Film Theory: Dora is CURSED! (Dora The Explorer)

foreign [Music] [Music] help me hola internet bienvenuto a lotiorio Del sine today we're the show that needs your help can you see the Subscribe button where click on it if you see it there it is thanks for helping me out in case you haven't figured it out today we're heading out into the jungle and talking about the Nickelodeon classic Dora the Explorer for those of you who haven't seen it the show is all about a girl named Dora and her monkey friend boots Dora is trying to get somewhere in every episode and the viewer has to help Dora by screaming at the television in both English and Spanish because let's face it she never sees anything do you see the bananas it is right there Dora right there are you even trying you just turn around the twist is that the whole show is presented as an old school educational point-and-click video game kind of like Putt-Putt or Pajama Sam though looking at the animation here it looks a bit closer to those old awful Zelda CDI games gee it sure is boring around here my boy but of course it couldn't be a video game without some sort of obstacle in the player's way other than simple puzzle solving the main thing that keeps Dora and Boots from proceeding is a fox named swiper so named because he likes stealing their stuff Box is always trying to swipe our stuff and just like everything else in the show Dora doesn't ever see swiper coming so we the viewer are left screaming at our TVs whatever swiper shows up like Walter yelling at Jesse thankfully stopping swiper and his tracks is super easy all Dora Boots and the viewer have to do is politely ask him to stop three times oh man yep swiper just snaps his fingers and gives up kind of like he's thinking well what else am I gonna do they asked me to stop after all but something about swiper that's always bothered me is that this strategy actually works without fail just standing there and repeating Swiper no swiping a few times gets him to stop and just go away it is strange especially if this is a video game even if we assume that the viewer is supposed to be playing the Dora game and also telling swiper to scram that's not really a game mechanic that I've seen before and believe me I have seen a lot of game mechanics through my years theorizing over at our sister location Game Theory you see loyal theorists I believe that there's a dark secret hidden under swiper's adorable little thief mask like why does that fox need to remain anonymous who is going to recognize one specific oh we aren't dealing with just one specific Fox here or even a cute anthroporophized video game one either no despite Dora the Explorer appearing to be a harmless educational kids show on the surface its mischievous Fox villain is actually a demonic Spirit from he double hockey sticks what's more Dora's Swiper no swiping chant is her desperate attempt to Ward him off but sadly swipers trapped Dora in a fate worse than death oh yeah it's gonna be one of those episodes friends can you say secret dark Lore great then let's jump to it to begin why would I possibly think that swiper could potentially be a demon well first off foxes are often depicted as Spirits by cultures all over the world in West Africa the dogon people believe that their trickster God is a Pale Fox Japanese Legend tells of shape-shifting fox Spirits called Kitsune in classic Greek mythology the god of wine and fertility Dionysus often sends a giant Fox to Devour the children of Thieves seems a bit extra for a god of wine and fertility but then I saw that Dionysus was also the God of Insanity so yeah it checks out anyway you get the idea foxes are commonly associated with magic in all sorts of folklore but still why would I possibly think that could apply to swiper in this particular instance well swiper's depiction in the show lines up real well with two types of evil Fox Spirits in particular both of which Dora would be aware of based on where the character comes from while we can't be sure exactly where Dora originates we can get a pretty good idea thanks to how she was designed according to Nickelodeon they didn't want Dora to be from any specific country because they wanted all latino children to be able to see themselves within the character so instead Dora was developed to be Pam Latina representative of the diversity of Latino cultures across Latin America and wouldn't you know it but several Native American and Central American cultures have foxes featured prominently in their folklore mostly as tricksters thieves and bad Omens in one very specific example the zil Mayan people of what's now modern-day Mexico saw the Fox as a very evil animal so since Dora is meant to be a mishmash of all those varied Latino cultures she'd likely be aware of these sorts of stories additionally since we know that Dora was created to represent the entire region of Latin America we can look at the breakdown of religious affiliation across the region and see that 90 of Latin Americans are Christian with 69 percent of them being Catholic so Dora would likely also be familiar with how Christianity and specifically the Catholic church has viewed foxes in the past and uh let's just say that Catholicism has not been kind to these Critters in fact one of the most famous Catholic depictions of foxes has them literally stealing important items I suppose you could say that they were swiping them in the 8th century author Rudolph afolda wrote the book life of leoba chronicling the Roman Catholic saint none leoba the book tells of a nun who once lost the keys to her Chapel convinced that the Lost keys were the work of the devil the chapel nuns gathered in another building Enchanted prayers for their return soon after a fox was found dead outside the front gate of the church with the keys in its mouth a fox with stolen Keys you say seems familiar you're too late yep literally in the first episode of the first season of Dora the Explorer swiper steals Keys it's one of the very first things that we see this character do if that wasn't intentional well it is certainly one heck of a coincidence and that's not all apparently old school Christianity saw foxes as even worse than simple thieves we know this