Sexual Tension, Racial Prejudice and Magical Realism.

Did you read the title to this blog post? If not, go back and do so. I’ll give you a second.

Finished?

Good, now let’s get started. Doesn’t that title sound like the makings of an excellent novel? There’s the love interest, the conflict of the racial prejudice, and of course magic. Who doesn’t want to read that story? What if I were to tell you that it wasn’t a novel, but in fact a television show. You’d buy that, right?

Sure you would. TV shows usually have a good plot to keep us interested.

But… let’s just say that television show is for children. Children, you say? Now you’re curious, right?

Yeah, for serious. I’m talking about Handy Manny.

This is a kid’s cartoon that comes on in the mornings on the Disney Channel Manny is a Latin (Is that the PC way to say it?) Handy Man that helps the people of his little town fix their broken stuff.

He’s totally in love with Kelly, the hardware store owner. Seriously, I bet if I looked hard enough I bet I could find some awesome fanfic of them finally going on their first date.

Kelly’s the hot white girl that owns the hardware shop. She’s babe-alicious, always has her crap together, and keeps her store open late for all Manny’s er-hardware needs.

Just Tell her Manny! You can do it!

And then there’s Mr. Lopart. He’s the dumb guy that thinks he can fix all his stuff without Manny’s help, but inevitably screws it up and has to call Manny for assistance. Oh, and um–he’s white. Here we have the dumb white guy stereotype. Manny is always really nice to him, but there’s a lot of sidebar eye rolling.

Silly Mr. Lopart, can’t even paint without getting a bucket on his head. WTF?

You don’t believe me? Here are some of the wiser, more sage characters: his grandfather Abuelito, the sweet old lady with a lizard, and of course all the hispanic school teachers.

Oh, and I can’t forget about the other white guy who works in the video store. He just shows up when he feels like it.

Did I mention that he’s Kelly’s brother and always cock blocking Manny?

Now we get to the weird part. The magical realism. I think it’s important than when you have a fix-it handyman you should totally give him a drug problem. How else would you explain his talking tools?

Dude, those eyes are creeping me out.

Now that I know all there is to know about this show and its stereotypes, I bet you’re wondering if I let my child watch it?

You bet I did. I wanted to know if Kelly and Manny ended up together.