Many people still like to tout that we’re in the Golden Age of television, forgetting perhaps that, for much of the 2000s, a new wave of innovation not seen since the 1980s was happening with said medium. Obviously, the most creative and absurd television show to come out of the Decade of Excess was Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. In fact, it’s a wonder that the show was ever greenlit and then allowed to continue for even more than a season, so “offbeat” and “weird” was it. And yet, children (and adults) immediately gravitated to the content, which was so different for the era of “normie Reaganism.” In commenting on the appeal of the show to Time in 2006, Paul Reubens stated, “At the time there weren’t many live-action people on [kids’] television. It was a time of Transformers and merchandise-driven shows that I didn’t think were creative. I believe kids liked the Playhouse because it was very fast-paced and colorful. And more than anything, it never talked down to them. I always felt like kids were real smart and should be dealt with that way.”
In the present, it has become more and more the case that even adults are talked down to and treated rather stupidly (which is perhaps part of the reason why the U.S. has gradually transitioned into a place that’s destined to fulfill the predictions laid out in Idiocracy). Not only that, but all the programming geared toward that demographic has either become so serious or, on the other end of the spectrum, mind-numbing “reality” TV. In the early 00s, just as the latter category of television was gaining popularity, the British duo known as The Mighty Boosh (Julian Barratt and Noel Fieliding) would come together to eventually bring audiences The Mighty Boosh, a surrealist comedy that aired from 2004 to 2007. Sandwiched in between those years was the release of Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep in 2006, an equally as surreal offering that seemed to indicate the population’s desire to retreat into fantasy at a time dominated by the brutal, embarrassing (for Americans, anyway) realities of war in a post-9/11 world. With Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, the same phenomenon was happening in the world, where a desire to retreat into the fantastical was preferable to further exposing oneself to the brainwashing propaganda instilled on both sides by the Cold War.
Perhaps it can be said, then, that the arrival of Julio Torres’ Fantasmas also coincides with an overall desire to retreat into fantasy (complete with a kooky, nostalgic-sounding theme song that plays during the ending credits…one not unlike the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse theme). Because, despite the “hope” of Kamala Harris taking things in a new direction for the U.S., the realities of 2024 remain particularly bleak. That doesn’t just include the ongoing Palestinian genocide, but so many other horrors that are less publicized, including the civil war and famine in Sudan, the violent oppression of women in Afghanistan, the violence and political instability in Venezuela, the total lawlessness of Haiti, the high rates of femicide in Mexico (indeed, Latin America overall has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world), the climate-related disasters that have led to something as impactful as the endlessly raging wildfires in Canada. The list truly does go on and on. And with so much brutality in the world, even in “ultra-modern,” “land of the free” America, one can’t blame Torres for often retreating into the comforts of his mind, where reality can be diluted and subdued. Especially since he lives in one of the shittiest places on Earth: New York. Of course, it’s no secret that New Yorkers get off on their misery, pride themselves on being able to “take it” where other more “lily-livered” types can’t. (Or simply have the good sense and self-respect to leave.)
Perhaps knowing that the “real” New York isn’t all that romantic, Torres opts to create an “alternate version” of it in Fantasmas. And yes, as he freely admits, there are many correlations to his directorial debut, Problemista, in terms of both setting, tone and character. As he told Indiewire, “It feels like a sequel to [Problemista], with achieving the quote-unquote ‘Dream.’” But more than that, it’s the types of magical realism details in Problemista that parallel Fantasmas. Take, for example, how Alejandro (Torres) works at a place called FreezeCorp in Problemista, where clients pay to have themselves cryogenically frozen so that they might come to life in the future (again, Idiocracy comes to mind…or Austin Powers). In reality, as Isabella Rossellini narrates, “This company provides a form of euthanasia.” In the commercial, the FreezeCorp spokeswoman admits, “Our scientists are working around the clock to one day discover how to bring our patients back.”
The FreezeCorp-esque entity in Fantasmas, called New Solutions Incorporated, instead pivots to the notion of uploading one’s consciousness and disposing of their corporeal self altogether. As Vicky (Sydnee Washington) assures Julio, “Our incorporeal service can free you of your daily bodily ailments and discomforts.” And, considering Julio is convinced he has skin cancer, he’s only too ready to get on board with what Grimes was already advocating for back in 2018 with “We Appreciate Power” when she said, “Come on, you’re not even alive/If you’re not backed up on a drive/And if you long to never die/Baby, plug in, upload your mind.” That’s just what Julio intends to do—the only problem is, like every other minor endeavor in this hyper-bureaucratic world, the company requires him to show “Proof of Existence” in order to participate. Irritated yet again by this demand, Julio asks incredulously, “I need to prove that I exist so I can stop existing?”
