News of the death of Gidget, who succumbed to a stroke at age 15 on Sunday, prompts this very special Weekly remembrance of “Dinky,” the chihuahua Gidget played in commercials Irvine-based Taco Bell began airing in 1997.
Regarding the Byte Marks about the Taco Bell commercial with the little Mexican “rat” dog (your words, not mine): any normal person can see that it's a sendup of Che Guevara and certainly not very complimentary. Wyn Hilty wrote a very confused and confusing piece regarding who would find the commercial insulting, etc. She shows what her feelings are on this issue, however, when she states that “it seems a shame to cheapen the memory of one of its brightest stars,” referring to transforming Guevara into a Chihuahua. She also (supposedly) quotes an article that states “some members of the Cuban emigre community were offended by the thought that they glorified Guevera [in the commercial].” I have enclosed an article that says just the opposite. It shows that Spanish-language radio stations in Florida were flooded with calls from listeners who thought the ad was insulting to so-called Hispanics. So what was the point of Ms. Hilty's article?
As Irvine-based Taco Bell's market share has increased dramatically since the introduction of a lovable, sad-eyed, Latino-stereotype, revolution-slogan-spewing Chihuahua named Dinky, Clockwork believes the following can't be far behind: “AWW! HEE AWW! Hola, muchachos, it is I: Francisco, Diedrich Coffee's lovable, sad-eyed, Latino-stereotype, revolution-slogan-spewing burro. Every day, I travel deep into hills way south of the border, where peasants fill my sacks with coffee beans they picked in the fields. AWW! HEE AWW!”
]
On Aug. 18, LULAC's [League of United Latin American Citizens] national
president informed California director Gilberto Flores to cease and
desist using the 65-year-old nonprofit's name in the [Taco Bell]
boycott. In March, the national LULAC had issued a news release that
stated “Taco Bell's Dinky is Not Offensive to Hispanics” after a
Hispanic group in Florida bitched about the Chihuahua. Turns out Taco
Bell and its former parent company Pepsico are generous contributors to
LULAC.
Through
[then-CEO John] Martin's efforts, Taco Bell made Mexican food a symbol
for what can be accomplished by capitalizing on minimum-wage labor to
produce the cheapest food ever served in America, and then parlaying
the money saved on wages and benefits into a killer ad campaign whose
commercials have broadened, deepened and invented new spins on
stereotypes about Hispanic culture through the use of a talking
Chihuahua. Taco Bell commercials even have a bit of pidgin Spanglish on
everybody's lips; there isn't anyone who doesn't like saying, “Yo
quiero Taco Bell!”
CONFIDENTIAL
TO DINKY: Relax, Carnal. Diedrich Coffee takes all Taco Bell rejects.
You'll just pitch cappuccinos instead of Chalupas.
A
true Mexican restaurant is named after an unpronounceable Mexican town.
Its tequila is so sweet that you will drink the proverbial worm and so
potent that when you throw it up six hours later, the worm will not
have been digested. Its wall will be decorated with a mural of a Mexico
so idyllic you wonder why the owners left it in the first place. The
mariachi will be singing (in Spanish) century-old songs that celebrate
death, destruction and the hatred of anything North American. It will
be located in a neighborhood in which the only English is on the stop
sign at the corner. It will serve dishes the Taco Bell Chihuahua would
have trouble pronouncing, let alone making.
A
graphic designer for Chapman University, [Yolanda Morelos] Álvarez
hopes to add something more substantial than a talking Chihuahua to the
county's Mexican-American archives with “Fire in the Morning: A
Pictorial History of the Mexican-Americans of Orange County.”
[Antonio]
Banderas' character is the latest incarnation of the Latin Lover, a
stereotype played at least once in TV and film by every male Hispanic
actor, including the Taco Bell Chihuahua.
A
real Chihuahua named Gizmo nearly choked to death on the snout of a
stuffed Taco Bell Chihuahua doll late last month in Janesville,
Wisconsin. A 911 dispatcher had to relay emergency instructions labeled
“Obstructed Airway–Infant” to the pet's owner, who gave Gizmo several
whacks on the back until he coughed up the fake ratdog nose. The Taco
Bell doll has since been put out of Gizmo's reach. A macho combo of
heavy symbolism, no?
A
federal jury tells Taco Bell to pay Joseph Shields and Thomas Rinks $30
million, after deciding the Irvine-based company's signature talking
Chihuahua was actually stolen from the two Grand Rapids men. The jury
excoriates Taco Bell for not having something original to say, to which
Taco Bell replies, “D'Oh!”
How
dare you say this column's logo is defamatory–that's a picture of me.
Don't you know most Mexicans look like this? That's why the Taco Bell
Chihuahua or the Frito Bandito are such affronts to the Mexican
community–they're not authentic enough. When Mexican-American
organizations protested the company's Chihuahua in the late 1990s, we
weren't angry because he spoke like Mel Blanc's character on the Jack
Benny program, Sy the Mexican. We were angry because, in his most
infamous commercial, the Taco Bell Chihuahua wore a beret. A beret!
Where was the sombrero?!
Last
week, my colleague Matt Coker interviewed Tom Lennon, the unambiguously
gay Lt. Dangle on Reno 911! This week, Carlos Alazraqui, who was the
voice of the Taco Bell Chihuahua that launched a thousand LULAC
boycotts and who appears as the incredibly angry Deputy Garcia on (you
guessed it!) Reno 911!, is coming to the Brea Improv. I decided to
totally jack Matt's vibe (and some of his questions), and, hopefully,
take his job, just like I once took the job of the Boy About Town. But
I just now realized I forgot to ask Alazraqui anything of interest to
anyone at all, so I should probably be fired too. Fucking karma, man.
She's a bitch.
Far
from us to feel sympathy for a billion-dollar taco empire, but Taco
Bell just can't seem to win anymore. It spent the last couple of years
fending off human-rights activists who said Taco Bell's tomato pickers
were virtual slaves and settled a similar Colorado disability suit in
2000. And now this. Must make Taco Bell execs wax nostalgic for the
days all they had to worry about was P.C. Chicanos whine about a stupid
Chihuahua mascot.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.