Primos, an addendum

This won't be a full review, this is intended to be a quick revisit of an older entry based on new information.

Back in 2023 I made a blog discussing the backlash surrounding Primos, where I took the side of the dissenters. For a little catch-up, Primos is a cartoon that was released on the Disney Channel. You may remember it for the stink it caused whether intentionally or not. To promote the series Disney released the opening sequence, and that's about it.

The opening sequence did not provide the proper context of what the show was about, which is important when you have a character spouting poor Spanish grammar, along with some questionable accents and art choices that lean to stereotypical depictions of Spanish/Mexican culture and locales, i.e. the piss filter. Also less said about Earthquake Heights and the youngest's original name the better.

In the post I made, I had made a hypothetical suggestion to how the series could be salvaged, "If it is made clear that Tater, the main character, is learning her language as she went along, the theme song would gradually improve in grammar until toward the end she sings in fluent Spanish."

But since then the series came out, and what did it turn out to be? Something close to what I had suggested. Tater does struggle with the Spanish language, that or she had been out of her loop due to her generational gap. This shows in her being unable to say certain words and phrases. Just by one of the more damning issues raised, there is a reason behind it, and I can't really be mad about it. What? I'd be like how dare they meet the standard I set?

The series serves as a recollection of the series' creator's childhood, or some spin on it, living in Los Angeles and trying to stay in sync with her roots, along with various cousins who would be staying with her over the summer. Everyone has different experiences, unfortunately some experiences would be stigmatized due to their frequency or how certain shows would use it. In this situation I can at least say they weren't trying to be malicious here.

But if those seems like reaches, I'd like to point out that the creators actually spent time amending certain aspects of the show, a lot of things got renamed, especially the more problematic ones, plus they made it clear that the show takes place in Los Angeles. It's not often creatives would take the time to course correct, if I had a nickel for every time a show or movie was delayed in order to switch things around per fan input, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice.

There is one more observation I wanna make, this centering on one of the characters Cha Cha. In the opening she is shown to have a unibrow, and be quite ugly. In the show it turns out she is some weird gremlin like girl who can only say her name. So she is deliberately weird looking and acting, guess that'd go for the rest of the characters, those not intended to be indicative of a nationality, just characters that happen to belong to it.

I get people want to be heard and don't want to be treated like the butt of a joke, believe me a lot of it is well overdue, but unless they're deliberately trying to set depictions of said nationalities, races, etc. back with stereotypical whatevers, let creators cook. Not all of them act with mal intent, and I feel the creator (not the actress who was also thrust into the controversy with her response) didn't deserve whatever harassment she received. Only good thing is that the more alarming faults were addressed before the series finally came out. If they're willing to address these problems it shows the creator really had good intentions.

As for whatever I saw of the series, the show leans heavily into fantasy sequences and quirks, think of it like a mix between Doug and The Mighty B, with an aesthetic similar to Casagrandes. But compared to that show... I like Primos a hell of a lot better. Casagrandes feels more like an expansion of the Loud House, a cash cow, the line between both shows being fairly blurry, it honestly feels like it's just the Loud House with Spanish tropisms, and by that I mean it doesn't feel like any genuine thought went into it. One feels more earnest than the other, you already know which one.

If nothing else at least you can say you like Primos and not be burned at the stake for it these days. Primos is essentially the Kabuki Warriors of Disney cartoons, universally hated due to a gross misunderstanding, and turning out to not be as terrible as its reputation suggested. Did Primos live up to its bad rep- no, no it didn't. A lot of people just saw an easy target to play armchair activist, save for those who had more earnest intentions and zeroed in on the more objective problems.

Not the greatest Disney cartoon ever, but as always there's bound to be something ten times worse out there.