From the
Houston Press Blogs By
Robb Walsh: Burger King has
announced
that it will withdraw its European advertising campaign for the Texican
Whopper out of respect for the Mexican culture. The Mexican ambassador
to Spain wrote a letter to the company complaining about the campaign,
which features a tall Texas cowboy and a short Mexican wrestler in a
lucha libre outfit. In the print ads, the wrestler wears a cape that
resembles the Mexican flag.
The Texican Whopper ads ran in Spain and Great Britain. The English
language tagline was "A taste of Texas, with a little spicy Mexican."
In Mexico City, one newspaper complained that the campaign depicted
Mexicans as inferior, while another ran an editorial cartoon showing a
wrestler eating a burger with a caption that humorously charged that
the ads hit too close to home--a jab at the Mexican infatuation with
fast food hamburgers and lucha libre wrestling.
The Mexican ambassador to Spain had written a letter to Burger King
objecting to a new ad campaign for the "Texican Whopper." The print ads
and commercials, which appear only in Europe, feature an unlikely pair
of roommates--a tall cowboy who travels by horse and short Mexican who
answers the front door wearing a lucha libre wrestling outfit. The
Mexican ambassador, Jorge Zermeno, has said the ads "improperly use the
stereotyped image of a Mexican."
The television commercial praises the symbiotic relationship between
the unlikely pair and shows the Texan reaching the high shelves for the
squat Mexican while the muscular wrestler opens jars for the lanky
Texan. No doubt it's the tagline for the campaign which got the
ambassador's goat: "The Texican Whopper, the taste of Texas with a
little spicy Mexican."
The Texan in the commercials is unshaven, keeps his horse in the
living room, and can't open a jar of pickles without assistance from
the Mexican. So far, no official protests have been filed complaining
about the unfair stereotyping of Texans. Here is the commercial: