The Shape of Water (2017)
When I left Venezuela, it wasn’t a decision my mom or I made. We were forced to do it, it was either that, end up killed, or even worse: seeing my mom go to jail for protesting against an oppressive and authoritarian government. When we see people humans -because sometimes we forget that’s what they are, running to the Mexican border, they’re running from severe national insecurity, domestic violence, abuse, seeking tranquility and peace; they don’t have a choice. People of color don’t choose their skin color, gay people don’t choose who they love, disabled people don’t choose to be judged, minorities don’t wake up wanting to be discriminated against just for the “fun” of it, they don’t have a choice; because believe me when I say that I’d prefer to be with my family and best friends to suffer from the discrimination of someone who considers him/herself superior to me.
Guillermo del Toro makes an excellent exploration of this point having his major characters representing minorities: the gay community by Giles, blacks by Zelda, and disabled people by Elisa. All of them have their own personalities, background stories, voices, they’re not secondary characters. The fact that the protagonist is a mute person represents progress for the film industry, joining A Quiet Place (2018), where one of the heroines is a mute child as well. We see Zelda as a strong woman who doesn’t pay attention to Strickland racists’ comments and is not afraid of standing against her husband in order to defend her friend. We see Giles, a closeted homosexual, who, even though not at first, speaks for what is fair and what it’s not: segregation. What strikes me the most is how all of these characters joined together to defend “The Other” against the white supremacist character, and that’s important because I consider that the only way to know how it feels to be discriminated, is indeed to be discriminated. Guillermo (yes I’m calling him by his first name, we’re in this point of our relationship) makes ambiguous decisions for the viewer to understand according to its perspective, the most important one is about the Gillman; he can easily represent other minorities that weren’t present in the rest of the film, such as Hispanics, other disabled people, indigenous, Middle-Eastern, or Asian people, giving them a voice. TSOW, in contrast to the other monster movies we’ve watched, build-ups sympathy for the physical monster by humanizing him, giving hope for people who feel that otherness that they can find someone that supports them as much as Elisa did with the Asset, and that they will escape from its discrimination and abuse. Moreover, the fact that the Gillman didn’t become a beautiful prince at the end relates to the fact that there is nothing wrong with him and he doesn’t need to change in order to please others. I think the most important message that Guillermo is trying to give with this movie is that minorities must come together, support one another and don’t compete between who is being more discriminate, but rather fight against that evilness, misogynist supremacy that it’s trying to erase us from the planet.
Lastly (because I think this post is being too long), Guillermo winning the Oscar for Best Picture gave hope to many people, especially to Mexicans, as one of my reblogs established earlier. I personally, even though I’m not Mexican, I feel identified with Guillermo (yes, I’m very aware he is a man and I’m not), but it’s not like there are plenty of Hispanics in the film industry that I could be identified with. We do have Sofia Vergara (Colombian, btw), but it bothers me that she’s always depicted as the sexy, loud latina with a strong accent, and I, even though loud, don’t look like her. So I rather have Guillermo as my inspiration, who after a long list of movies, has become a well-known and praised film director that hasn’t forgotten where he comes from and who is not part of continuing with false stereotypes. And that’s why he is one of my favorite film directors.
Also, blessed be Doug Jones for re-creating once again a Gillman after Abe from Hellboy.
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