Two Crows from Tacos | Classic "Mexican" Representation from Friz Freleng and Warner Brothers

Thanks to SDSU student Richard Nuñez for tipping me to this forgotten classic:


Merrie Melodies - Two Crows From Tacos

Speedy Gonzales Cartoons!

Good news: some Warner Brothers' classics including Speedy Gonzales are up on the net again; here are three that are discussed in Tex[t]-Mex:

Here's Tabasco Road:

and, the infamous, Cannery Woe:



and Here Today, Gone Tamale



and Tortilla Flaps

Speedy Gonzales, Author of the Universe

It tells you that I have been writing about cartoons and comic art for much too long, but is it a stretch to read into this cool coloring book cover from the 1960s an allegory regarding Speedy's place in the pantheon of Warner Brothers animated stars? Here, the diminutive "Mexican" rat is revealed as author of the Warners universe with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd reduced to mere representations, charming simulacras, explicated by the all-knowing Speedy.

original source (note, the illustration has been color-enhanced).

See Ya Later Gladiator: Speedy Gonzales and Daffy Duck

By the late 60s, Warner Brothers had self-mutilated its lauded animation division, farming out work in agreements with sub-contractors and hack, in-house "producers." The result? Not exactly animation history! Like this video I just stumbled across from 1968, " See Ya Later Gladiator:



The comments on imbd.com are right on the mark.

I will say this: the "Mexican" scientist who invents the machine is a curious Tex[t]-Mextian anti-type.

What Else Would Speedy Gonzales Be Chasing?

Every time I relent and decide to reconsider the value of the criticism I have received for "outing" Speedy Gonzales as a handy purveyor of "Mexican"-ness in the Americas, I run into something like the bumper sticker below. The thesis of Tex[t]-Mex is pathetically simple: that the more you study it, the more you realize the semiotic history (and, unfortunately, destiny) of "Mexicans" in the Americas--"Mexican" are nothing more and nothing less that the choice U.S.A. synecdoche (part for whole, as in "all 'hands' [sailors] on deck") for criminality and sexuality.



Still and all, I love the little bugger and this bank does not totally suck!

Friz Freleng's Clean Pastures

The "Autopsy of a Rat" chapter of Tex[t]-Mex on the fastest mouse in all Mexico, Speedy Gonzales, is more than a hatchet job on Warner Brothers and their animators--if anything, it was written as a meditation on the matrix of race and entertainment in the U.S. mass culture.

Freleng was a talented artist and an avid artisan of racialized subject-effects--some of this is on display below in a YouTube broadcast version of Clean Pastures from 1936:

Cavemen, Chicanos, Situation Comedies, Warner Brothers, ABC and other Lunatics from Showbiz

The proverbial shit is hitting the Latino Cultural Studies Fan tonight as the George Lopez Show was cancelled off ABC for a pilot featuring the GEICO.COM caveman. No joke! In other Latino/a ethnic mannequin news, America Ferrera, ABC's UGLY BETTY had her teeth insured. Comments on all this madness soon! I promise!

Here's a quick shot at Lopez (probably not safe for play in your cubicle unless you are using noise-damping headphones), and, his, er, replacement.





Not to play Mengele with the clipboard and the calipers, but am I the only one that has noticed that these "cavemen" are more closely modeled on the physiognomy of a hodgepodge of Aborigines than "cavemen" proper--Neanderthal? Cro-Magnon? It strikes me that there is more than you need there for an Ethnic Studies conference panel that should not waste the time of anyone.



UPDATE 9:22am 5/15/2007
The LATimes is online now with the story.