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Sometimes You Just Have to Lose the Crazy Tio : On Lou Dobbs

29 Jul 2009

Last night I was honored to speak with a class at the College of Mount St. Vincent on an alternative vision of media and left asking the students to make at least one piece of independent media part of their daily intake, since on a constant level they (and all of us) are fed messages from the corporate media.

Pero sometimes the message being sent is just so out there, such a sad attempt to maintain legitimacy in a changing world, that you have to ask. Why are you still here? That’s the question for CNN’s Lou Dobbs.

His scapegoating of immigrants (racialized as Latinos, especially Mexicans) has turned into a tired old sideshow act or worse, he’s that viejo uncle at everyone’s holiday dinner/family reunion. You know, he’s the one that everyone wonders who the hell invited him again about as they grit their teeth and listen to his ranting. His newest skipped record rant is the “birther” issue, that is that President Obama’s birth certificate isn’t legit and that he’s an…..”illegal”.

Ok that was actually a little scary.
Read more…

“Miss Spain” Moves to Mexico

6 Jul 2009

Times are tough for beauty pageants. With every year that passes they become more irrelevant and more of a joke than a competition to most. Perhaps that’s why Spain’s “Miss España” pageant is suffering so much that they need to take the show on the road: to Mexico. The organization’s president admits that the economic crisis is what lead Miss España to leave la madre patria and move to el nuevo mundo:

It is the first time in 49 years that the event will be celebrated outside of the country. “The world economic situation has forced us to open up borders,” said Andrés Cid. He also mentioned that the decision will “possibly open doors to future events in different places around the world…”

Why Mexico? Because the Mexican tourism industry is still suffering the effects of the swine flu and needs a platform from which they can talk the hundreds of thousands of Spanish tourists who visited the Riviera Maya each year into coming back.

So it works out like this: lack of interest on the part of the Spanish public and low ratings = the pageant needing money. Mexican tourism authorities buy something that won’t work for them, since no one is watching this in the first place. Nice little deal.

Via / 20 Minutos

Paquito Cordero is Dead

4:52 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Media|Puerto Rico|TV · Comments Off

2 Jul 2009

Puerto Rico lost a television pioneer this past Tuesday, when Paquito Cordero passed on at the age of 77. The Puerto Rican government has declared 3 days of mourning for Cordero. EFE reports:

“The people of Puerto Rico start the day in mourning for the sad loss of one of the greats among our artists and a man of the people,” Fortuño said in a press release.

Francisco Cordero was born in 1932 in San Juan’s Santurce neighborhood, and after attending the Central Upper School, began his artistic career as an actor when television arrived in Puerto Rico in 1954 on the program “Mapy y Papi,” together with his aunt Mapy Cortes (1910-1998).

His greatest legacy as a producer was the program “El Show de las 12” (12 O’clock Show) for Telemundo Channel 2, which aired at midday.

The program was transmitted for the first time on Jan. 11, 1965.

In addition to his work as a producer and comedian, Cordero is often credited with the international success of Menudo.

Via / Latin American Herald Tribune

Migrant Detention Under The Obama Administration : Will RI4A Address This?

3 Jun 2009

So here I am at the Reform Immigration for America Summit in DC and the opening luncheon inside the Victory Tent was filled with people chanting Si Se Puede/Yes we Can! The message from all the speakers was clear, yes there is alot of work to do but that ultimately victory will be ours. Pero what does victory look like?

Maria Socorro Pesqueira, from Mujeres Latinas in Accion de Chicago spoke of her own personal experiences coming from an immigrant family and looked at the immigrant woman’s experience specifically. She gave examples of immigrant women whose families were fragmented by an enforcement first immigration agenda, an agenda that according to Socorro Pesqueira, left one child in the streets calling our for her detained and eventually deported father. As a mother, who is here with my youngest, this brought me to tears and even writing about it now makes my eyes well up.

The underlying assumption though, or my perception of it from the RI4A Summit and from the immigrant reform movement in general is that things are different now with Obama in the White House. Are they really?

