Maria Rovira (Oye Sherman)

EN: why do they decide so quickly that it's a boy?

1 min
Scene from the film.Filmaffinity

There are many movies I haven't seen. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the tragedy, until the lockdown I hadn't seen Dirty dancing (what a marvel) or Pretty woman. I wanted to take advantage of this series of articles to effectively fill some of my cinematic gaps. In an era of massive audiovisual supply and absolute atomization of channels, I cure my FOMO with a delay. This week I saw ET, the Extra-Terrestrial for the first time and these are my notes:

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Notes I'm writing while watching 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' (1982) for the first time this week:
  • I understand it's an unbeatable movie. When you tell people you're going to watch ET for the first time, their eyes glaze over and they need a moment to process it. Because they still haven't gotten over it.
  • We start by discovering that the family father has left with someone else. In the 90s, a hint of divorce in a family movie meant that the protagonist child had the mission to prevent it at all costs (a lot of pressure for us kids, honestly). But ET is from the 80s, and that just means the father isn't around and the mother is too overwhelmed to notice that her three children are acting very strangely and that she has a damn alien in the house. It's what happens when your husband goes to Mexico with Sally.
  • In the family's disbelief phase, Michael says to his younger brother Elliot: “Maybe it was a pervert, or a deformed kid”. Well. A rather unfortunate comment, considering that ET was being manipulated from the inside by two people with achondroplasia and an 11-year-old boy who was missing his legs.
  • Why do they so quickly decide that ET “it's a boy”? Do aliens wear perms and French manicures? When Gertie puts a wig, dress, earrings, and hat on him, Michael declares it's “the most ridiculous thing he's ever seen” (sic), because, of course, feminine things are ridiculous. Two years after the premiere of ET, Los Morancos were born. I'm just putting that fact on the table.
  • The female characters are quite lacking in agency (the overwhelmed mother, the very young sister, the little girl in class whose voice we don't hear and who is gratuitously kissed), but the representation of the police, authority, and adults in general seems very accurate to me.
  • Watching the flying bicycle scene brought back strong memories of the last time I tried to brake with a Bicing bike. Luckily, I crashed into a parked car at a traffic light, which prevented the entire street traffic from running me over. You're not the only one having adventures, Elliot.
  • Lesson: it's much easier to connect with an alien from outer space than with certain jerks at school.
  • I can understand Elliot's feelings towards ET, it's like making Mallorcan friends in Barcelona. You end up loving them dearly, despite knowing that sooner or later they'll have to go back where they came from. If they don't, they suffer and wither away with sadness and start turning a burnt gray color, like ET when he gets sick, or anyone with a hangover after 30.
  • I find it very curious that Spielberg could be so inspired by Stranger Things, especially since the series is much later. I guess it's the mark of a genius.
  • The movie's success affected the childhood of Henry Thomas (Elliot) and especially Drew Barrymore (Gertie). Children and fame is a bad combination for them (but since the industry profits from it, oh well). I call for the return of the ethical option, that of Grease: forty-year-olds making faces because they've failed math.

Verdict: I didn't see it coming, but a ball with eyes, a hunched head, and the credibility of Sabrina's cat has earned a place in my heart.