The Best Exotic is quite good and less exotic than you think

Last night my teenage daughter and I found ourselves in a movie theater where we were a minority. We were there to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a delightful movie about a group of British retirees who decide to outsource their retirement to India. This time we were not an ethnic minority (and may I take this opportunity to digress and say that according to the census minorities are now the majority in the US*) but an age minority. For almost everyone in the theater was over fifty-five, a fact that did not go unnoticed by my over-analytical brain as it immediately went to work on the matter.

I found the age homogeneity of the moviegoers to be a problem for several reasons. First of all, in my own egotistical ways, I like to be surrounded by as diverse a group of people as possible: I think it is the way we learn best, teach best and enjoy life best. I find it boring to only interact with those likely to think like me, live like me, and do things the ways I do, so I would have liked to see a population as diverse as possible watching this little gem. Of course we were there to see a movie and not chitchat, but there is something to be said about what makes people laugh at the theater, the comments we whisper to one another, what we disapprove, and all of these moments are learning experiences.  Part of the reason we go to the movies is the collective nature of the event, and “the collective” in this event was telling.

Second of all, I hate to think of this beautiful movie as simply an attempt to cater to a population that is underserved by the media (which is true but too crude a reason for my sensibilities). I think both the population in question and the marvelous actors of this movie (July Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, among others) deserve better than that.

But most of all, I find it disturbing that many people would only care to see stories of people who are “like” them, and live like they do, at the time of life they are. As a person who thoroughly enjoys The Diary of a Wimpy Kid and who thinks Maggie Smith is the best actress in the world, I want to live vicariously through people who are not me.  I also find ageism a particularly wicked form of exclusion, one borne out of a silly attempt at staticism**. 

Many with more gifted minds than mine have pointed out how prevalent ageism is in some societies, including American society. Research has also shown that both self-perceptions and social perceptions of aging extend (when positive) and shorten (when negative) life span. In societies where aging is closely associated with wisdom, people live longer, more fulfilling lives. Where the opposite is true, well, you get the idea.

Ageism is not about a particular age although one can probably infer that it gets more marked as one’s age advances, but I know I have experienced it since my mid-thirties, and now, at forty, I have heard many, many disparaging comments about my age. I honestly don’t know why we aren’t able to turn things around. As people age, chances are they have more resources, financial and otherwise, and experience should account for something.  But going back to the movie, which I seem to have abandoned several paragraphs ago due to my outrage, it is precisely the issues of ageism and what happens when things don’t turn out quite the way they “should” that is at stake here.

The Best Exotic… is also a movie about new beginnings for a judge who goes back to India to solve a 40-year old issue, a retired housekeeper who outsources her hip replacement to the country, a widow left with debt, a loveless couple who lent their retirement money to a failed .com venture by their daughter, a divorcee who was used to (now-declining) opposite-sex attention, and a man who just feels plain lonely. In the heart of this supposedly light comedy lie many of the issues inherent not only to their age group but to other brackets as well: love, healthcare, sex-orientation, prejudice, costs of living, employment, friendship. Each character of course will find in the overstimulation provided by their new environment reason to make decisions about that which afflicts them.

If you are a fan of movies such as Calendar Girls, Saving Grace, Love Actually, I Capture de Castle, and anything with Hugh Grant in it, chances are you will like this movie. But critics have been lukewarm to say the least (Ebert has been kind), and it seems that some are reluctant to admit that they laughed aloud with the rest of us, that they sometimes wished they were staying at the Marigold Hotel. That’s when they start making up stuff.

Lisa Schwarzbaum, writing for EW.com, says that,

The cinematography shows off the overwhelming sensory stimulation of the place while stepping briskly around less-than-colorful images of real poverty, squalor, overcrowding, and despair. 

Critics and thinkers in the so-called developed world seem to often assume that people in the (equally inaptly-named) developing world are perpetually “in despair.” It makes me think of the saying going viral on the internet, “Every sixty seconds in Africa… a minute passes,” reminding us that people are still having fun, loving, enjoying the company of their children even in the midst of great challenges (we do know some challenges are immense). And it also makes me wonder if Ms. Schwarzbaum watched the same movie I did since the images that stayed with me are those of children paying happily on the streets; a maid sharing a meal with an initially stuck up, grumpy woman; a young couple in love defying cast rules to stay together. I don’t remember one single scene that could possibly signal despair.

