DORA THE EXPLORER
A Review by: James Best, full-time parent and part-time man
A) Everyday Dora goes in her backyard and retreats to her delusional world of weird places and quests because her parents are crackheads so she chooses to live in her fantasy.
B) Dora's giant football shaped head has made her an outcast among her people so she takes solace in the arms of a talking backpack and monkey.
C) Dora's weird life is real and she's some sort of oblivious child god on her planet that spends her days solving her world's bonkers problems.
I can't pick one so let's examine all three. Because this show makes no sense and Dora speaking to me creeps me the golly jeepers out. Her unblinking psycho stare makes me think she's going to crawl out of my TV a la The Ring.
THEORY 1: DORA THE NEGLECTED
Where are her parents? This girl's like 6 years old. Did the streets make her bilingual? Was this just language survival? I can only assume she plays outside because her parents are running a crackhouse or meth den.
Sadly, by the looks of her skull shape, she's a crackbaby but I'm proud of her for using her mind to escape the situation. Is the monkey real? I don't know. If Boots is real, it begs the question: How did these junkie parents get her a real live monkey? Probably a drug trade. Maybe a customer appreciation gift from one of their Columbian drug lords. If the monkey isn't real, then why imagine a monkey companion? Why not just imagine herself into the show Full House? A nice family structure full of catchphrases seems more enjoyable than drug parentage.
This Dora makes me sad. But it's probably the most realistic. There's no way good parents would let her out their sight for this long every day. I'm afraid she even dreamed up her cousin Diego. Or worse, Diego is real, is totally in a gang and that's why you don't see him much.
I hope the series ends with a call to Social Services.
THEORY 2: DORA THE OUTCAST
Or she has no parents. She's like a box-car child. If the box-car children lived in some wacky magic land with talking mountains and maps that won't shut up about what they are. "I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map..." Try to say that inside a paper shredder, Map.
Dora lives in crazy world. Bags have mouths but no discernible need to eat. Monkeys wear boots and foxes wear masks. Dora can always wear shorts and swamps cry and snails have feelings that Dora spends her indigent life saving. Dora's so lonesome she sometimes plays a version of Russian Roulette with a troll. If she solves the riddle, she lives. If she doesn't, he'll smash her into a puddle of sadness.
And yet she never stops smiling. Hope looks good in a bob haircut.
Now, again, she could be imagining all of this. Her rejection from society might only be bearable by imagining herself out of her own hell-world. There's even an episode where her "Mami" rubs it in her face about how replaceable Dora is by having twins right in front of her. Dora can't cry though because her giant head barely has enough moisture to keep it alive.
Dora wanders the globe in a sort of hypnotic haze, trying to impress everyone with her Spanish language skills. She's like an ambassador to crazy. She lives off magical food and sleeps wherever she can find somewhere to lay her map down as a bed mat. Sometimes her "cousin" Diego drops by to rub it in how good his life is and how normally shaped his head is. She keeps the monkey not for friendship but for warmth and maybe some monkey stew if things get real bad.
Street urchins have no friends.
THEORY 3: DORA THE CHILD-GOD
Ok, let's say Weird World is real. Stars actually talk to Dora and Backpacks are sentient. Anthropomorphic cows and trumpet playing bugs and Gooey Swamps and Candy Condominiums and whatnot are all real and Dora spends her whole day roaming around on self-imposed quests. Why? Because she's some sort of fickle child-god who rules over this silly world.
What else could be the explanation?
1st) She's creepily omniscient. She talks to you from your TV. There's no film crew following her so what is she speaking into if we're supposed to believe this narrative? Portals through time and space, duh. Dora Demi-God knows you're out there and talks to you.
2nd) Have you noticed how like no time passes while she's on her adventure? It's because she's bending time/space like a boss. Have you tried to climb a mountain? It takes time. Not for Dora though. Suspect. Unless you're a child-god.
3rd) Swiper is the devil. Yeah, that's right. Dora's world is clearly demarcated by good and evil. Helping is Good. Swiping is Evil. Swiper is clearly a Satan archetype and he's punished over and over by Dora's omniscient knowledge of where all the crap he stole got hidden. She calls him out every time, "BAD SWIPER." Totally the devil.
Let's face it, Dora is a God. The whole world bends to her will. She's never hurt by lava or wild animals or child advocate groups. Sometimes she has butterfly wings or swings through the jungle without tiring her tiny toddler arms. Even weirder, her world doesn't speak Alien, it speaks English and Spanish. She's too powerful and she needs to be down by another god. I nominate Thor.
Let's face it, Dora is a God. The whole world bends to her will. She's never hurt by lava or wild animals or child advocate groups. Sometimes she has butterfly wings or swings through the jungle without tiring her tiny toddler arms. Even weirder, her world doesn't speak Alien, it speaks English and Spanish. She's too powerful and she needs to be down by another god. I nominate Thor.
OVERALL: It's not the worst show out there but it's annoying as crap. Halfway into your second episode, you'll be praying for your tv to set on fire. I'm sure it teaches stuff and yeah, it's great that there's a Hispanic role model for kids. Oh wait, we already had one. His name is Luis Guzman. So this show has zero value. Turn on some Luis.