thanks to a 13th century book called The bestiary which was basically like a strategy guide for medieval knights to know which animals were gonna give him the most experience points Christians of the era saw many animals as representative of moral ideals or failures and the bestiary was a collection of this sort of knowledge cranes for instance represented Guardians that brought physical Goods to the needy you want to take a guess as to what foxes represented literally the devil yep just under very helpful tips like the fox being a deceitful animal that never runs in a straight line the bestiary tells us that foxes represent demons that trick and harm those who have wavered in their faith basically their are huge parts of Dora's likely upbringing that would have been telling her that swiper isn't just a sneaky fox trying to steal her stuff he's a demonic Spirit perhaps even the Devil Himself come to haunt her as she goes about on her adventures which makes it interesting to see what dora does when she and Boots confront swiper in the shower in Boots and the viewer if you choose to participate extend a handout and chant the words Swiper no swiping you want to know what that resembles an exorcism now before you rush down to the comments and say matpat that is a bit of a stretch trust me I know it is but for as ridiculous as it sounds what Dora's doing here is an exact description of some types of exorcisms first of all according to of exorcisms and certain supplications which was written by the Vatican and approved by the pope exorcists are instructed to extend their hands out towards the possessed person or demon during the Ritual from there they're told to use a spiritual incantation based basically chanting a rhythmic word or phrase over and over to force the spirits to behave finally using swiper's name is also a practice specifically used in exorcisms according to Cesar trukui an exorcist for the Catholic Church of Switzerland quote naming something or knowing its name means having power over that thing so by specifically calling out swiper Dora is giving herself power over him most importantly of all like I mentioned earlier this actually works for some reason it always gets swiper to go away okay so that's a lot of evidence pointing to swiper being some sort of demonic Spirit but why what does it matter if swiper is some sort of Supernatural otherworldly entity if it's all happening inside of a video game the whole exorcism chanting as a game mechanic still doesn't make a ton of sense and some like just getting the player to click on swiper to stop him would work a lot better and it's not like we see a mic set up on the computer inside the show the vocal input of the player saying Swiper no swiping just wouldn't work with what we've seen all around this chanting mechanics just seems like a weird thing to the program into your game unless of course it wasn't programmed and Swiper is an actual literal Spirit that's possessing the computer then it all starts to make sense the chanting the lack of a microphone to hear that chanting and the chanting working to scare swiper away but then all of this raises a whole bunch of other questions like why would swiper be bothering us if he's actually a spirit I'm sure a trickster demon would have better things to do than make it a bit harder for a kid playing a point-and-click adventure game to beat a level right well what if it's not us the viewer that swiper is trying to mess with what if his Target is actually Dora now that wouldn't make a ton of sense if she were just some character in a video game but I don't think she is just some character in a video game I suspect that Dora is actually a real person someone who is sucked into the video game trapped by swiper as he torments her over and over again episode after episode after episode at first blush that might seem ridiculous but the evidence is actually there when you look right from the very beginning of each episode in the intro we see clues that Dora might not actually be a part of the game in the first few seasons door of the Explorer opens with a brief live action segment entering a house walking up to a computer and starting to play the Dora the Explorer game but something seems off when you actually think about what's inside of this room sure you have a lot of stuff that you'd expect some sports balls a teddy bear a chain of those paper rings that everyone makes in elementary school and at the desk we can see figurines of both swiper and Boots the main animal characters from the game so we know that this door of the Explorer game exists in the world enough so that there's merch to buy but you ever notice what isn't in the room merch of Dora herself you know the flagship character of both the game and this show all about playing that game the only thing that even comes close to resembling Dora in the room is this child's drawing that I guess kinda resembles her either way it seems strange that whomever lives here is a big enough fan of Dora to leave it running on their computer so they can decide to run into the room and play it at any moment but then to not have any merch of the main character speaking of is also a weird detail here right no one in the room it's deserted and yet the computer was left on with the Dora game booted up ready to play what if what we're walking into with the intro here is the direct aftermath of Dora being sucked into the computer forced to play the game in person for the amusement of a certain little fox demon now those details about the intro might seem circumstantial on their own but the weirdness only continues when you start to consider the ending credits early on in the history of the show a lot adore the Explorer's endings featured small little mini games while the credits rolled the most common of these was character find which is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin a list of characters would pop up and the computer cursor would pick one and then they would hide putting their head out as the cursor tried to find them now the characters that pop up for this are largely what you'd expect main characters like Boots and Swiper recurring characters like Benny and map even characters who