Word: spanglish
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James L. Brooks, executive producer of “The Simpsons” who also moonlights as an Oscar-winning writer-director, could not have chosen a more cliché plot line for his latest film, Spanglish: a vivacious, non-English speaking Latina maid falls in love with her rich, white boss while her child is slowly assimilated against her wishes. But Spanglish was crafted by the hands of a master and the potentially nauseous subject matter is handled with grace and aplomb...
...connection could’ve easily been portrayed as a Love Actually-esque rumination on the power of love to overcome language, but Brooks is more original than that—the thing that connects these two very different people is their similar sensibilities. This is what makes Spanglish such a good film. Its plot speaks in the language of a made-for-TV movie, only it foregoes the hyper-melodrama and soap operatics for subtle realism. You’ll see sitcom style antics but they’ll seem like real situations for real characters that you care...
Part Telemundo, part Imitation of Life, Spanglish seems to deal mostly with the inevitable cultural clash between Mexican immigrants and Americans. Still, it plays itself out carefully, never dabbling in Manichean dramatics to make banal statements about assimilation. It doesn’t make light of the cultural clash, but it is never too didactic. With natural dialogue and fantastic performances, Brooks is able to show us the common situations Mexican immigrants face and how funny they...
...year ago, we reported that while English had become the most creolized language in history--melded with other tongues to form hybrids like Spanglish (with Spanish) and Sheng (with Swahili)--governments around the world had championed programs to teach the standard English spoken in American and British boardrooms (TIME Global Business, Nov. 26, 2001). Now in Tainan, Taiwan, Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair has taken English instruction to a whole new level. Garbage trucks in Tainan usually blare symphonies to alert residents to bring out the trash. But since September, Hsu has had several trucks blast English phrases like...
...lyrics tell the story of Diego, a young gypsy with Rastafarian leanings who likes clothes, dancing and music. But look at the chorus: "Asereje ja de je be jebe tu de jebere sebiunouva majabi an de bugui an de buididipi." This isn't Spanish. This is not even Spanglish, as the export version claims to be. Though he loves hip hop, Diego "can't speak English," explains Lucia. So he improvises, and much of the song is written in "a kind of universal language." Universal, in that nobody has any idea what it means. That doesn't seem to bother...