The Vengeance of Betty

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Page 1:

• Parody: The Revenge of Blue Corn Maiden
• The Vengeance of Betty
  • By Sandra Hernandez

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• A long time ago… (not really)
• Takes place in Brooklyn, New York early 2000s
• There were two besties of westies
  • Named Betty and Teresa
  • They did everything together, they were inseparable
• But that all changed

Page 3:

• A guy named Michelangelo moved into the neighborhood
• Both Betty and Teresa fell absolutely in love with him
  • Like head over heels in love with him

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• Teresa devises a plan to take Betty out of the competition

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• One early morning they went out to the community garden to collect some flowers for her family
• While Betty wasn’t looking, Teresa sprinkled some of the potion she made onto the bushes of roses

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• When Betty began to pick roses, she accidentally pricked her hand with the thorn
  • Her finger bled

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• At the speed of light
  • She began to age very quickly
• She saw her reflection in the river and became very sad
• She thought to herself
  • She was once a beautiful young woman but now she became a very old unattractive woman

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• She went around the neighborhood
  • With her luck, for some reason, there were just men around
• She approaches the men, but because she isn’t with the “trend” they all ignored her and called her crazy for thinking she is Betty
• From that point on she was known as Betty La Fea

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• She wonders of yonder
  • Time: midnight (golden hour)
• Betty comes across a house in the middle of yonder and quickly rushes inside because there is a wolf howling at the moon

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• She’s tired to do anything, so Betty goes upstairs to find a bed to rest
• 2 hours later
• The owners of the house come in
  • Bella, Ariel, Fiona
    • They just came from shopping
    • They sense something is off

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• They approach Ariel’s room and see Betty knocked out on her bed
• They wake her up and immediately
• Betty pleads to hear her out
• They all knew at once that Betty is not supposed to look like this (that’s sus)

Page 12:

• They all get together
  • (Who knew they know magic)
• And they chanted all together
  • “All it takes is faith and trust and a little bit of pixie dust”

Page 13:

• Betty transforms back to her old self

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• The three old ladies tell her that her mother is sick and that she needs to go back
• They also give her a list of tasks that she needs to complete in order for her mother to get better

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• She returns home
  • She does as she is instructed by the three old ladies
  • There is a celebration for her return
• The following day she is in the garden again

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• Her old bestie (Ummm), Teresa, is so happy that her friend finally returned home
• Teresa acts as if nothing has happened
• Teresa plots the same plan again, but this time Betty is one step ahead
• She is wearing a bracelet, and this prevents her from any harm (gifted by the old ladies)
  • As well she has these red scissors
    • These red scissors permanently lead to forever consequence  
      • In this case, cutting from the roses
• Teresa having jealousy snatches the scissors from Betty’s hand and snips one of the roses

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• This resulted in the same actions as what happened last time to Betty
• But this time Betty confronts her and tells her that these results are forever permanent (no cure)

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• Teresa runs to her family (well walks very slowly)
• Tells her parents, that it is her
  • But they don’t believe her
• She is banished from ever seeing them but tells her at least if they see her daughter, tell her that they are looking for her

Page 19:

• In the end, Teresa dies of a broken heart because she now feels the neglection of everyone and lost faith
• While Betty lives a happy life with her parents and Michelangelo

Review:

This is a parody of The Revenge of Blue Corn Maiden; this is renamed The Vengeance of Betty. The main difference between the original text and my imitation of the text is the time period, the characters, and the seriousness. The time period makes a huge difference because, from the original text, this can be set before colonization and more focus on the native side. The time period of my version is set in the early 2000s in Brooklyn New York; both very opposite time periods, one being more old school and the other one more modern. The characters represented in the original text are focused on native indigenous people who are more traditional in their beliefs. While my parody version focuses on non-religious beliefs with a hint of witchcraft and/or magical beliefs. For example, when the Blue Corn Ear Maiden was turned into a coyote making it more of an animal fable, my version was when Betty was transformed into a very old version of herself. The similarities between them are that they both struggled to find acceptance because they both struggle to find acceptance in the community and this leads them to be cast away. The original text can be taken more seriously because it is more on the respective side of a story from an indigenous side while mine is more laid back and has a few laughs here and there. Making my version, with all due respect to the original version, I tried to make it seem more like a soap drama with fantasy; with the intention that people know its not really going to be taken as seriously as the original text. Overall, both the original text and my version carries out the message; no one should not have jealousy or act in jealousy to get their way for their selfish needs.

-Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez

When reality hits

In Hannes Bergthaller’s essay, A Sense of No-Place, he states that there are similarities to the movie, Avatar, compared to indigenous people. Both can be said, that they care and listen to what nature must bring them; there is devotion to connecting spiritually with nature among the Na’avi and the indigenous people. The downside to this movie is that it portrays that it wants to seek that the viewers should be one with nature, but this message is lost and just shows that when it comes back to real-time, there is just a comparison between fantasy and reality.

Many fans of this movie would agree that this movie hit all the key points on environmental justice and how this portrays the indigenous people but there is a scene in the movie that does not make sense. In the end, when the Na’avi lost all hope of winning the battle against the sky people, they were being dominated; out of nowhere a stampede of nature comes and saves them. The animals of the land come and battle against the sky people; the Na’avi gained hope again. The land animals who are immune to their weapons were winning. The sky animals took each plane one by one; the numbers of the sky people were going down. This is cool, but this shows that nature does not work like that. In real-world situations, if there was something like this, the animals will run away because they have no communication with the locals or in this case the “Great Mother”. In the end, we are alone and it’s the saying, survival of the fittest.

-Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez

Fear Does Not Show Mastery

Mowgli’s final return to the Manpack does not presuppose human mastery over the Law of the Jungle. There are two different worlds: the jungle world, and the human world. The jungle world has set its laws and it applies to the animals of the jungle. The Laws of the Jungle have remained intact for so long that these laws are sacred and cannot be messed with. Until Mowgli comes along, and he was set to be a man’s cub. His requirement to be a man’s cub was to learn the Laws of the Jungle, and he had to follow them. Along Mowgli’s journey, he was exposed to the human world, and then he killed Shere Khan. At this point Mowgli was aware that he has two identities; he grew up surrounded by varieties of animals but as well he was exposed to a human mother figure, Messua. Mowgli in the end cannot have a say that the humans have mastery over the Laws of the Jungle because he is biased; he knows too much while the other worlds remain hidden. The human world cannot have mastery over the Law of the Jungle because for one to have mastery over something they cannot show any fear. The humans show fear for all the animals in the jungle. Before everything, there was no fear until the first Tiger forgot who he was; “All the Jungle People came before him without fear… and the First of the Tigers forgot that he was the master and judge of the Jungle, and, leaping upon that buck, broke his neck.” The humans have the right to show fear to the jungle, but this does mean that they have mastery over the Law of the Jungle; they have not even mastered their fear.

-Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez

The Owl’s Mistakes

Kyle Whyte expressed that there “is a precise way to express environmental justice” between the relationship of humans and non-humans in an understanding way. In one of the fables from American Indian Myths and Legends by Erodes et al., we see from the fable Why The Owl Has Big Eyes that this is somewhat true. The fable starts with Raweno who creates animals, and he honors the request from those animals to build their physical characteristics. He starts with the rabbit’s appeal in giving him “long legs and long ears like a deer, and sharp fangs and claws like a panther.” (pg. 398) The owl watching this transformation was not informed that he must wait his turn to request his physical traits, became very talkative and annoyed Raweno. Raweno asked for peace, but the owl did not listen and because of this “Raweno became angry. He grabbed Owl, pulling him down from his branch, stuffing his head deep into his body, shaking him until his eyes grew big with fright, pulling at his ears until they were sticking up at both sides of his head.” (pg. 399) The rabbit became afraid and left before Raweno could finish his work and as well the Owl now sleeps during the day and is awake at night. At first, the kinship is good because Raweno has a good relationship with the animals and listens to their request in the animal’s body change. Then the Owl’s kinship with Raweno became negative when the Owl did not listen to him, nor he was well informed of the situation; there wasn’t communication, and this could have been a better outcome if the Owl was well informed. Also, the rabbit became afraid of Raweno, he saw what he did to the Owl, and this could have affected the rest of the relationships between Raweno and the rest of the animals.

-Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez

Team Animals: Knowledge is Power

I do believe that the animals are ultimately more persuasive and less flawed in their arguments than their human opponents. We start off at Chapter 2 continuing to Chapter 3 humans arguing that the humans are made the way they are supposed to be made and animals as well; “‘Our fair form, erect structure, upright carriage, and keen senses, our subtle powers of discrimination, our sharp minds and superior intellects all show that we are the master and they, our slaves.’” (pg. 109) This translates to them stating their form is superior to the animals and because of this they declare they have should power over the animals. This is not enough to prove their argument, nor do they provide evidence to back up their claim. Continuing their debate, the animals spoke and stated that God did not create animals to be called slaves, the animals’ spokesman said ‘“He knew and wisely ordained that their form is best for them and ours for us.’” (pg. 109) The animals mentioned that they are fit best for their form as well a human is fit for what they must do for survival. A wise being is when they “‘…are well rooted in knowledge.’” (pg. 112) The animal spokesman continues stating, “‘In just this way we find that God adapted the parts of every species to its needs in seeking the benefits and avoiding the harm. This is what Moses meant, peace be upon him when he spoke of Our Lord who gave its nature to every thing and guided all things.’” (pg.112) The animal spokesman gives reasoning that not everything revolves around humans. Animals and humans live different lives, and each species has its own way of adapting to the world. This does not mean one species has more power over the other species, nor does this state one should be named masters and others should be named slaves.

From the opposing side of view, they may argue that if one does contain this knowledge of wisdom why is it that humans care for them? From Chapter 5, the humans state, “‘There is more evidence that we are their masters and they our slaves. We buy and sell them, feed and water them. We clothe and shelter them from heat and cold, and protect them from predators that would tear them to pieces… But these are things masters do for their servants and owners for their property.’” (pg. 115) The humans state that they do a lot of stuff for the animals, and they should be grateful because they are basically their masters. Nevertheless, the animals state that the humans don’t do these types of acts from their hearts they do these acts because for selfish reasons; ‘“…we die and they lose their investment in us and the benefits they take from us…’” (pg. 116) The humans have no pity towards the animals, they only do it for their own good, they don’t have compassion towards that animals; ‘“… stick in hand to beat us brutally about the face and back in anger, you would have pitied us and shed tears of sorrow for us merciful king. Where then are their mercy and compassion?’” (pg. 117) Overall this shows that if they are their masters, the servants shouldn’t be treated very poorly as mentioned by the animals; this demonstrates a negative connotation.

-Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez

The Pig’s Identity Crisis

At first, when reading The Case of the Animals versus Man, points were being made left and right. For example, on the human’s side, “‘Our fair form, erect stature, upright carriage, and keen senses, our subtle powers of discrimination, our sharp minds and superior intellects all show that we are the masters and they, our slaves.’” (pg. 109) Their argument interprets them as being more superior than the animals because they have more dominance towards them; they believe that their actions, thoughts, and human figures allow them to call themselves masters and the animals’ slaves. On the animal side, they pointed out that a human’s claim doesn’t have anything to support its argument; “‘God aid your Majesty to the truth’, the animal spokesman answered. ‘Listen and you shall know that God did not give them this for or shape them in this way to mark them as master. Nor did He create us in the form we have to brand us as slaves. He knew and wisely ordained that their form is best for them and ours for us.’” (pg. 109) The animal’s argument states that God did not make each creation the same nor did He make each creation to be interpreted as a master, He made each creation to fit their structure. The arguments made by humans do not meet this high standard because they do not provide sufficient evidence to back their discussion. On the other hand, the arguments presented by the animals do meet this high standard because they provided reasoning to their explanation.

As the debate continues on animals versus men, they stray away from clarity because the pig is brought into the debate, and this questions the pig’s status. During the conversation, it was brought up by “one of the jinni scholars said, ‘No indeed! The pig does not belong to the cattle. He’s a beast of prey. Don’t you see that he has tusks and eats carrion?’” (pg. 120) Each religion has different viewpoints on the pig: the Muslims and Jews find the pig revolting, while the Romans and Christians do not and eat the meat of a pig. Others treat the pigs as other animals like cows or sheep and like the Greeks, they use the pig for medical treatments. The pig is very much confused because they do not know if they should be grateful, or they should feel wronged. The way they call the pig “a beast of prey” (pg. 120) and they have the pig sorted into different categories shows that there isn’t a logical consistency for both sides of the arguments; the pig is very much disorientated from this debate because he makes this argument about himself and his identity crisis.

-Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez

What is the Message?