I think sometimes people are rather overwhelmed by the fact that when you remove layers of chintz, lead-free paint and scented oil plug-ins, we are all essentially the same. And more shocking still, they are amazed by the fact we can be happy and re-find our humanity without big screen TVs and surround sound (even if modern movie theaters are the epitome of those). I was once stunned and offended by an ad I saw on a bus when I had just arrived in the US. It was for one of the international aid groups, and it went something like “That family only had one egg, and they gave it to me.”  I found it patronizing and wrong, because it tried to focus on the local family rather than show that the newcomer had been surprised to find his/her own humanity when and where they least expected.  

I am ready to watch The Best Exotic again and again. I read someone refer to it as a big, warm hug. Others refer to it as a “safe” movie, and I am cool with safe. But the one question that has been bugging me since I watched the movie and read some of the reviews is “why do people react so badly to feeling so good?” 

*Wrongly, some have pointed out that it is the first time in history when this has happened, embarrassingly forgetting that once there were no white Europeans in the continent…

** The dictionary says it does not exist, but I am fine with neologisms. 

Note to Open English: a medium is not a method

Here was I, in my pretty Ivory Tower, thinking that concerns over who is best, native or non-native teachers, were as extinct as a tyrannosaurus rex, when a flood of messages about a commercial by an online language school that is airing on Brazilian television woke me up from my Sleeping Beauty slumber. The messages I read were from concerned teachers of English, many of them second- and additional-language users of English, but some not, who felt offended and put down by the message of the ads. I could just post the commercial, but I decided not to do free advertising for this company. I will instead, using a little bit of discourse and text analysis, well, and a little sarcasm, describe what I saw.

The commercial is based on the idea of contrasts between online and face-to-face classes. The student taking face-to-face lessons needs to drive to school, so he looks bored by what is in the ad an invisible traffic jam. The online student is content, able to log on to his computer anywhere, any time he pleases. The student in ‘traditional’ courses carries a heavy pile of books. The online student is refreshed and freed from the weight of books; after all, he only needs his trusty laptop to learn.  Notice both are “he,” and both are young because women and those over 25 seemingly don’t need to learn.

Then comes the worst part: the face-to-face instructor is a woman. She looks and behaves a little disheveled (her name is Joana, a beautiful name pronounced as if it were an insult). She wears clothes made to look unfashionable. She is a little heavy-set, and she is waving her arms trying to convey “chicken” to the students. We discover, and I think they want us to feel horrified, that she is a non-native user of English. The narrator tells us that she learned English in Buenos Aires, and at this point we, the viewers are not sure whether the advertisers forgot to change the script to contain a Brazilian city, don’t know that Buenos Aires is not in Brazil, or decided to add Argentines and Porteños to the room full of people they are trying to offend. On the other hand, the teacher you get with the online school is blond and slim (her name is Jenny, so that should be reassurance enough that she knows what she is doing), and she intentionally speaks Portuguese with an ‘accent,’ so apparently accents are now good, except when they are bad, and the latter is only true, according to this view, if you are not American.

I feel sorry for the students who might fall for this kind of positioning: in a few seconds, the aspiring ‘educators’ managed to disparage women, ethnic groups, people whose biotype is not slim blond, non-native teachers, Argentines, Brazilians. Phew! They must be really tired. They put so much effort in trying to ridicule people who were just working, going about their business, that they forgot to mention we live in a world of multiple varieties of English, some acquired natively, others acquired as a second language, others yet as a foreign language. They also skipped mentioning anything about methodology, approach, techniques. Apparently the medium IS the method. And here I was for years, doing a whole PhD to understand language, students, methods, political concerns better. Silly me!

The student who falls for the native speaker fallacy will have a rude awakening when they discover they have to negotiate meaning with a multitude of users, who speak different varieties; thus, these same students would be better served in most cases by being exposed to multiple dialects, spoken by a multitude of people, native and non-native. They might also one day realize that only a teacher educated to be such will be able to put together lessons that accomplish that much and that also focus on STRATEGIES of communication. We cannot teach students every single variety of English they might come across, but we certainly can teach students how to negotiate meaning once they do encounter such varieties. Native teachers can do that, non-native can too (I’m sorry, I feel really awkward even writing down these outdated terms!)

