Friday, January 18, 2013

Watched A Bit Of "Nacho Libre" Last Night

They had 2006's "Nacho Libre" on the teevee last night. That movie is way, way hilarious! One of the best comedies of the last ten years, and, to date, Jack Black's best work!

I started watching too late to catch one of my favorite scenes, where Nacho (Jack Black) and Esqueleto (Hector Jimenez) discuss baptism. What makes this discussion really interesting is that it precisely captures Mexican history, which has been split in half since the Enlightenment by people of faith, and those of science.

All people of Mexican heritage (and other heritages too) are children of this deep split. I never met my grandfather, so I can't for sure tell exactly how he thought, but from what I know, he sounds like a science guy. My grandmother was a faith woman. My uncle and aunt were faith people, and while my father was mostly a science guy, he tried fashioning a compromise between the two outlooks (which I found unsatisfactory). I'm extreme science; so much extreme science that I'm practically completely off the Mexican scale, just like Esqueleto, which is why I identify so much with him.

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