Regarding Univision

[Rex_Goodheart]

I go where working Mexicans go, mostly because I'm addicted to culinary delights like arbol and chipotle peppers.

So, I sit in a Mexican restaurant enjoying pollo en chipotle, jalapeno and tomatillo salsa, with a glass of horchata on the side... and up overhead in a corner is a television tuned to Univision.

And on the screen I see European-looking, statuesque, light-haired, light-skinned people speaking Spanish. And the next program shows the same. And when I return to the restaurant another time Univision shows the same type of people.

And I look around the restaurant, and the Spanish-speaking people I see within look almost nothing like those on the TV screen. The people I'm eating with are darker, shorter, and rounder. They look like Mayans, not Europeans.

And I wonder... why don't I ever see one of them on Univision?

[MADem]

1. You aren't watching at the right time.

Don Francisco from Sabado Gigante doesn't look terribly like a European. Neither do most of the musical acts on the variety programs. And there's a mix of types of the telenovelas, which do, for the most part, have a 'Dynasty' quality to them. And the talk shows--the Springer-esque offerings--you see a wide variety of people on those.

And while the station is affiliated (problematically at times) with a Mexican TV outlet http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-univision28mar28,0,1942013.story?coll=la-home-business the target market of Univision isn't just Mexicans--not by a long shot. It's Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Central and South Americans, and even the odd immigrant from Spain. And those populations, like the Mexican population as well, are quite diverse.

And FWIW, most of those blue eyed blondes on English language TV got that way with the help of contact lenses and hair coloring, too. So coloring is a purchasable commodity, anyway. And the way to avoid getting brown is simply to use sunscreen. If you took the presenter off of Casos de Familia (who was Miss Mexico a few years back) and stripped off her hair color and put her outside all day without sunscreen, she'd look like the folks with whom you were dining.

Frankly, I don't know a lot of people who look like the folks I see on tv. There's a damned shortage of old people in relation to the actual population--but hey, if we wanted to see old folks, we'd look in the damned mirror. TV sells fantasy to some extent.

Watch Cristina...you see the full spectrum on that programme. http://www.cristinaonline.com/spanish/show/album.asp

There's also an hysterical dance show that is called BAILANDO POR LA BODA DE MIS SUEÑOS where amateurs engage in a dance contest to win, of course, wedding of their dreams. Now those folks are in tremendous shape (the dances are very athletic) but they are not all similar in appearance--they run the gamut in terms of ethnicity and body type.



Ahnuld on UNIVISION: