A Writers View

After watching the 2019 live action production of Dora the Explorer, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, I’ve come to the conclusion that Dora, is in fact, crazy!

The movie showcases many alarming symptoms, both in Dora and in her surroundings, that lead to that very diagnosis.

#1: Dora’s parents being worried about her strange habit of “talking to herself”.

#2: Diego’s distance.

#3: The prescription looking “iodine” pills.

#4: Talking animal friends and enemies.

#5: Manic attitude and seeming lack of empathy.

Let’s start with #1: Dora’s parents being worried about her strange habit.

At the start of the film, Dora is going around exploring, doing the classic annoying talking to the camera thing, that viewers of the cartoon kid shows (and many memes since) will most certainly remember. She looks right at the camera several times and says, “Can you say ___?”

When she does this in front of her parents, they look around, all scared, in fact pretty freaked out, looking for the person or animal or thing that their daughter could be talking to, but there’s nothing and no one. Creepy!! To add to it, Dora’s father attempts to copy Dora at one point, to which Dora’s mother chides him saying, “don’t encourage her.”

Moving on to #2: Diego’s distance.

Again, at the start of the film, Diego is living in the jungle, with his family, as Dora’s cousin, neighbor, and only friend, but one day his parents decide to uproot their lives and move to the city. Could it be that Dora’s insanity has frightened Diego’s family, and in an effort to protect their son, they did the only thing that they could and left? That’s where my money would go!

#3 now: The prescription looking “iodine” pills.

On Dora’s first day of public school in the city she is stopped by the security guard, who empties out her backpack revealing everything from an emergency tent kit to a flare to a personal generator. Amongst her belongings we see a little orange pill bottle, much like the ones that all prescription meds come in, that Dora quickly explains contains “iodine pills, for sanitizing water.”

Well… were those really iodine pills? Is it possible that her parents had her on anti-psychotic meds and that they simply just changed the label on the bottle? I think so.

And then, we get to #4: Talking animal friends and enemies.

Now, fans of the original cartoon will remember that Dora had a pet monkey named Boots, and a dastardly thieving fox enemy named Swiper. Of course, in the cartoon the animals could talk, because it was a children’s cartoon. But, this is a live action movie that is trying to make Dora seem more like a real person.

Yet, Swiper exists – and can talk. And later, towards the end of the film, when Dora is feeling down in the dumps and starting to doubt herself, her monkey friend Boots also talks to her. In a very deep and unsettling voice I might add. The rest of the movie involves hallucinogenic plants, magical Incan guards and nobody being phased by any of these things!

What’s more realistic – that all of these things exist and this story is just taking place in an alternate reality from ours where talking foxes and monkey’s are common and strange Incan demons are a dime a dozen? Or, that Dora is delusional and hallucinating during a large portion of the movie? I vote for the delusional storyline. 🙋‍♀️

Finally, we arrive at #5: Dora’s manic attitude and seeming lack of empathy.

Dora is cheerful – but alarmingly so. I never saw a single scene where she was tired, and the one scene where she was a bit upset with Diego felt unrealistic because it was so out of character. The entire film she is just a wound up ball of energy that doesn’t stop.

Then, there were a couple of moments where other characters were struggling and Dora’s response to them felt a little – off. Her female classmate is uncomfortable about having to go potty break in the jungle, to which Dora responds by singing a song. At another point, there is another man trapped in a swamp and he is being swarmed by two deadly scorpions. Dora watches and narrates the whole thing, sounding pretty happy, fascinated and unattached. The concerns and fears of her companions don’t seem to faze her at all.

Just to be clear, the movie is not saying that Dora is crazy, but at the same time – they totally are!

It would’ve made for an incredibly fascinating dark movie if they had decided to lean into the bread crumbs of insanity that they had already dropped, but understandably they wanted to make it a movie that children could watch. I still wouldn’t let my children watch it though, not because of the unbelievable nature of it, but because of all of the weird pagan stuff that they threw in at the end (Boots was totally a demon btw!).

For the first time I have to say that, while I had fun, this a movie that I would not recommend and I myself will not be watching it again. 😝

But, I did have a fun time – and if they decided to do a dark Dora one day, then I would totally watch that!