September 20, 2008

Chihuahua movie is stereotypical

Will 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua' be top dog at the box office?"The movie's generalizations about Hispanics and its stereotypical depictions of Mexicans will not get a positive response from most of the 46 million Hispanics living in the U.S.," said Anton Diego, president of EveryMundo Inc., a marketing firm that helps businesses target Latinos online.

The trailer, Diego notes, opens with the voice of a Chihuahua called Papi describing how his descendants fought alongside Aztec soldiers, then pans to footage of Machu Picchu in Peru--a symbol of the Incan Empire located on a different continent. The music in the trailer is mambo, which originated in Cuba, he adds.

A viral video campaign (with no mention of Disney or the movie title, in today's fashionable stealth style) has elicited groans for its portrayal of Chihuahuas as revolutionaries declaring "No mas!" to being carried in purses--but "Mas!" to all-you-can-eat taco bars.
Comment:  Aztec...Inca...what's the difference? They're all brown-skinned savages, right. What's the difference: whether they kill people with a spear or a knife?

For more on the subject, see Racist Chihuahua Trailer and Indiana Jones and the Stereotypes of Doom.

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