Your one-stop shop for all things Latin/Hispanic/Mexican
In an era dominated by iPods, iPads, iPhones, iTunes and iMacs… how else were you going to call your Mexico City-based budding courier service, offering speedy deliveries nationwide?
This is Mexican ingenuity at its best.
iCaramba!
Photo and h/t: Enrique Bustamante, Mexico City
William Levy, the most beautiful man on Planet Earth –and a so-so telenovela actor– is hilarious in these series of new spots for Pepsi Next.
Produced in English and Spanish, the spots feature the Cuban-American heartthrob cheesily playing several roles: An action figure, a rock star, a doctor, a romantic and a sci-fi guy.
My favorite, of course, is the cheesy romantic. It makes me want to grab him a Pepsi Next right this minute.
Take James Fulford, a writer over at anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism, anti-coherence online community Vdare, who recently took to the web to denounce “upper-class, disloyal Hispanic journalists (specifically Univision’s Cristina Costantini) for “campaigning to import lower class illegals—who won’t live in their neighborhoods.”
According to Fulford, Costantini –whom he refers to as “Cosantini” for some reason– is totally biased in favor of immigrants, because (duh!) she works at Fusion, a company partly owned by Univision, which in turn is “owned” by none other than the “cute-as-a-button* blue-eyed, Mexican journalist Jorge Ramos.”
Way to go, Mr. Fulford! I’m adding your website to my list of favorites; it is not very often that racist, ignorant remarks make me laugh so hard that I almost choked on my gordita de chicharrón.
*The “cute-as-a-button” part is mine.
Marketing is a wonderful discipline, because no matter how hard you try, you’ll always manage to screw up the Spanish-language translation of your message… presumably just to please bloggers like myself.
Photo: Marcelo Salup
I’m not a fan of Wendy’s burgers, much less those made with Pretzel bread. But I have to give it to the fast food company, and it’s Hispanic advertising agency Bravo for the below commercial, which by the way is running on both, Hispanic -and non-Hispanic- TV networks.
The commercial belongs to the “Mucho Mejor campaign” featuring a Hispanic family, the Rojos, who embrace both American culture and their Hispanic roots. The Rojo family comprises a bilingual mom and dad with three children ranging from 7 to 16 years-old. Teenage daughter Roselin also dates Dylan, her teenage “mainstream” boyfriend.
Please bear with me. I’m in Spain and taking it real easy. More complex posts coming soon. Or not.
Photo: Laura Martínez, Sabadell, Barcelona.
Call me a mamona purist, but every time I see a Spanish-language commercial for Vonage, I cannot help but cringe, and wonder why the marketing forces behind this campaign didn’t come up with something more creative without trashing the Spanish language.
I guess they were “berry” excited to use a popular saying, so how about this:
Vonage: Bueno, Bonito y Barato.
The mostly Latino staff at this Dominican salon on Amsterdam and 107th St. will not only wash, style, blow dry and fix your hair. They will also wash your hands, because, you know, they have to.
Photo: Pierre Lacour
A few years ago, I wrote a story about how Telemundo decided to do away with the word ‘tetas’ in the promos around Sin tetas no hay paraíso, a popular Colombian telenovela about young girls and their obsession with getting breast implants. Instead of using the word tetas, (tits) Telemundo opted to use an image of a hanging red brassiere, apparently because it’s always better to look weird than inappropriate.
Then came Telemundo’s own remake of the series, which was slightly changed to Sin senos no hay paraíso (substituting the word ‘tetas’ with the boring, yet anatomically correct senos (breasts.)
But that was then.
Last week UniMás proudly announced the upcoming premiere of Sin ellas no hay paraíso… and yes, it is the exact same telenovela, except this time the offending moniker (tetas) has being awkwardly substituted by the word ellas (them.)
I said it then, and I repeat it today: When it comes to Hispanic television, one thing is to show tetas feminine attributes all day long, and another one is to call those attributes by their rightful name.
See? You can’t have your tits and name them too.
Photo: Laura Martínez (Harlem, 2013)
If you thought Hispanic millennials were just like regular millennials, think again.
Hispanic millennials, according to a new series of Tide commercials, not only sit around doing nothing and play with their phones. They have the added burden of having to translate their Spanish-dominant grandmothers while they go on and on and on about how to take care of their whites. (And by ‘whites’ I’m talking about clothes and not “not-brown-people.”)
And this one…
All I can tell you right now is that the Tide abuela has a better command of Spanish than this other P&G abuela.
For those of you left wondering… It should be “aprobado” and not “aprovado” for this abuela.
Based on my most recent trip to the island -where I spent a couple of weeks doing absolutely nothing language research- I realized Cubans are increasingly translating their restaurant menus, street signs and monument guides to cater to an ever-growing tourist industry.
One thing I couldn’t be 100% sure, though, is what the ‘Cuban’ word for appetizer was. While a paladar in Havana offered me a very limited variety of “incomings,” including 20 pieces of olives…
… Melaíto, a snack bar in Pinar del Río promised a more extended list of “entrances,” including “boilet greens” and “French Fried.”
Either way, I’m not happy to report that everything pretty much sucked. Cuba is gorgeous and its people are simply the best. Its food… well, that’s another story.
Photos: Laura Martínez, Cuba 2013
Who said Latin American poetry and health warnings don’t go hand in hand?
Photo: Laura Martínez. 2013
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