If you don't know her name ... you don't speak Spanish

In my email this morning I saw a fairly provocative message subject from Mission Tiki Drive-In, whose emails I still get (and look at) even though I don't live in Los Angeles anymore, and haven't for nearly six years.

The subject was "If You Don't Know Her Name ... You Will."

I did a quick mental review of recent releases and couldn't figure out what movie this subject would be referring to. A click into the message revealed that it was The Curse of La Llorona.

And I thought "That's not the primary reason most people don't know her name."

It's a heartening development that a movie can be released in the U.S. with a title that figures to challenge most Americans' ability to say it. The producers of the Conjuring movies (of which this is one of many universe spinoffs) believe that Spanish has nestled itself enough in the American mainstream that the majority of Americans can or should be able to say this word, but I have to wonder if that's correct. As I lived in Los Angeles and like to think of myself as a general scholar on how to pronounce words in foreign languages (whether I know what they mean or not), I know that this is pronounced "La Yarona," with the L's being said more or less as a Y. But in the numerous pockets of the country where ignorance or a willful distrust of foreign things prevail, there will be many attempts to say the title with an L sound, to the extent that they deign to say it at all. And I can't really blame them, at least those who are attempting to say it, because the more pioneering of them at least know that the word "Lloyd" begins with a pair of L's and is said with an L sound.

Of course, La Llorona is a reasonably famous product of Mexican folklore, increasing the likelihood that the studio would want to use the name in the title in order to create a brand awareness among those who know about it. Again, though, I doubt this brand awareness extends much outside the parts of the country where immigrants are plentiful and (I dare say) welcome.

The reason I didn't immediately recognize this movie at all is because in Australia, it is called The Curse of the Weeping Woman. Which I actually think is a pretty good title, with the two W's creating a kind of poetic sense of alliteration. Australian distributors knew the locals would have no chance of pronouncing "La Llorona."

When/if I do see it -- as I have missed many of these Conjuring spinoffs -- I will be likely to use the original title in my various lists, especially since I feel like I'm comparing my year-end lists primarily to those of a pool of American critics.

Plus, I'm really excited about what this normalization of Spanish could mean for the 2020 presidential election, as hopefully most of the people who understand how to say La Llorona will help vote El Cabron out of the White House.