Nachooooo!
Success of Nacho Libre Movie Shows Signs of Demographic Change
By Christopher Patrick Nelson

Nacho Libre, the new movie starring Panamamian-American Jack Black, is a sign that the corporations that run this country see a Latino market large enough to make a hit movie. The movie hero is a Catholic priest and masked wrestler. It is set in Oaxaca, Mexico, and although it is in English, none of the main characters speak without an accent. There are no white actors or actresses.

The fact that the number one movie can be set among the poor in Mexico means that there is enough familiarity among U.S. residents for them to care about what happens to these people in the story. This is because either they are Latino themselves or they have day-to-day dealings with Latinos. Twenty-five years ago, this would not have happened, as evidenced by failed Latino-oriented television shows such as comedian Paul Rodriguez's “AKA Pablo” in the early '80's. In California, where white people are outnumbered by minorities, Mexican-Americans are the largest minority. There are plenty of them now in the Midwest. Florida flows with Cubans. New York is packed with Puerto Ricans.

The priest played by Black, Ignacio, has a crisis of faith in the film because he wishes to experience the glory of winning a wrestling match, and the love of the beautiful nun he works with. In spite of this, for an U.S.-made film, it treats Catholicism, vow of celibacy and all, with an odd respect. The nun is sincere and spiritual, and they never put her into any outfit even approaching immodesty. The plot resolves with the priest learning that he can only wrestle in good conscience if he does it for a higher spiritual purpose; he donates the grand-royal battle prize-money to the orphans so they can go on field trips and eat nourishing food.   Father Ignacio, or "Nacho" for short, satisfies himself with having made the nun happy, rather than breaking his vow to God of no sex.

The humor in the film is largely clean, which means that Catholic Mexican-Americans with large families can take their kids to see this.

Furthermore, the movie seems to go for a kind of almost harsh realism that immigrants will recognize from back home. Although some have spoken of the crooked teeth and plain faces prevalent throughout Nacho Libre as racist, some people I talked to who are from Oaxaca told me it was representive of how things really are in Oaxaca. The movie studio would only have allowed this potentially-insulting portrayal of Mexico if they knew their target audience would identify with it. The movie is funny, the movie is making money, and all in all, the fact of its production and success is a sign that the United States is changing. The corporations that run this country bet a million dollars on it.

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