¿Los Ingleses? No los conocen...

Some of you may be old enough to remember Speedy Gonzales, the fastest mouse in all of Mexico. And some of you may remember when he was pulled from TV rotation for, uh, well, I'm not entirely clear about that part. I think it was because he was viewed as being a negative stereotype. Possibly it was for speaking in less than perfect English (as compared to... Elmer Fudd? Sylvester? Daffy Duck? Pepe Le Pew?). Or maybe it was for wearing a simplified and stereotypical costume. One argument claims that even though Speedy's raison d'être was to outrun, outwit and outclass the hapless gringos that stood between him and his goals, he was overshadowed by the stereotyped behavior of most of the other mice. Of course, there may have been a whiff of the Frito Bandito controversy hanging around that made Ted Turner's various underlings try to err on the side of safety when they first shelved most of Mr. Gonzales' cartoons.

All of which is to say that in the US, there have been some struggles over what kind of cultural images are acceptable and what aren't. Just in case you hadn't heard, the English-speaking world is not unified enough for these sorts of things to apply everywhere. Example 1: the Asda brand tortilla packaging in the UK. Sorry first about the scan quality, and sorry second about having had wholewheat tortillas in my kitchen. I'm in a foreign land here, and sometimes you just have to make do with what fate throws your way. Now, in case you didn't get a good look at the logo, why don't you check out a close-up.

Seriously. Leaving aside the questionable coloring on the hands (Gloves? Shadows?), what the hell is up with the rest of that? I guess he's supposed to be ecstatic over the quality of the tortillas (which, apart from being wholewheat and too small weren't terrible, or terribly different from those spongy-bleached "wraps" that somehow make people feel better about eating a chicken salad sandwich). But do people here believe Mexicans are that excitable? And bandoliers? Quick check here: who can you think of that wears a bandolier? The list is weirder than I first thought.

Thinking about it, though, maybe there's just too much remove from Mexico for the average British person to get why this might be problematic. I mean, Spain isn't that far away, and the only Spanish character in the British media I can think of is from a show that's 30 years old. There's just no opportunity for most folks here to make any connections between these images and real people. Mexicans? Why not ask about Hui or Sumerians or Yukaghirs, they've got about as much to do with most people's daily experiences here.

Which may be why so few people here seem to find these things odd.


The three images above are from The Dieline, a website about food packaging design and their report on the 2008 Pacakging Design Award winners.