Hi all,

A friend of mine recently sent me an excerpt from the Feb 2003 Dame Edna column. Please read:
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Dear Dame Edna,

I would very much like to learn a foreign language,preferably French or Italian, but every time I mention this, people tell me to learn Spanish instead. They say, "Everyone is going to be speaking Spanish in 10 years. George W. Bush speaks Spanish." Could this be true? Are we all going to have to speak Spanish?

Torn Romantic, Palm Beach

Dear Torn:

Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth reading except Don Quixote, and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La Mancha will take
care of that. There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but I'd leave him on the intellectual back burner if I were you. As for everyone's speaking it, what twaddle! Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to? The
help? Your leaf blower? Study French or German, where there are at least a few books worth reading, or, if you're not American, try English.

Dame Edna

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As a person who is genuinely enraptured by my culture and believe Hispanics are a vital, dynamic, intelligent workforce I wrote an email to vfmail@vf.com to express my outrage

If you do not want to do this then please comment and tell us how you feel about Dame Edna's comment

MM: I certainly do not mean to use this board for any incendiary commentary but felt that it was important to post this terrible injustice so that all can comment/reflect. Please remove if you feel it is necessary.

Dame Edna occupies my mind only during the time it takes for me to imagine kicking her / him as hard as I can in the ass.
PS: wearing steel toe boots.

I don't think you should really take Dame Edna too seriously. She always says outrageous things but ultimately, the whole act is a satire on middle class (Australian)values. Barry Humphries (her alter-ego) also does a character called Sir Les Patterson, who allegedly was once the Australian Minister for Culture. I'd be interested in knowing where this column appeared. In the UK, where she's been perfoming for years, she's seen more as a sort of batty/outrageous/embarrasing/camp/grotesque Auntie figure.

I received this e-mail also. However, since I didn't actually see the article, I'm wondering, considering all of the other hoaxes that are passed around the internet, if this is another one!? I'd protest if it were, but if its not?! I don't care what type of character Dame is, but that Vanity Fair would actually publish that?

I'm also starting to have doubts about the column. Having thought about it, it isn't very funny and Dame Edna usually is. It's not really the sort of thing she'd talk about either. Strange.

Maybe it's because it is the written word, rather than Dame Ednas verbal and visual performance?

I'm sure if we'd seen 'her' perform it, then the satire may have come accross?

Looks like this one might have backfired

Jo

Well, the piece was published. I read it in Vanity Fair this week. But don't get wound up about it. It's not supposed to be serious. Whether you split your sides laughing about it is anither matter. But I doubt you will.

Ay Caramba, Edna, mija no tienes pelos en la lengua!
Holy Cow, Edna you have no hairs on her tongue, sweetie!

I think Edna, went a little too far here! What is this! Are all Hispanics seen as the help! Are we all "Manuel's from Barcelona" (i.e. Fawlty Towers)!

No, it was not in good taste, I enjoy a laugh more than the next person, but this was a bit too much stereotyping for my taste. I wont forgive Edna about Spanish Literature, either! My message to the old DAme: Edna Baby better remember what happened to Andy Rooney! He got his bum kicked, that's what! :p

Hey, Jo, other than this little incident, I like to watch Dame Edna, she's a scream!

Dame Edna should go back to school and learn a little about modern Spanish literature: Jorge Luis Borges, Marquez, and a couple of hundred other writers, or more could enliven her, enlighten her and entertain her for several lifetimes. . . oh, but what a tradegy, she doesn't speak or read Spanish!

The US/English empire is at its zenith, which means that it is also on the way out. Spain was the first global empire, and Spanish-speaking people are one of the largest, and fastest growing groups in the world. The Japanese have replaced English with Spanish as THE second language to study to be ready for the challenges of the future. . .

I took French in Junior High School, but think I would have been better off taking Spanish. No matter, now my Spanish is much, much better than my French! ¡Viva Español!

Martín de Madrid
President
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Guapetona said this:
Who do you think "Hispanics" are?. Do you really think that there is a "Hispanic" culture?. Do you really think that Argentinians are the same thing as the Bolivians?, or that the Ecuatorians are the same thing as the Dominicans?. Those people speaks the same language and used to be a Spanish colony, but besides that what else do they have in common?.

Come on, there is no "Hispanic culture", there is no "Hispanic" people. There are very different people and nationalities that speaks Spanish that is what there is, in many cases very different ones from the others but there is no Hispanic culture at all.

Do you think that putting people with so different backgrounds in the same basket just because they speak the same language (Spanish) does it make sense?.

May be when you think of "Hispanic culture" you are referring to the culture of Spain and Spaniards and their direct descendants in America. All the great writers, painters, artists, that are associated with "Hispanic" culture are Spaniards or direct Spanish descendants and frankly I don´t see why Dominicans, Ecuatorians, Peruans, and most latinamericans.... can be proud of Cervantes, Picasso, Dali, Velazquez, Goya, ?.

Sorry to dissapoint you but We Spaniards don´t think there is a "Hispanic culture" exceptuating our own culture (the culture of Spain, Spaniards and direct descendants of Spaniards in America).

I can see why Vanity Fair said that on that article. We don´t like that our culture (Spain´s culture) is abused permanently by people that don´t have a drop of Spain´s blood and that keep saying that they are Spanish in the US when they are not.

Many of us hate the fact that there are many Southamericans (Hondurans, Mexicans, Dominicans, Bolivians) that are living in the US and that call themshelves "Spanish" just because they speak our language.

It´s like if someone from Jamaica goes to to the US and says he is "English" and that he belongs to the "Anglosajon" culture.

I post this so you can understand this issue much better.