Here I am, finishing a portfolio assignment I do not want to do. I am learning about culture in movies and periodicals in a different language that has been spat out to me for six years. This is not a joke. I spent two years in junior high, two years in high school, and now two years in college and I’m just now finishing this requirement. At one point, I assumed that taking this early would prevent this from happening, like some preeminent strike that would assure my language safety. But now I am fully sure that Spanish has failed me, and so has Jessica Rabbit.
“Look Valiant, the wife’s poison but he thinks she’s Betty Crocker. I want you to follow her, get some nice juicy pictures I can wise the rabbit up with….the Rabbit sings at a joint called the Ink and Paint Club. Toon review, strictly humans only okay?”
Valiant goes, meets with Betty Boop, and based off of people’s responses, he’s a little confused on everyone’s reaction. Marvin Acme puts on cologne. Crowds of men storm to the stage. Valiant looks at Betty and says, “What’s with him?”
“Mr. Acme never misses a night when Jessica performs” Betty says. Valiant replies sarcastically, “he’s got a thing for rabbits huh?”
But there’s no confusion after her sleek and perfect debut into the movie. Smooth voice, silk hair, puffy lips, and I was in love with her before I knew I liked girls. No one can deny that there is something impossibly sexy about Jessica Rabbit, because, “she’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way.”
Jessica Rabbit never asked for that existence, but here she is, amazing crowds with her song, “Why don’t you do right?” And right there in plain irony, the most amazing woman in the history in creation is married to a rabbit.
We’ve already discussed how much I love and watched this movie as a child, but it goes beyond words. Jessica Rabbit inspired two things about what kind of man I should be: a man that does right, and a man that makes women laugh. This movie may very well have set up the framework for my entire high school personality in regards to women. Even Betty Boop explains to Valiant that Jessica Rabbit, “is a very lucky girl.”
The movie makers were not stupid when they made this movie. They had every intention for Jessica Rabbit to be everything a man wanted. She was dedicated, even though there were hundreds of men that visited the Ink and Paint Club. She was a beautiful and possibly dangerous hourglass. She had longer legs than a giraffe. She had sly, sexy eyes. But more important than any of this: Jessica loved and married Roger, the ugliest, badly dressed Rabbit because Roger could tell a joke.
Sometimes I love and hate my childhood, and this subconsciously may be the reason why I hated growing up. As much as I hate real life, eventually I would have to turn and face the terrible truth. And the truth is that women cannot possibly be Jessica Rabbit. Now I walk through life with no expectations, because of the fact that she does not really exist. All those wonderful thoughts of a future of jokes to keep someone to me was a house of cards. It was the biggest joke of all. I can imagine women looking at Jessica Rabbit with hate and disgust, because they have every right to be upset. Jessica Rabbit represents everything that most men want to a perfected Hollywood degree, and just like John Cusack and I, it cannot be achieved.
Spanish has truly failed me, because every time I walk into class I see it even in the teachers’ eyes. There is nothing more insulting to an educated person than to have wasted six years of his life when he could’ve just gone to a foreign country for six months. Everyone in my class walks in tired, and uninterested, because the world of Spanish has been gutted and offered as a refused sacrifice. We’re done listening to the culture of Guatemala, and hearing about the past subjunctive, which is hard to even define in English. Teachers look at us and just pass us through. What was a burning desire is now nothing but frustration.
It’s not their fault, but it’s somebody’s, and I don’t know who is responsible. After six years of Spanish I can’t even put it on my résumé.
I hate everything Spanish. I hate Dia de los Muertos. I hate nouns that have to agree in number and gender. I hate all the stupid little equations they teach you. Necesito una vida sin Spanish. In hindsight, I would’ve visited a country. In hindsight I would’ve told Ms. Gray, and Ms. Podd, and Mr. Garcia, and Ms. Jones, and Sra. Evans, and Sr. Torres, and Sra. Muniz, and Ms. McClanahan that I quit, and hope their language becomes illegal, because I am ruined.
What did they hope to achieve? Did they really think that it would work? 23 hours of English on every other day and one hour of Spanish? An easily breakable online program that encourages bypassing? The almost impossibility of failing because each exam is worth 5% which is abysmal compared to being ¼ the power of participation and attendance.
And here is where we enter, knowing that all we need to do is provide our carcasses as a sacrifice, so they can see that and be pleased.
“C’mon Roger let’s go home, I’ll bake you a carrot cake” -Jessica Rabbit
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