I am glad teachers in Brazil are taking a stand, denouncing this kind of amateur behavior.  I am glad Braz-TESOL’s president Vinicius Nobre has written a statement that translates the sentiments of many of us who felt unnecessarily attacked by this kind of advertising.  I hope the momentum gathered by this event is productive and leads us to reflect not only on TESOL as a profession but also in the ways that communities of teachers can reiterate their commitment, professionalism and work towards ever-growing recognition of this career path.  Here is that text by Vinicius Nobre:

As the president of the largest association of English teachers in Brazil, I feel I have to take a stand and express my outrage and disappointment with regards to the TV commercial that has been broadcast on national television promoting an online English course.

I am NOT a native speaker of the English language, I do not have long blonde hair, I do not live in California and I do not wear a tight T-shirt to teach my students. In fact, I NEVER had a native speaker of English as a teacher. I never even lived in a foreign country. I simply studied the English language in my own developing country, and then four years of linguistics, literature, second language acquisition, morphology, pronunciation, syntax, education, pedagogy, methods and approaches. I have only dedicated 16 years of my life to the personal and professional growth of thousands of students. I have not bragged about my passport or my birthplace because I was too busy trying to understand my students’ linguistic and affective needs. I am NOT a native speaker of the language; hence - according to this TV commercial - I do not qualify to teach. I probably qualify as an irresponsible and grotesque mockery of a teacher.

Like me, thousands of hard-working, gifted, committed, passionate and under-valued educators (from Brazil or ANY other non-English speaking country) are depicted in 30 seconds of a despicable and desperate attempt to seduce students. I have met outstanding teachers regardless of their nationality and many of which who were native English speakers. The best English speaking educators I have met, however, were always dignified enough to acknowledge the qualities of a non-native speaker colleague.

Foreign language education has developed tremendously so as to guarantee the fairness and respect that all serious language professionals deserve (native speakers or not). At least among ourselves. If students still insist that a native speaker is better, we should at least rest assured that in our own profession we can find the respect and the recognition that a committed and qualified professional needs to have. It is sad, however, to be ridiculed by another (so-called) educational centre.

As the president of BRAZ-TESOL, as a non-native speaker of the English language, as an admirer of teachers regardless of their nationality, I resent such an irresponsible joke. But then again, who am I to even think about saying anything about the learning and the teaching of English? I am not Jenny from California - the utmost example of a foreign language educator.

AN UPDATE:  Dr. Francisco Gomes de Matos, Emeritus Professor from Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and an international authority on language rights and peace linguistics has shared the following statement:

"The commercial is a reminder to the LANGUAGE EDUCATION profession that reflection on MARKETING LANGUAGE LEARNING-TEACHING is conspicuously absent, a serious gap to be filled as urgently as possible. The commercial is a violation of educational-cultural dignity and a shameful instance of discrimination. Could say more, but... let's move on and be constructive, by creating conditions for a serious MARKETING LANGUAGE EDUCATION tradition to be built universally."

                        Sunniest abraço,

                                             Francisco

The Grey Area

This past week, I was browsing the bookracks at a popular store, looking for John Irving’s In One Person so as to add to the ever-growing list of books I want to read (at the rate I am going, I will be done with the current titles by 2030!). Suddenly, as I reached the bestsellers section, I was surprised to notice that a large area of the top shelf was completely empty. Guessing the reason, I looked closer to decipher the contents of the little yellow tag under the desolate metal structure: yep, my hypothesis was confirmed – the area was reserved for books one, two, and three of the Grey trilogy.

Let me digress here. Writers usually take one of two approaches to looking at a book phenomenon. Some completely embrace the trend, read avidly, worship the writer, and dream of the day it will be them achieving that kind of success and publicity. Others scoff at the craze and grump their way in and out of the misery they feel over the state of things: and why do people want to read this, and what could they possibly see in this book, and this is what literature has become, etc. etc.

Me, I take a different approach (I know writers who are right there with me): I go to work. First, I read the material in question (most likely with a highlighter, or two, or three in hand). Then, I try to assess what other people are thinking and saying. Finally, I try to put myself in the shoes of the average reader. Only then do I decide what lesson I can draw from that particular work and its approach to writing (I did the same with Harry Potter, which I love, and Twilight, err, not so much). And sure enough there is always a lesson to be learned.

