spoke to them the most. I love the simple reflection by Valentín when he says that his father taught him how to prepare to face life while Maggie taught him how to face the unexpected things in life.

Loreto Peralta (Maggie) is way older now (6)

Another important issue we discussed was the custody case of Maggie- Valentín won the case against Julie until he failed his paternity test. My classmate who worked in a law firm, Emma, said that women win custody of their kids most of the time as long as they pass a drug test. Dra. McGrath clarified that there are some States that favour women and some that favour men for the custody of their child. My classmate Bry-Anna told us that her biological mother has custody of her, but her biological father is the one who actually takes care of her. The custody case brought up the systemic inequality in the justice system.

In the next class, we explored the ethical dilemmas of when to tell a child the truth that they're adopted as well as how to as well as what Valentín did was the right thing to do. The topic changed to whether being biologically related to family is important or not. Some of my classmates said that their grandfather wasn't biologically related to them. My classmate, Toni, said that both of her parents were adopted and that her mom cares about her ancestry while her father doesn't care too much. We also briefly went over cognitive bias. Cognitive Bias is about our brains having a thinking bias where our brains have to deal with too much information that has little meaning in very little time. This a struggle that we all face to a certain extent.

Final Thoughts

The wolves known as "fear" (7)

All in all, “Instructions not Included” is a really fun but heartbreaking film to watch. It brought light to the issues of parenting, unplanned pregnancies, custodial cases, telling lies and hiding the truth.From the movie, I've learnt that the longer you hesitate about something, the harder it is to do it. We have to learn to not be afraid of the wolves know as “fear”. You have to get up and go; take a chance and be strong, or you could spend your whole life holding on.