‘Chupa’ is not about Chupa Chups, as in the lollipop, but it sure was made to be family-friendly creature feature, showing kids befriending a kiddy version of the titular character. ‘Chupa’ is short for the (urban) legendary creature ‘chupacabra’, which is Spanish for ‘goat-sucker’, a supposedly ‘dog-bear-like alien-animal’ to whom some in a number of countries attribute vampirism of livestock to. (Incidentally, ‘Chupa Chups’ comes from the Spanish word ‘chupar’, which means ‘to suck’.)
Towards the opposite of demonisation, but without reaching deification, the ‘Chupa’ movie is ‘cute-fication’ in name and form of ‘actual’ chupacabras, with no bloodsucking depicted. Although their existence might not be real, creative license taken might turn out dangerous, should they really exist, with viciousness as claimed? Paradoxically, it is possible to create fake ‘news’ about creatures who might not be real. Misaligned with reality, cute-fication can be as dangerous as demonisation of the innocent and deification of the unworthy, somewhere in between.
Then again, countries like Japan have been ‘cute-fying’ their cultural yokais (i.e. monsters) for some time already, seemingly with little harm? But even if there is a single chupacabra lurking, and approached by a kid who thinks s/he is cute like Chupra, this might turn out disastrous. Even if not a chupacabra, s/he might be some other dangerous beast mistaken as Chupra. It is surely good to have respect and awe for wild creatures from a distance (unless absolutely needed to help one another) — lest we become monsters to them, or they become ‘monsters’ to us!
