What were these people thinking?????

When I was a kid growing up, the Frito Bandito was on all the airwaves. And I loved that character! But of course he had to go, because he was apparently insulting to Mexicans.

Now Burger King has just launched a new "Tex-Mex" burger in Spain, and it most defnitely is insulting to Mexicans..all you have to look at it. Tall cowboy, short, fat Mexican.

And I'm wondering - did they have their Spanish advertising people come up with this, or did they come up with this gem in the USA? I mean, you're trying to sell something to Spaniards, why would you want to show someone short and fat... that's not the way to do it!



I just wonder sometimes if advertising people have ulterior motives... but even if they do, surely the people buying the advertising are smart enough to know when something is offensive? I mean - if that fat, short Mexican had been a fat short woman, the reaction would have been the same, surely.

It's one thing to be ridiculously politically correct, and its quite another to be stupid. A blustering bandito is funny, kind of like a Mexican Yosemite Sam, but a short, fat guy matched up against a tall lean cowboy... how can they not see that that would be offensive? (Never mind the fact that they use the Mexican flag like a cape - which is tabu in Mexico. Quite a change from the US, where you can burn the US flag without fear of recrimination. Freedom of speech, don'tcha know.)

But then, what do I know? A few years ago there was some kind of campaign where a lot of black guys went around saying, "Yo." I thought for sure that would be pulled quickly because it was offensive, making them look stupid, instead, it turned out to be extremely popular.

ANd quite a few times I've seen a commercial about phone service in Barbados, making the Barbadians look like total idiots. It's funny, but they do look stupid. And yet, it doesn't seem to have been pulled, either, and I would have thought people of color would have thought it offensive.