Film Journal 2023: Flamin Hot

Film Journal 2023: Flamin Hot
Directed by Eva Longitis

Maybe this will be a hot take, appropriately so, but those crying foul over the news reports demonstrating that Montanez, the real life character behind the Memoir this film is based on, did not actually invent flamin hot cheetos are making a mountain out of a molehill. And largely missing the point of what a Memoir is- your story written from your perspective.

It would be entirely diffent if this whole thing was causing harm. Choosing to tell his story the way he did was little more than a matter of accentuating certain aspects so as to dramatize the points he really wanted to make. In fact, even a small bit of research can show that most of what we find in this film is rooted in something true, be it about his life, his career, or even the creation of flamin hot cheetos. Does he rewrite some of that history to serve the whole janitor to manager American dream story? Yep. Does it collapse relevant bits together to speak and write more smoothly? For sure. Does it glamorize and romanticize assembly line work to a degree? Certainly. Although, having grown up doing that work myself it didn’t fill altogether false.

Rest assured though that the basic beats of the story beyond his efforts to present his story at the center of something he played an important role in even if he did not “invent it”. And the story is pretty dang effective and entertaining as it is. I have not read his Memoir, but from what it sounds like it captures his spirit and his energy perfectly, and it is infectious.

Perhaps even more so though is the window this film affords us into the job he eventually came to work his way into; marketing products. In fact, that is exactly what this film is, an exploration of how marketing works. It wants to sell his story as much as the product, and it does not hide how this works. It works by making us feel a certain way about it. It packages it up into something that will sell, and the CEO essentially explains this pretty directly in the film.

And truth be told, most of us live our lives buying into that all the time. Most of life works exactly this way, even when it comes to selling ourselves. That bubble only bursts or matters in the face of true controversy and wrong doing. But I am convinced at this point in time, and full credit to the film, that this is not the case when it comes to the man who invented the flamin hot cheeto