Jessica Alba & Michelle Rodriguez talk Machete.
By Jason Apuzzo. Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez recently sat down for an interview with ComingSoon.net about their participation in Robert Rodriguez’s new film, Machete.
Here’s Alba, speaking about the film:
“I love the political message. I love the exploitative platform to kind of talk about something that I feel is so relevant. It’s been something that’s been ripe in the Latino community for a long time.”
I love the exploitative platform? I hope what she means by that is the fact that Machete is basically a 70s-style, exploitation-film knock-off … not that she loves ‘exploiting’ the platform of the cinema. [Sigh.]
In any case, ‘exploiting’ seems to be what Robert Rodriguez is doing with this film. As we reported to you on Friday, there are some extraordinary new details we’re learning about what’s in Machete, including this tidbit from The Hollywood Reporter:
Among “Machete’s” more provocative elements are border vigilantes led by Don Johnson as a kind of avatar for Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio and fake political ads for an incumbent senator whose platform is built on his “hard line against wetbacks” and a description of them as “parasites.” That the two characters murder a pregnant Mexican woman to prevent her baby from being born in America and then shoot her distraught husband while uttering the line, “Welcome to America,” underlines the point.
I’m really hard-pressed to understand how this sort of thing helps matters in terms of the ongoing immigration debate. It seems more like a flaming gas can thrown on an already roaring fire … by narcissist Hollywood celebrities who themselves won’t be around to clean up the mess after they’ve helped cause it.
Posted on August 30th, 2010 at 12:52pm.
Disgusting, that’s all I can say. If Alba really wanted to solve the problem, she wouldn’t take part in a movie that demonizes Americans like this. As for her implying that this is something that been in the Latino community for a long time but no-one has been brave enough to say before in a movie – that’s ridiculous.
Any and every Hollywood or indie film that deals with the US-Mexican border depicts Americans as intolerant psychos. For the overpaid Alba (who seems to have done great in America) to imply that this is something that has been simmering in the Latino community for a long time but has never gotten out before is ludicrous. Wasn’t there that Tommy Lee Jones movie from a few years ago “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” (sp?) where they show white Border Patrol shooting Mexicans in the back? Didn’t the Ben Stiller movie “Heartbreak Kid” take potshots at US border officials? Didn’t “The Day After Tomorrow” take potshots at US immigrations policy? And didn’t “Traffic” and “Babel” also go after US immigration/border officials? How about the Spielberg film “Terminal” (not about a Mexican, but shows the US customs & immigration acting abusively to a European man played by Tom Hanks)? I could go on and on, but the point is clear. This crap is in countless Hollywood films.
The partisans of the Mexican illegals too often seem to hate America. If they don’t hate America, I would like to see some evidence to the contrary – maybe some patriotic films for starters, or maybe something positive that they say about this country that they all want to come to so badly – but then demonize once they’re in it.
And how about some criticism once in a while of the extreme corruption of the Mexican government that can’t even run its own country or manage its own rich resources properly so that there would be jobs and opportunity in Mexico so that people would want to stay? For example, there’s some pretty interesting reporting out there on how the Mexican government has completely destroyed the oil and gas industry in Mexico by nationalizing it and mismanaging it so badly that it’s robbed the country of billions and cost countless jobs – and they’ve done that to plenty of other industries as well.
And now Americans have to pay for the Mexican government’s mistakes … and get abused in ugly Hollywood films like this.
Ditto on all that, Serve.
Awesome comments Serve. There’s actually more PROVEN reserves of oil in Mexico than in Saudi Arabia! However, due to the incompetence, corruption and utter stupidity of the Mexican government they cannot get it out of the ground. I think Rodriguez and the entire crew of Machete should all relocate to Northern Mexico with their entire families as a sign of solidarity for that wonderful country.
I was disgusted by this movie. I had to endure this gross misrepresentation once again of the American people so I could discuss it intelligently. It was grossly violent and the usual Hollywood sick stuff they propagate to stir up trouble instead of uniting Americans. I am going to blast this movie every chance I get all over the internet and to everyone I know. This was disssssgusssssting……………
Yeah, it was exceptionally hateful. Thanks for giving us your thoughts, Trina.