La damisela del sol...I mean Sun-Maid...obviously needs some major help with their Googlish Spanish language translations, according to this post at Clemenseando. Translation is pretty cheap. I mean, if you hired someone to tell you you need to announce something in Spanish, you can probably afford a translator. You operate from California, for god's sake, and export to Mexico.
Will they ever learn?
It is not only people around your age group but also kids present day are growing up with CH (Chapulin Colorado). I grew up with the series, and presently, so are my cousins.
We are living in society that forces every person to recognize their heritage. Us Latinos are also forced to become one with our nationality. Whether we are Chilean, Argentinian, Peruvian or Mexican.. We are embrace our culture because in a sense, it gives us a form of empowerment.
But then again, that does not mean that any company (UO) has any right to denote one's/others culture in order to capitalize or raise an eyebrow.
Posted by: | July 28, 2005 at 05:32 PM
Really, El Chapulín Colorado, is much more than a "my generation"-al phenomenon. If I may be cheesy and burlona of PC lingo, I'd say it's a "multi-generational" thing.
The Chespirito show, which hosts El Chapulín Colorado sketches is currently celebrating it's 35 anniversary, and though it quit being produced about a decade ago it still runs daily in just about every Spanish-language country in this hemisphere - and, of course, the US. Although the show's main audience might - stress - might be children, and it's extreme simplicity may be deceiving, it was no means conceived as a children's show, but more a family-oriented sitcom spotlighting child-like (attributed) values such as inocencia and nobleza. It's not a long stretch to say that children who grow up watching Chespirito in the US today could be doing so alongside their grandparents who grew up watching it in Chile or Paraguay.
Another child-played-by-adult show of this same nature, La Güereja (starred by dwarf actress Ma. Elena Saldaña, not airing currently in Mexico), comes to mind. These horario estelar shows for the whole family contrast with other children-played-by-adults shows such as the (ahora sí) children's classic En Familia con Chabelo (almost as old as Chespirito, but still produced to this day, aired Sunday mornings), or the positively picardesco La Escuelita, (aired late at night).
I don't doubt that, in part, sales of the CH t-shirt are driven by the generational/Latino identification you mention, but perhaps the NACO merchandising concept which is at play here as well.
In a Generation X (sort of spun from the early nineties grunge/slacker trend in the US) reminiscing marketing/cultural twist, among various Mexican social classes assuming oneself a naco is becoming trendy... and it’s only part of a package which includes the CH tee as well.
It seems that Mexican upper and middle class youth are extremely willing to identify with the naco concept they grew up deeming onto others; while the lower middle classes, traditionally deemed nacos, are happy to embrace it as well. As hard evidence for marketing specialists I offer a current Doritos (Sabritas) campaign which includes a TV commercial with instructions on how to be a naco (yes, spelled out with it’s four letters); “when at a swanky bar, be sure to get your martini in a bolsita de plástico con popote” (shows a young man doing so). Furthermore, young Mexican Doritos consumers are encouraged submit similar how-to-be-a-naco instructions to a contest in which they can win a car, or something to that effect (sorry, I just don’t pay that much attention).
As far as I can read, being a Mexico City native and resident, the “naco” concept has become a means by which certain urban classes, the youth specifically, have employed for specific identity needs that have emerged in the last decade or so. It’s the same need that lead the “Viva México” grito to end in “…cabrones”, the need to differentiate “us” (Mexico) from the “others”, (foreigners and their control) in an act of nationalistic identity affirmation. Nowadays, the naco trend is a similar affirmation; it’s no wonder that it’s accompanied by a nostalgia for everything previous to the Salinas presidency and/or the “NAFTA generation” (as Newsweek once dubbed the Mexican equivalent to Generation X), such as older “historic” neighborhoods in the city (from which all upwardly mobile classes fled for so long, and whose now adult children are reoccupying in a gentrification process of sorts). Eighties pop and rock music in Spanish. Candy we grew up with. And, of course, cultural icons such as El Santo, Tin Tan and Chespirito. I suppose the cultural nostalgia begat the marketing trend.
The CH t-shirt brings to mind another similar one I see just about everyday on the street which reads “ESTAR GüARS” in the same font as the original Star Wars typeset. Anyhow, spite towards foreign influence is evident. No doubt, this has an effect on US marketing targeted to Latinas/os, even if it's just picked up randomly… but I’ve written enough already.
Posted by: Ojo | August 02, 2005 at 12:00 AM
What famous couples do you know from Hollywood?
Posted by: | May 28, 2009 at 03:10 PM