Burger King's wrestler upsets Mexicans
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The power of a fast-food chain to clog a nation's arteries and fill its cities with hideous drive-thru stores is not in doubt. But Burger King might have just gone a step too far – by poking fun at the proud nation of Mexico.
In what headline-writers have dubbed "a whopper of an insult", the Florida-based firm has stoked diplomatic tensions between the US and its neighbour by launching a TV ad that plays on a "stereotyped" image of Hispanics.
The commercial, for BK's "Texican" burger, shows a short, squat wrestler in a poncho resembling the Mexican flag. He teams up with an American cowboy, twice his height, to illustrate that the sandwich contains "the taste of Texas with a little spicy Mexican".
It caused outrage for two reasons. Firstly, the ad suggests Mexicans are shorter, uglier, and accustomed to looking up at alpha males from north of their border. Secondly, it contains a disrespectful use of the national flag.
Jorge Zermeno, the Mexican ambassador to Spain, where the ad first aired, wrote a formal complaint to Burger King, asking for the ad to be removed.
"[They] improperly use the stereotyped image of a Mexican," he told Madrid's Radio Formula station this week. "We have to tell these people that in Mexico we have a great deal of respect for our flag."
Mexico has strict rules governing the use of its flag. Last year, it fined the publisher Random House over an ad for one of Paulo Coelho's books that revolved around a man using a flag as a cape.
The controversy was brought to the attention of America's large Hispanic community by the Associated Press yesterday, prompting a rash of reports that can only damage Burger King's standing in the crucial demographic.
It has also come at a bad time for cross-border relations, which are strained because of America's role in buying the drugs and selling the firearms that are fuelling the "drug war" that has killed 7,000 Mexicans in the past year.
Burger King has yet to comment on the ad but it might have been expected to know better: in the 1990s, the rival fast-food firm Taco Bell caused a huge row by airing a commercial that featured a tiny talking Chihuahua who spoke with a Mexican accent.
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Comments
I guess all truth and ANY sense of humor should be abandoned to make
Latinos happy. Maybe Burger King should pay restitution to all peoples
of Latin Decent... Is 1 million per family enough ??
I mean, we should be thankful for all the illegal Latino people now
clogging up our Public Education, Food Stamp and Healthcare Systems...
RIGHT ?? Coming here illegally as 90% of them have deserves praise !
Who cares if most of these people after disreguarding our Immigration
Laws now over-burden our Prison Syestem because... GUESS WHAT ??
When you arrive here in America by breaking a Federal Law,
Why should any Laws be important to you ??
Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and all the other Central and South
American Coutries SUCK !
This is why they all come here... To rape and pillage what the Pilgrams
up to the Early European Immigrants Built with Blood Sweat and Tears.
Through WWI and WWII... My relatives saved the friggin world !!
Now these people are coming here, sending their money home, using
up all our resources and telling us we are wrong to question them or
make fun of them... WE HAVE TO RESPECT THEM ???
If any are reading this... GO TO HELL ! And Get out of My Country !!
Fight for your own freedom don't hog the Freedom Americans already won.
Thomas Mollo N.Y.
Perhaps though, the Texan should be a real illiterate, ignorant, racist hillbilly redneck with a ready made lynch and 12 bore shotgun in his grubby mits??
Or am I unfairly stereotyping Texans? (See Bush, George W. Born Connecticut US of A, raised Redneck, Texas).
Your post is funny man, AMERICA F*** YEAH! That's right Bud YOUR relatives saved the world single handedly.
Imagine me right now, urinating on your disgusting star spangly flag - hows that feel? how do you like them apples?
'your' country is made up of all the worlds immigrants , convicts, and displaced people - they're your ancestors (you call them pilgrims because thats what you were taught in bible class)
Dont be so quick to close the doors behind you Mr Pure blood Mollo.
Mollo . . . Native American name is it?
I despise ignorant Yanks . . .. . .
U are an ASS HOLE, racist pig and your comment is stupid, people like u is the one that make America look bad an important company like Burger King apoligizing to mexicans that's an honor and that's what America is all about not stupid people like u, but that's ok we understand u are in an emotional distress u can hardly have any manners, we just want to let u know we feel SORRY 4 U!
some people was insulted because the tall about the Mexican character
about me
i think this is funny i don`t see any insult
i`m mexican
1.75 tall
80 kg.
i`m white Caucasian
and this is not an insult.
ok.bye bye.
You need to get grip on yourself, you are going to make your little brain explode with all those words you are using.
You sound like a very unhappy american citizen and Mexicans, among other people,are getting to you for some reason. I think New York City is not the place for you, obviously you haven't made it there so I guess you'll never make it anywhere; not with your political views about economically challenged nations, although maybe you are willing to do ANY job these "LATINS" are doing like cleaning toilets or stacking shelves in a supermarket to prove to the world that the need for economic chances is alive in your part of the world.
Good luck in your next Klan meeting and please please please next time you are out and about don't eat Mexican or any "ETHNIC" foodstuffs it might not agree with your stupidity. But feel free to grab a burger and you know what you have to do with the long chilli (CHILE) it comes with. A clue: it does not go in the mouth.. Hasta la vista Baby...
I'M MEXICAN AND I HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR TO LAUGH WHEN SOMETHING IS FUNNY ABOUT MEXICANS.
WE ARE ALWAYS STEREO-TYPED AS DARK, SHORT AND BARELY SPEAK A WORD OF ENGLISH. WHAT ABOUT HARD WORKING AND A WELL KEPT HOME. I'M VERY LIGHT COMPLECTED 5'8 AND SPEAK PERFECT ENGLISH AND SPANISH.
WHAT I'M SAYING IS .... IN EVERY RACE THERE IS A BAD APPLE ..... WHETHER IT'S A BLACK MAN OR A NIGGA, WHITE MAN OR REDNECK, ORIENTAL OR CHINK AND LATINO OR WETBACKS. YET THESE ARE JUST A COUPLE TO NAME A FEW. WE LIVE IN AMBERICA "FREEDOM OF SPEECH" .... RIGHT?!
P.S.
I WONDER IF THOMAS MOLLO WOULD DO THE DIRTY WORK FOR THIS COUNTRY THAT MEXICANS DO TO JUST FEED AND SUPPORT THEIR FAMILIES.
You demonstrate that you do not posses a basic understanding of the issue: The discussion is not about the effects of illegal immigration to the USA as your posting suggest but about a few mexicans taking offense at the satirical advertisement of Burger King; which quiet frankly I find very funny.
But your response is truly pathetic and very much a shallow response to a serious human drama where the American greed bears the greater responsibility for the problems associated with illegal immigration. In simpler terms: The American employer should NOT employ illegal immigration but they do it out of greed and betray their own country man. And persons like you incorrectly target the innocent; the men and woman of Latin America with enough courage to migrate to a new land of opportunity very much in the same spirit of your forefathers.
I am truly dissapointed but not surprise at your lack of understanding to this very serious problem.
I truly hope that you would grow and embrace the truth.
Sincerely
Juan Hernandez (An illegal Alien to the USA)
If I could gather all that time back, I would have a HELL of a vacation!
DEAL WITH IT.