It’s enough to drive him battier than riding in the car with Chester (Tomas Matos), a former Uber driver who has decided to create his own rideshare app called, what else, Chester. It is in his car that Julio first learns about the existence of a show called Melf, playing on the TV in the back of the cab. Needless to say, it’s a sendup of ALF (an acronym for Alien Life Form), the late 80s sitcom that centered on an alien that looks more like he fled from the Planet Sesame Street. Like Alf, Melf ends up landing on the doorstep of a suburban family, but Julio takes the original concept and turns it on its ear by creating a sordid romance between Melf and Jeff (Paul Dano), the character modeled after Willie Tanner (Max Wright). Instead of making it “wholesome” family content, Julio positions Melf and Jeff as secret lovers who hide their trysts until it finally becomes too obvious to Jeff’s wife, Nancy (Sunita Mani). Despite the pain he causes his family—and the international scandal it invokes—Jeff is happy he can finally be his authentic self, free to love the, er, being he really wants to. It is little digressions like these that also make Fantasmas reminiscent of the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse style. Granted, Torres has far more “k-hole” moments, if you will, than Pee-Wee ever did. From Dodo the Elf (Bowen Yang) to Denise (Aidy Bryant) the Toilet Dresser to Becca the Customer Service Rep for Assembly Plan Insurance. It is the latter character who also ties into a scene from Problemista when Alejandro calls a banking representative after seeing that he has a negative amount in his account.
Not understanding how he got so overdrawn, she chirpily tells him, “Every time you overdraft, the bank must impose a penalty of thirty-five dollars.” In disbelief, Julio snaps back, “So, what? Like an eight-dollar sandwich becomes a forty-five-dollar sandwich?” “Forty-three dollars,” she corrects matter-of-factly, adding, “That’s the policy, Mr. Martinez.” Julio continues to rebuff, “But that makes absolutely no sense. I distinctly recall making a cash deposit.” “And that deposit was flagged as potentially fraudulent, so it’s on hold now. For your protection.” “Right, but then that hold made me overdraw… Why would you let this happen? Why not just let my card get declined?” Unfazed, the representative says, “That’s not the way things work.” “But that is the way things should work. Otherwise, the bank is just benefitting from my misfortune. From the misfortune of people who can’t afford to make any mistakes. From people who have no margin of error.” “It’s policy. It is what it is.” Julio then launches into an even more emotional plea, concluding, “I know that there’s still a person in there, and I know that she can hear me.” For a moment, it seems like she might actually come around, only to end up shooting him in the face as she declares, “I stand with Bank of America.”
This bank representative is so clearly the precursor for Becca in Fantasmas, who gets an ostensible orgasm over other people’s suffering as she delivers the voiceover, “God, I love insurance. And banks, and credit cards, and the military. Law and order. I pity those who do not stand behind us.” Torres’ contempt for people who are simply “following orders” (you know, like the Nazis) is a hallmark of his work. Along with his total inability, as someone with an abstract artist’s mind, to fathom how anyone could live with themselves at such a job (acting as a gatekeeper who gets off on their own small form of power). Apart from the reason of “needing money to survive”—by fucking up other people’s survival.
In this sense, too, Torres touches on the idea that the employees of color so often working in these roles are only hurting their own kind in service of the white CEOs and other assorted power mongers at the top. The system in place, thus, continues to thrive through division and pitting people (usually the “unmonied”) against each other.
Another noticeable similarity between Julio in Fantasmas and Alejandro is that the latter has a similar form of hypochondria, at one point texting his mother a picture of his tongue with the caption (in Spanish), “Do you see those dots? Is that something bad?” For Julio, the obsession becomes all about the birthmark that looks like a mole just underneath his ear. Rather than focusing on the crushing pressure and simultaneous banality of dealing with his ever-mounting bureaucratic affairs, Julio would rather obsess over finding the oyster-shaped earring that was the exact same shape as his birthmark so that he can place it against said birthmark in front of a doctor to prove that it’s grown, therefore needs to be biopsied.
There to occasionally try to make him see reason is his “manager.” Or rather a performance artist playing his manager, but who has been doing it for so long that she’s really just his manager now. Alas, not even Vanesja (played by real-life performance artist Martine) or Julio’s “assistant,” a robot named Bibo (Joe Rumrill), can distract him from his quest to be distracted. And in the world of Fantasmas, there are many shiny people and objects to be distracted by—as there should be in any narrative worth its weight in magical realism.
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