At the start of the year 2020, it became such a worldwide of safety hazards because of the spread of SARS-CoV-2 or in other words COVID-19. People were running around everywhere to stock up on essentials like hand sanitizer, bleach, toilet paper; anything to avoid the infectious virus. It became the survival of the fittest but then it turned very political. The former president of the United States, Donald Trump, made it clear to all residents of the states that face masks were not needed. The message of face masks is used to prevent the spread of the virus, but this message got lost and was turned into a political interpretation. This is very similar to Aesop’s fables; Aesop lived around the early 6th century BC and was a slave. Despite his status, he told entertaining tales, mostly focusing on animal fables, because of this, his fables became famous to future scholars and leaders. Aesop’s fables focus on themes like diplomacy, kingship, equity, and justice to identify political allegories in the animal fables, but these moral messages got lost in interpretation and are turned into more of a humanized moral message.

-Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez

A Promise is A Promise

Fairness is negotiated in Aesop’s ploughman and lion’s fables by depending on the fable. In some of his fables, the animals have more power over the humans in other situations the humans have power over the animals. Depending on the situation on what is happening in the fable, sometimes the weak have the power. For example, in Aesop’s fable #206, we can see that the mouse has power over the lion. This fable tells us the story that a mouse was running along the body of a lion. The lion was about to eat the mouse, but the mouse begged for mercy; the mouse stated that he would return the favor of saving his life one day. The lion was entertained by this and let the mouse go, and when the day came, the mouse returned the favor and saved the lion’s life. Further explaining the fable, we can see that the fairness was completed because the lion chooses not to kill the mouse and the mouse choose to save the lion’s life.  At the beginning of this fable, fairness isn’t really negotiated, the mouse was just lucky that the lion saved his life, but at the end of the fable negotiation was seen because the mouse had this power to let the lion go and not get killed. Negotiation here symbolizes the saying, “a promise is a promise,” and the mouse completed his promise of saving the lion’s life.

Most of these fables deviate from the equality and justice proclaimed by the Lion King in fable #195 because, in the real world, situations like these hardly happen. In Aesop’s fable, The Royalty of the Lion #195, we read that prey and predators live in harmony. The Lion King wanted a world in which every animal would get along with each other; this fable shows how we don’t live in a world like that. This fable as well shows that life is fair, but life isn’t stated as fair, whatever comes along in one’s path, is their faith. For example, we grew up in a world in which we believe that the strongest or the biggest have the most power. It’s like a dog chasing a cat, but in many homes, pet owners have both dogs and cats, and they get along fine. On the other hand, we can also see the poor versus the rich; there isn’t equality nor justice being served. Many people struggle to survive, while others live freely without suffering.   

-Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez

Do Our Actions Lead to Consequences?

Aesop’s Camel fable #146, The Camel and Zeus, tell us a story about a camel being jealous of a bull because he wants to obtain some horns as well. The camel’s desire led him to seek out Zeus and plead him to acquire him some horns like the bull. Zeus on the other hand was not happy from his pleading because the camel wanted more apart from him already having his large size as well, having his strength. In the end, instead of Zeus accepting the camel’s desire, he took the route of cutting off parts of the camel’s ears. The significance of this message translates to “So it is that many people, through greed, look upon others with envy, not realizing that they are losing their own advantages.” (Aesop, pg.191) The moral message of this fable deviates that this complicates the life and action of the camel. The camel had the option to not go to Zeus and just continue living his life, but he feels so much greed that he made the choice to beg for horns that overall led him to lose parts of his ears. Before losing parts of his ears, the camel probably had the advantage of having great hearing but because of his actions, this could mean his hearing is not as great anymore. The camel was punished because he already had so much, yet he still asks for more; the camel can be seen as a selfish creature because one should be thankful for what they possess.

I do believe that the call for environmental justice to these fables and their human-ascribed morals achieves this because it shows us how we humans want more but this results in consequences. Tuesday’s reading, Justice beyond humanity, by Steve Cooke, explains different points of view on how we should approach animal rights and the environment’s rights. Each point of view describes their solutions, but the consequence is that many people won’t agree to their plan. For example, should animals have rights, and should the environment have rights? Do we need to set them up with a lawyer? What are their rights to say? Can they even speak for themselves? Another example, should there be a stop to the illegal trading of animals? Many would argue yes because they state that animals have value for themselves. Others would counterargue that illegal animal trading should continue because they make a profit out of it, or they like how their fur/scales look on them. The consequence of this is that animals are going extinct, and this puts the risk on the environment because they depend on each other. Overall, this shows that we should be grateful for what we have but because of our actions from the past and currently the present, we now want to change what we have done, and this will lead to future consequences; this complicates many things, and this fable explains the consequences of our past/present/future actions.

– Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez