Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Last August in San Antonio, Cristela Alonzo already had grown weary of joking about the election – much as she had grown weary on Twitter of responding to fans wondering when there might be another season of Cristela on ABC, or anywhere.
You can see the one and only season of Cristela on Netflix, and now Alonzo also has her first solo stand-hour on the streaming platform, too.
In Cristela Alonzo: Lower Classy, the comedian and first generation Mexican-American told her audience that she burned out on the 2016 campaigns when she kept hearing people ask to bring back the good old days. “You ever notice it’s only white people saying that shit?” she notes, before adding: “Brown people, when was our good old days, right?”
For this Tejano, it all comes back to Selena. “Selena is the closest thing Latinas have to a superhero.”
So Alonzo imagines what Selena could do with her superpowers were she still alive today. Take that, Trump.
How can she not talk about the wall in Texas, after all? Where both whites and Latinos, Americans and Mexicans alike know the reality of the situation and can mock the politics of it, and of how even imprisoned Mexican drug lords can break through whatever walls the new president might build. Speaking of Trump, his perma-tan also allows Alonzo to note the ironic hypocrisy of white folk making their skin darker, while darker-skinned people wish they were a lighter shade for that job interview. “Oh, I’m sorry. I dropped something. The truth, right?”
Much of Alonzo’s hour touches on her family’s immigrant experience, of growing up poor, of seeing differences in class before politics – her small-town city youth saw Blue vs. Red not in terms of politics but in retail politics: Walmart vs. Target. Her impoverished upbringing felt so normal that she joked about dreaming of joining New Kids on the Block on their tour bus – as their maid. “Even in my fantasy, I can’t give Latinas better jobs!”
Popular culture, entertainment and sports affords Alonzo the opportunity, though, to draw parallels between brand and team loyalties and newfound patriotism.
Above it all, just as you saw in Cristela, the real-life Alonzo’s upbringing and philosophy was molded by her Mexican mother.
Because her father wasn’t around. At one point, while discussing her own struggles with weight and exercise, and the ironies of Lululemon not making workout clothes that fit her, she jokes about how healthy food remains too expensive, indirectly steering poor people back to cheap, fast food like McDonalds. Then drops this zinger: “The McRib came back more times than my dad.” She smiles and waves to a side camera. “I say that in every city in case he’s out there.”
Alonzo’s mother, meanwhile, celebrated Christmas in January, not just because the discounts were deeper, but because the religious ties could tighten, too. Alonzo mines her relationship with her mother, now deceased, not only for plenty of punchlines but also for deep emotional impact. Those twin tasks combine seamlessly in a climactic story that proves why Alonzo felt it so important to portray her life and her mother’s immigrant experience so truthfully to herself in making Cristela. And why she’s so grateful that she had the chance to showcase that on TV in the first place.
[Watch Cristela Alonzo: Lower Classy on Netflix]
