A new short film has gone viral for its depiction of President-elect Donald Trump as a massive robot at a wall on the U.S-Mexico border.
The film, “M.A.M.O.N. (Monitor Against Mexicans Over Nationwide),” was created by Uruguayan production company Aparato, which used computer generated images and visual effects to criticize Trump’s position on Mexican immigrants. According to the company website, its motto is “Making the world a better place, one pixel at a time.”
“We realized that using [visual effects]we can bring wonder to those who need it most,” said the film’s producer Alejandro Damiani in an email to Humanosphere. “That was the premise, tilt the scale to the other side and do justice.”
The film is not meant to “save the world” from Trump, he explained, but to entertain.
The dark comedy depicts Mexican immigrants receiving an invoice from Trump, who tells them to pay for the new border wall at the U.S. border. They curse at the bill, and a violent fight erupts between the Hispanics and the monstrous robotic Trump, which starts firing missiles from its crotch and stomping them into the ground.
Several characters, including a cowardly diplomat and a mariachi singer, try in vain to bring down the robot. The townsfolk then reveal an unlikely hero. … But the film shows it better:
The short film has more than 4 million views.
According to Damiani, depicting Trump as a robot was intended to create “an immense allegorical chariot, a giant stupidity made of sheet metal” full of Asian connotations (a label on the the machine reads: “Made in China”).
“It is the most ridiculous way we could come up with to spin out the political speech of Trump and give it tangibility,” he said. “At the same time it is a retrofuturistic robot, antique and with obsolete technology.”
Not surprisingly, the video has been positively received by thousands of Latinos sharing the video on social media. “I know people are ‘hurt’ about the election, but if Mexicans can make fun of it, anyone can,” says one Twitter user, while another sums up the bona fide sentiment of the film in brief: “This is super real.”
The dark comedy showcases numerous jokes about stereotypical antics of the Mexican and Latino community – such as the quinceañera, the Quetzalcoatl, the lucha libre, the mariachi and the Chapulín Colorado – and, of course, Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” multi-billion-dollar wall.
When Humanosphere asked Damiani what he hopes his audience will take away from his film, the producer said he hopes his audience will not take the message too seriously but enjoy the humor.
“The world needs it,” he said.