Almodovar to Make U.S. TV Series Based on “Women on the Verge”

2:05 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Culture|Movies|Spain|TV · 7 Comments

19 May 2009

Pedro Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is considered a comedic masterpiece and is a personal favorite of mine. One might think I’d be excited about the premise of bringing it to television, but more than enthusiastic, I am feeling a bit tortured. This will be either the best or worst show ever:

Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar is venturing into television with a series adaptation of his first international hit, the Oscar-nominated 1988 feature “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”

Fox TV Studios is developing the English-language hourlong project and has tapped Mimi Schmir to pen the pilot script. Almodovar and Schmir are exec producing [...]

The “Women” series “will be a suburban drama about a group of women who have known each other for a long time, perhaps from college, who are in the middle of their lives and looking at the second half of their lives,” Schmir said.

Like the movie, the series will feature a fair amount of humor. Schmir also is planning to pay homage to the movie by keeping some elements, like the film’s ongoing gag of unsuspecting visitors to the actress’ apartment being knocked out by sleeping pill-laden gazpacho she had intended for her philandering lover.

That sounds…boring. I am not going to judge too much before seeing it, but I think a lot about what makes Mujeres al borde special has to do with the when, where and who of the film. When? The 80s. Where? Downtown Madrid. Who? Some of the best comedic actors Spanish-speaking film as ever seen — and at their prime at that. How do you pull this off in a U.S. suburb? And furthermore, how do you make the premise worthy of an on-going series? I’m just not seeing it.

Have a look at the clip from the original classic and let us know if you think this show has any chance in hell of being good.

Via / The Hollywood Reporter

Obama Expanding Bush Immigration Enforcement Policy of Checking Local Jails

19 May 2009

45606280-150x150 President Obama has promised over and over again how immigration reform is a priority for his administration. Pero there have also been signs that Obama, who out of political necessity is playing cautious, is willing to follow in the enforcement first policy footsteps of his predecessors.

According to the Washington Post:

The Obama administration is expanding a program initiated by President George W. Bush aimed at checking the immigration status of virtually every person booked into local jails. In four years, the measure could result in a tenfold increase in illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes and identified for deportation, current and former U.S. officials said.

The fact that President Obama has moved forward on this first and not a moratorium on ICE raids that break up families, is very telling.

Shooter identified, speculation begins

6:44 pm By la Macha · Immigration|TV · 1 Comment

4 Apr 2009

immigrantgunman As many of you may have heard by now, the gunman who shot and killed at least 12 people and then himself has been identified as Jiverly Wong. The details about this man’s life are slowly starting to emerge–and speculation is beginning. According to the AP, Wong was a Vietnamese immigrant that had really struggled since he came to the U.S.:

Police and Wong’s acquaintances portrayed him as an angry, troubled 41-year-old man who struggled with drugs and job loss and perhaps blamed his adopted country for his troubles. His rampage “was not a surprise” to those who knew him, Zikuski said.

“He felt degraded because people were apparently making fun of his poor English speaking,” the chief said.

Wong, who used the alias Jiverly Voong, believed people close to him were making fun of him for his poor English language skills, the chief said.

Until last month, he had been taking classes at the American Civic Association, which teaches English to immigrants and helps them prepare for citizenship tests.

As many of us who are in the middle of or otherwise connected to the immigrant community know, picking up and moving from your place of origin is an incredibly difficult experience under the best of circumstances. When you don’t speak English and don’t have a job, things get even worse. And if you leave your family behind or otherwise don’t bring along or join any support networks once you get to where you’re going, things are near impossible.

But of course, the complications of living in entirely new surroundings with little to no support structures and possibly also having mental illness complicated by drug use–those things will not be investigated into at all in this horrific case. What people will focus on is that Wong “hated the U.S.”–which, of course, implies that he was a terrorist. Or had terrorist connections. Or believed in terrorism. Etc. Etc.

I don’t for a minute want to suggest that this guy is somebody we should not be angry at, not be disgusted by, not be enraged at. He murdered other people who are in the same damn position he is–making the lives of their families unspeakably grief stricken.

But if we ever want to make these stupid, senseless, horrific shootings STOP–we must not take the easy way out and blame this man on “terrorism.” We must be willing to look in multiple places for the answers–our mental health system, our networking system for immigrants, the hyper violence of our culture that invites violent responses to seemingly trivial issues. There needs to be more than one method to “catch” somebody who is living on the brink of violent explosion–and as it stands, we don’t even have one method.