only guest star like Wizzle and yet across the 88 times that this minigame pops up can you guess who isn't chosen Dora despite supposedly being the starring character in the game she's not chosen once for the character find minigame heck though she appears on the logo for the select screen I think you could argue that she was never even an option to begin with and it's not like the character find is against choosing human characters either it had no problem choosing Santa Claus in the episode where he gets starred freaking Santa Claus was chosen before Dora it's a strange decision that starts to make sense when you consider that Dora isn't a character inside the game she was never chosen because she shouldn't exist in this world the game wasn't programmed to have her selectable as an option but wait I hear you saying what about that live-action Door movie that came out a few years ago Dora and the lost city of gold it was way better than it had any right to be and correct you are a random commenter it was really solid but I understand what you're trying to get at here the beginning of Dora and the lost city of gold really frames a lot of the Fantastical adventure Dora goes on as Just Happening inside of her head so that means that our demon Spirit fox in a video game theory can't be right right wrong go watch that movie again because if anything it's solidified is that Dora is a real person trapped inside of a video game right near the beginning Dora straight up breaks the fourth wall saying can you can use your soul yeah Dora can clearly see us the audience and yet no one else can she is aware that she's in a game despite everyone else trying to convince her that she's not almost like it's a fox demon gaslighting her she'll grow out of it monkeys can't swing and climb and talk to us no they can't Booth isn't talking to you oh but he can you're not a kid but you're not a grown-up either Dora anything is possible and he's not the only animal who does either swipers in this movie tormenting Dora and her friends and guess what he can talk too swiper at the ready swiper yes swiping make no mistake this movie is still existing inside the realm of the Dora video game I mean there are a ton of video game elements here yeah and that bag holds way more stuff than it should a generator a radio Food Supplies a hammock a giant knife to the point that this thing has to be bigger on the inside than the outside just like a video game inventory and it's not just cool video gamey items either multiple times throughout the film Dora does stuff that should get a normal person killed like jumping into a ravine with minimal injuries or sliding under a plane's moving propeller blade or rolling down a hill inside of a tree trunk she also solves puzzles in order to progress and disarms booby traps in order to get treasure the gang even takes part in What basically amounts to some quick time events to avoid spikes I thought it was just a video game thing you're right forgettable side character it's just the video game from Dora's perspective inside the computer and we're just seeing everything through her eyes that's why everything looks so realistic and the extra bit of proof the cherry on top the final nail in the coffin there's a moment where the illusion completely shatters about halfway through the movie Dora and her friend stumble upon a field of flowers that spray hallucinogenic spores in their face beginning a sequence that's done in the style of a classic Dora cartoon and during this sequence she straight up jumps off a cliff and then reappears again at the very top just like she respawned after dying this my friends is the mask slipping from the Demonic computer program revealing to Dora what's really going on here she is a real person trapped in an old point-and-click video game really we should have known something was fishy from the movie right at the beginning what do we see right at the beginning of Dora and the lost city of gold Fox propaganda swiper trying to Gaslight us the audience just like he's gaslighting her literally the first thing that happens in the movie is a helpful totally true PSA from the fox Council of the Americas which tells us this everything you're about to see is true except that foxes don't swipe that is a hurtful stereotype oh yeah well I'd say that trapping a kid inside of a video game and tormenting her for years is just a wee bit more hurtful swiper but hey you know you don't have to be trapped inside of a video game tormented by a box demon to be completely immersed inside of something sometimes you just want to get lost in listening to a good movie or your favorite music I have to listen to a lot of content while doing research for this show interviews audiobooks podcasts you name it I am listening to it and our sponsor for today's episode raycon's everyday earbuds are the best way to do that on the go something I hate about other earbuds is that they never quite seem to fit my ear right they always fall out at the worst times and then I have to stop I have to find them and then I have to hope that they're not too gross to stick back in my ear but raycon's earbuds have these awesome little gel tips that are super optimized to fit in your ear so not only are they comfy they're not gonna budge believe me I tried I simultaneously whipped and nae nade and they didn't move an inch plus the earbuds have eight hours of charge in them the charging case holds an additional 32 hours of battery so you don't 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Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 4,212,993

Keywords: dora the explorer, dora, dora movie, dora song, dora the explorer song, dora the explorer songs, dora the explorer movie, dora full episodes, dora the explorer full episodes, backpack song, we did it song, dark dora the explorer, dora lore, dora the explorer lore, dora theory, dora the explorer theory, nick jr, nick jr horror, nickelodeon, nickelodeon horror, dora horror, scary dora the explorer, film theory, film theorists, film theory dora, dora the explorer theme song

Id: rYjmxcV1se4

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 08 2022

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