Inside El Colón, I am closer to my people than I will ever be
outside in the stinging sun.
We, we are a collective here, and strong.
Nobody can deny us that.
Just look at Pedro.
No actor on the face of this Earth
has done more acting with his eyebrows.
[LAUGHTER]
Not to mention his arms, the most expressive arms
that I have ever seen, whether they're
hanging there in those cute little sweaters
that he used to wear.
Few men could get away with wearing
that tight-fitting sweater or those loose suits
that they used to wear in the '40s and '50s.
You put a suit on that on one of our modern actors,
what do you get?
Payasoville.
[LAUGHTER]
Most men have lost their natural grace.
And whether his arms just hang there, fisted or still,
they are full of meaning.
And he can stride.
Even his legs are expressive, not to mention his feet.
God help us if he takes off his shirt.
Who would have thought that a man's nipples could
express anger.
Hoomm, bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh.
Hoom, ha, ha, ha, ha, the old man in front of us
clucks like a demented rooster.
Ho, ha-ha-ha-ha.
He has something stuck in his throat and, for a while,
we think he's not going to make it.
Hooh-raaah!
And then he rallies.
Hoorrr-hah!
And he spits out the offending glob right by Nyvia Ester.
And she is not impressed.
[LAUGHTER]
It is hard to concentrate with so much happening
around us, with the noise of people laughing,
crying, sighing, chewing, burping, hiccuping, applauding.
Not to mention the meddling, cajoling, rebuking,
interrupting, interceding, and encouraging
words that go back and forth.
Ay Pedro, te quiero.
I admit it.
I've never been good at hiding my feelings in the dark.
It's been my undoing.
I started dreaming when I was a little girl.
And I haven't stopped yet.
La vida no vale nada, it's really a very violent movie
when you think about it.
At the end, Pedro-as-Pablo wrestles with Wolf Ruvinskis.
Wolf wants sole possession of the squirrelly hussy
named Magda.
Go figure what Wolf would want with Magda.
She's been sleeping with Pablo's father,
one of those aging Mexicanos who have to prove
their barrel-chested manhood by either dyeing their hair
jet-black--
I don't want to mention any names, Vicente Fernández--
or taking up with a younger woman.
And she, Magda, has been chasing Pedro-as-Pablo as well.
But he doesn't want to have anything to do with her,
even though she throws herself in front of him
all the time, like a beached mermaid.
Everybody gasps in fear as Wolf Ruvinskis
punches Pedro-as-Pablo, and he drags him into the salty water
to drown him while the spurned and vindictive Magda looks on.
Pedro-as-Pablo flounders as Wolf violently pushes him
under the lapping waves.
Then he gathers himself up, and he
flings Wolf back from the beach with a battery of blows, then
leaves him in a broken heap on the sandy shore.
Meanwhile, back at the pueblito, Pablo's
mother and siblings struggle in the most abject poverty.
The two men, father and son, finally come to the realization
that they need to get back home to take care of their kin.
All is well.
All is safe.
All is as it should be for the men.
A 'lo macho, bravo!
And yet, I am left with questions.
I look around El Colón.
Isn't anyone else upset?
What about Madga?
What's going to happen to her?
Does anybody care?
A glowering and bitter Magda casts a long glance
as Pedro-as-Pablo walks away into the hopeful
sunset with his father, Leandro, both men
the bane of her small, useless existence.
Wolf sputters nearby, trying to catch his breath.
And Magda looks at him with disgust and resignation.
Even in the darkness of El Colón,
I want to change my dreams, Magda's dreams,
but the movie credits roll.
La vida no vale nada, Pedro Infante, Rosario Granados,
Lilia Prado, Domingo Soler, Magda Guzmán, Wolf Ruvinskis,
Hortensia Santoveña.
Nyvia Ester picks up her purse and shimmies out of her seat,
with bobbing and teetering crab-like movements,
getting her land legs.
Irma takes her mother's hand and assists her
up the incline to the door that says salida, the exit.
The woman behind us smacks her lips,
hoists her large, very large body out of her seat
and disappears into the uncertain night.
The soundtrack rolls and flares dramatically, full of reckless
abandon.
I sit in the theater a little longer,
my eyes full of tears, sad tears, tears of hope.
My heart hurts the way it hurts when
you can't love the man that you want to,
[DEEP SIGH] a man like Pedro.
Thank you.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Thank you!