Hmmm... methinks I've neglected my thread... yoshi... ikimasu!
Anax said:
Sorry about that, it clearly shows my ignorance...
A lot of the time I end up feeling like crap because of all the stereotypes I've grown up with and ended up assimilating to a point I don't even see them in my speech. Again, I'm sorry.
Oh no - no offense was taken. I was bitching about Antonio Banderas, not your remark.
Sorry if I gave
you the wrong impression.
Anyway, I'm not
offended by stereotypes per se. This is something on which Mexicans tend to be different from our neighbours to the North, who are quite sensitive to stereotypes.
No, no, I was just playing around. That I'm not a fan of Antonio Banderas is true. That I'm disappointed in his movies is true. But let me elaborate a bit more on how it is that I'm disappointed and why.
Ahem...
Punto número 1.
The man can't speak in a Mexican accent.
Not even close. In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even try. The end result is akin to watching Hugh Grant play a U.S. American: sure, if you don't know jack about English, it's all Chinese/Greek/Whatever to you, but if you do... I mean, no, you don't buy it. Now, why would anyone cast someone who doesn't sound Mexican in the role of a Mexican character? Ah, yes, that would be
STAR POWER.
Strike one.
Punto número 2.
Of all the bad movies he could have made, he took it upon himself to be associated with the "El Mariachi trilogy" (if you wanna call it that). Now, I'll forgive Johnny Depp for staring in the last one, because he's Johnny Depp. He's one of my favorite actors and I love the rest of his movies. Plus, he's not Hispanic.
Antonio, we cannot forgive so easily, considering that he's Hispanic and that his best movie yet is "Shrek 2".
Strike two.
Punto número 3.
Of all the bad movies he could have made, he took it upon himself to be associated with the "El Mariachi trilogy". No, I did not make a mistake by copying the previous opening line. No, no, such association is so bad in my book that only Johnny Depp could possibly escape unscathed.
Salma Hayek's two finest qualities have nothing to do with her abilities as an actress, which I frankly don't know, since I'm always busy admiring those two qualities of hers. If she'd been naked throughout the entire movie, I might not even have noticed Antonio (but she wasn't, so I did). The point is that she remains unscathed because there is nothing to scathe her of in my mind.
Hear now,
why I abhor the Mariachi movies. It's not just because they're bad. It's because they were
popular.
This means they have influence. This means that people all over the world now associate Mariachi with gun-totting solo guitarrist psychopaths. Lonely, gun-totting solo guitarrist psychopaths. Gun-totting solo guitarrist psychopaths who play in bars.
And this, my friends, is SOOOOOOOOOOO far from the truth it isn't even funny.
Random person A: "Oh, Pete, I figured most Mariachi aren't gun-totting psychopaths. They're just solo guitarrists, right who dress like Antonio Banderas did, right?".
Oh, you
wish,
Random person A, you
wish.
Now, feel my pulsing mexicanness as I illuminate you all as to the meaning of "mariachi".
Iwanin's Mariachi Myths
By Iwanin.
1. Mariachi are soloists.
Contrary to popular belief, the term "Mariachi" does *not* refer to an individual or an individual's occupation. A "Mariachi" is an ensemble of musicians. I don't know exactly how many people you need in your ensemble before you can call yourself "Mariachi", but it is considerable. Probably around 20, 30, I dunno. I'll look it up.
The point is that no one person is a Mariachi.
2. Mariachi are guitarrists.
I guess there must be a guitarrist or two in Mariachi ensembles, but they're not the musicians Mexicans would associate with Mariachi. Mariachi play (get ready for this) CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. Most prominent among these are probably Violins and Trumpets. Yes, people, violins are waaaay more associated to Mariachi than guitars will ever be.
3. Mariachi are men.
Heh! Maybe, originally, they were. Nowadays, though, you'll find many, many a woman in Mariachi ensembles.
4. The character Antonio Banderas plays in "Desperado" wears a Mariachi outfit.
Not quite. It would be more correct to say he wears a "charro" outfit, which is what Mariachi tend to wear, only it's a lot fancier than what Banderas' character wore on screen. There are also many, many variants on the
charro outfit.
Now, because Mariachi wear
charro outfits when nobody else would, some people have come to call the charro outfit a "Mariachi" outfit. However, when you see a guy dressed like that wrangling a horse, just remember: he's a
charro, not a Mariachi.
5. Mariachi play in bars
By now I imagine you guys are starting to figure it'd be pretty hard to cram 30 or so musicians to perform in a bar. So where do Mariachi play? Weddings. At least, originally that's where they played. One of the theories for how the name "Mariachi" came about is that they got it because they played at
weddings, which are "marriages" in French. Historically, Mexico has had a lot of French influence. Nowadays, however, having Mariachi play at your wedding is not very common (to say the least), but Mariachi do show up at special events.
I guess mostly - and I'm no expert on Mariachi, so take this with a grain of salt - nowadays they have their own concerts or events. Mariachi are rare, so it's a big deal to see them.
Mariachi do not serenade. Well, I guess if you have more money than your pockets can hold, you could *probably* pay Mariachi to seranade someone. But exactly how much you'd have to pay an ensemble of over a dozen musicians to put them at your beck and call for an night's anybody's guess.
Now, after all this, you might be wondering what
Mariachi music actually sounds like. Well, since Mariachi were hired as musicians for special occasions, you can imagine that they don't play Mozart -
they play lively folk music. Just, with classical instruments. It's really quite amazing, in my opinion. The sound of
Mariachi is unmistakeable (and it sounds nothing like what Antonio Banderas plays in Desperado).
Later on, I'll get you guys a sound sample of Mariachi playing
Huapango so you can hear what it's actually like.
Anyhow, I've neglected my job long enough with this post. I'll get to the rest
later.
) where everyone talked about "The one from Within", the main character's child from the previous movie. Anyway, at some point everyone sees a while light and the words "Ένα από εντός", which word for word means "One from within", though the gender of the word "one" is neuter, and the whole sentence doesn't make much sense to me. For Iwanin's sakes should the aliens want to speak Greek, why not do it in ancient Greek? "Ένα από εντός" is the way it's been said for, says, the last two decades, and still, it doesn't make much sense to me... It's like speaking Greek with English grammar... For example if I say "my car" in Greek and translate it to English word for word it turns out: "The car my" 
