Sexdrive: He's Leaving Virgin Territory

Gustavo Arellano, resident Mexpert of the cosmos, and now, impish revisionist historian of Orange County, writes in to dare me to analyze the image above (click to enlarge, as with many images on this site). It's the promo splash page at Apple for the new movie Sexdrive from Summit Films that features the sure-to-be viral gagline, "the Big Mexican won't go down."

Easy 'Tavo: in Tex[t]-Mex I argued that "Mexican" works as a synecdoche (a proxy, a surrogate, a supplement) to a sordid sort of sexual potentiality--an intrinsic sort of swarthy soup of f***ng potentiality or, also, potential f***ing. Here, in the latest major film release to treat of virgins and post-adolescent incipient teen sexuality (think Superbad), the funny be-mustachioed, giant-sombrero wearing cute gringo, tasered by the law (not only is the gag profiting off the Mexican/Sex synechdoche, but we get to thrill to Johnny Law tasering a "Mexican" effigy, mucho grande). In any event, we've seen it before, it works; it works, also, because we have seen it before.

That does not mean the movie is "bad" or to avoid it; I have not yet seen it. It only means that the advertising campaign surrounding this "blockbuster's" release is surfing the logic of the textmex zeitgeist!

So there Gustavo! Happy!?