Most South American TV shows are produced in Miami and Los Angeles. Univision is the most successful Latin network outranking the CW in ratings (1). Its flagship Sunday sports show Republica Deportiva is insane (2).
Consider my first sentence. North America is largely responsible for the content consumed by Latin Americans. South America is not very good at studying, developing, or producing; yet, even housekeepers in Mexico are very good at wanting cellular phones. They get arrested for stealing them (3). So, we have a continent with a set of western wants their poor competitive capacity cannot satisfy. This contributes to frustration, political instability, crime, hate via Chavez and so on.
Now, consider the picture. Those are The Senators of The Sport’s Republic. They are shown Sunday afternoons between soccer highlights. They read tweets from fans, play baseball, jump up and down, and graciously avoid saying anything that would prevent you from imagining them naked.
The picture is from the show, right? No. It’s from Univision Salud (4). That’s the equivalent of having whores all over CNN Health taking on the subject of obesity. How would America react to its own product aimed at SA?
The Hispanic article is a slide show of them frolicking at the beach with captions on what fruits and exercises they do. I don’t need to point out how unacceptable this is to an audience that questions the use of sexism in Mad Men (5). What I should point out is that in the context of Latin America, girls who see this message see role models and power, not whores. And after living with their brothers, fathers and boyfriends who religiously desire these models and at the same time oppress the little girls at home, the sixteen-year-olds from the various Bartertowns in the region will want boob jobs, and the way to get them when your father is a shrimp famer making a hundred dollars a month until he dies from malaria is by having sex with drug dealers (6).
And then of course, more boys want to become drug dealers.
Jennifer Lopez and Modern Family’s Sofia Vergara only exist to satisfy our conception of US multiculturalism.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univision
(2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI2NAjkIwKQ
(3) http://www.lapoliciaca.com/nota-roja/detienen-a-2-empleadas-las-acusan-de-robo-de-celulares/
(4) http://salud.univision.com/es/%C3%A1lbum-de-fotos/c%C3%B3mo-tener-el-cuerpo-de-senadora
(5) http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/08/mad-mens-very-modern-sexism-problem/60788/
(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_tetas_no_hay_para%C3%ADso
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Eh, I reject the summary of little girls seeing these woman as role models -> wanting big boobs -> screwing drug dealers. That’s like saying little boys see the men on the news -> want wrinkles -> tan.
Maybe it’s cause I’ve seen my own grandmother religiously watch Univision and such. Mexican news (not South American but still the genre of girls stating facts while in a bikini and no one blinks) compared to the US and I’d still watch the Mexican. I’d take tits and a few boring basic facts on the state over guy1 vs guy2: no one gives a shit.
That said the news in Mexico is generally trying anything and everything to avoid getting killed dark night style by mentioning any of the actual problems in Mexico. So let’s distract everyone with girls jumping and sports and other various nonsense.
Mexico is NOT South America Asshole.