The first thing to notice about Fifty Shades of Grey is that it is currently number one on Amazon’s best seller list and a bunch of other lists. Book two and three are second and third respectively. It seems silly to me not to try to understand what is behind such success, so I read the work cover to cover. As a consequence, the second thing I learned (I have only read book one) is that Fifty Shades is (how shall I put this?) an uninhibited book, and this feature is undoubtedly at the center of its success. Let’s hand it to E.L. James: she was able to figure out what kind of sensual fantasy would appeal to a large number of women (and some men) of different ages, socio-economic profiles, educational levels, and life interests in the year 2012, and this is no small feat. The social scientist in me kept reflecting on contemporary women and their lives, and the kinds of dynamics that have caused them to crave this book and its content. Call it luck, call it a calculated move; James’s strategy must have worked because women are buying these books by the bushel.

Then comes the difficult part. The more I write my own fiction, the harder it becomes to critique other works because I know how much labor goes into crafting a novel and how much courage it must have taken this writer to write what she did. But as I read through the pages, I noticed I was much more offended by the multiplying dangling participles than by the content, more taken aback by the relentless repetition of the same facial expressions, exclamations, and phrases than by the lack of verisimilitude in the plot, by the multitude of British vocabulary items coming out of American mouths without any possible explanation other than the fact that the author is British (the most distracting ones being ‘”laters,” “ringing” instead of “calling” and university “tutors”).

I stopped to think about this and wondered if I was noticing language so much because I am a writer and a teacher (and a grammar nerd). So I went on to read what the reviews of readers who did not like the book were about, and sure enough they were complaining about the same things.  The hard question is despite these problems, many of them editorial in nature, the books are selling like hotcakes, and really, where do you go from being number one? The answer eludes me, and yet as a writer, one who often engages in a sort of adoration of language, I cannot ignore these flaws. Have I become the grump in my second paragraph, the one that lifts the hands to the sky asking why right after he/she throws the book against the wall? Not at all. I wish James continued success. There is a place for everyone under the sun. And perhaps one of those discontented readers will one day pick up one of my books, and if I got it right, they will smile, knowing that someone understands. 

(Caution: Fifty Shades of Grey contains adult content that might not be suitable for some readers)

My Gothic Week

I have been having a gothic week. No, you do not need to worry. Phoenix continues to be perpetually sunny and dry (not that I have anything against settings that subvert the genre), and things in the so-called real world have progressed as expected these last few days. Instead, my gothic week has been a result of my movie and book choices.

It all started with my decision to re-watch Shutter Island, a movie that I actually enjoyed more the second time around, followed by some movie-going to see The Raven, a film that pays homage to Poe through a very, very fictionalized rendition by John Cusack. In the meantime, I ordered three novels with gothic elements, continued to read The Ghost Writer, added Ghost Writer (a completely different story) to my Netflix queue, made a written allusion to Rebecca and The Castle of Otranto, and skimmed through The Picture of Dorian Gray. Decidedly gothic week, you say? You bet!

I’m probably the millionth person to say that novels and movies with gothic elements are strangely comforting. Is it the relief of not being in that particular stronghold that allures? Is it the rush of adrenaline after a scare? Is it because the gothic allows us to externalize fears that live inside all of us?

I’m inclined to suggest that it is all of the above and more. Gothic tales usually present some puzzle for the reader/viewer to solve; therefore, for the duration of our reading or watching, we are forced to suspend our own problems and engage with the problems and mysteries of others. In the process, our brains get a welcome break.

So here is a sample of my gothic must-read list (it is really long; here are a few highlights):

The Thirteenth Tale – By Diane Setterfield

The Shadow of the Wind – By Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Rebecca – By Daphne du Maurier

The Picture of Dorian Gray – By Oscar Wilde

A Reliable Wife – By Robert Goolrick

(I am skipping the very obvious Wuthering Heights and anything Poe as well as my favorite Austen, Northanger Abbey)

And here is my current to-read list:

The House at Midnight – By Lucie Whitehouse

Mysteries of Winterthurn and Mudwoman – Both by Joyce Carol Oates

Half Broken Things – By Morag Joss

Don’t be mad at me if your favorites are missing (many of mine are too!). Instead contribute to other people’s reading lists by adding your own choices.

Happy reading!