I send good thoughts to the families and community dealing with this crisis right now.

Did you Watch Pedro Last Night?

6:19 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|GLBT|Health|TV|youth · Comments Off

2 Apr 2009

Trouble at The Real World House in MTV’s New Movie, ‘Pedro’
Uploaded by wiredset

I skipped my usual Wednesday night Lost so that I could watch the MTV biopic, Pedro, about Cuban HIV educator and activist Pedro Zamora, turned MTV reality star via the Real World.

I had already seen a few clips and was less than impressed with the acting on display pero I have to admit that Pedro was kind of engaging. You have to understand that I am not the audience. 30 somethings who remember the Real World San Francisco and who have grown up with a greater awareness of HIV and AIDS not to mention the struggle for gay equality may feel like the film Pedro is a little scattered, which is probably good for younger audiences who are used to their info in small pieces.
The film after all isn’t meant to be just a tribute pero also a message to young people to talk about their sexual health including using condoms and getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

Spoilers ahead:
No one is going to get an Emmy for their acting in the film. The scenes showing life on the San Francisco Real World set were especially painful to watch pero how do you film the filming of a reality show. The film does a better job at showing us what wasn’t seen on the Real World. Pedro’s family history, how he came from Cuba on the Mariel boatlift with his parents and some of his siblings for example. Some of the actual cultural details about Afro-Cuban religion were not done very well though.

The lines between Orishas and Santos were crossed, as they often are in real life, pero to someone not educated the whole scene of Pedro seeing a Santero on a beach with dancers could seem a little too no se, superstitious and confusing, as was Pedro’s mothers explanation of la Caridad del Cobre, her santo and patrona de Cuba, when really it seemed like she was talking about Oshun.

I did enjoy seeing how the film dealt with the struggles of a young man coming out to his family and later confronting his family and others with not just his illness pero also his choices on how he wanted to live as an HIV positive gay man. Something that struck me as I watched the film, something I had always taken for granted before, was how the wedding between Pedro and Sean back in 1994 must have been shocking or por lo menos cutting edge to some and yet seen through the lens of the current same sex marriage struggle, so sweet and innocent.

I would like to rewatch Pedro with my older daughter to see the kind of message it speaks to her porque I am clearly not the MTV generation anymore. The message the film, and numerous public service ads throughout the film, was trying to make was that anyone can get HIV if they don’t take care of themselves, meaning if they don’t use condoms and get tested. Pedro tried to paint Pedro Zamora less as an activist and more as someone who could be you or your friend and no one likes to think of themselves or their friend dying.

Pedro Zamora’s Real World Story Comes to MTV Tomorrow Night

7:58 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · GLBT|TV · 3 Comments

31 Mar 2009

Tomorrow night, MTV, mtvU, LOGO and MTV Tr3s will premiere Pedro, a movie about the life of “The Real World’s” Pedro Zamora. Here’s a sneak peek:

Real World Cast Make a Toast in MTV’s New Movie, ‘Pedro’
Uploaded by wiredset

I remember when the Real World actually seemed real and Pedro’s season was one of them. Pero no se, just based on the clip, it does look pretty poorly acted. So why will I be watching anyway? Pedro Zamora was first-ever openly gay, HIV-positive main character on TV and he was Latino involved in an interracial relationship so his presence on TV was historic and the issues raised important. He was an activist and educator. His family fiercely loved him and I remember being impressed by those aspects of his life. And the film is being aired not just as a memorial biopic, pero in an effort to encourage young people to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases as April is STD Awareness Month.

Pedro, was written by Dustin Lance Black who wrote Milk, and I already explored some of my issues with that film.

I’ll watch and let you know my thoughts on Thursday.
Will you be watching? Why or why not?

UPS Will Not Deliver to Bill O’Reilly

6:37 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration|TV · Comments Off

31 Mar 2009

ups_hydralic_1 My UPS guy kind of has a cosa for me, pero I am very happy that the company of UPS has decided it will no longer have a thing for Bill O’Reilly and his FOX News Show.

Thank you for sending an e-mail expressing concern about UPS advertising during the Bill O’Reilly show on FOX News. We do consider such comments as we review ad placement decisions which involve a variety of news, entertainment and sports programming. At this time, we have no plans to continue advertising during this show.

Via / Think Progress

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