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LP journal
Comedian George Lopez: Relying on ethnic stereotypes for his humor is “so last millenium.”
Lopez (Not) Tonight Late last month, cable network TBS announced the cancellation of Lopez Tonight, the George Lopez-hosted late night comedy/talk show that was just wrapping up its second season. And while Lopez fans – and anyone who liked a late-night television landscape that wasn’t lily white – are probably unhappy about the former standup comic’s cancellation, many Latinos are not. “The thing is, George Lopez’s comedy relied heavily, if not completely, on ethnic stereotypes,” journalist Cindy Casares wrote in Turnstylenews.com. “And that is something that, to the young late night audience, is so last millennium.” Casares and other former viewers of Lopez Tonight, which debuted in 2009, are convinced that they’re better off without the MexicanAmerican comic’s particular brand of humor. Although sources close to the show and its network are being typically 12
Latino Perspectives Magazine
¡ September 2011!
diplomatic about what led to the show’s dwindling ratings, at least one pop culture critic is willing to draw a line between Lopez getting the axe and his approach to a mainstream audience. “Lopez used to do more universal comedy that sprang from his Mexican-American life,” says Scottsdale-based author Bonita Anaya-Blick. “But when he got the talk show, it was all at once this litany of ‘Mexicans are lazy and shiftless and ill-behaved’ jokes.” That, according to Anaya-Blick, author of the forthcoming book Mi Loca Vida: Latino Life in the Last Century, backfired on Lopez. “He was taking us back in time by turning on his own people,” she says. “No bueno.” In interviews following the cancellation of his show, Lopez has focused on how his declining ratings had little to do with a recent time-slot swap with Conan O’Brien, whose new late-night chat show recently took the 11 p.m. slot previously owned by Lopez, bumping Lopez Tonight to an www.latinopm.com
hour later. But it’s not lost on most viewers – nor on several blogiteers and web wags – that what happened to Lopez is precisely what happened to O’Brien last year, when Jay Leno returned to The Tonight Show, booting O’Brien from his new seat on that venerable show. Lopez told his audience that he’ll be busy making a sequel to his recent hit movie, The Smurfs – and couldn’t resist the kind of self-effacing ethnic crack that Casares griped about. “Sony announced they were doing a sequel to the Smurfs movie,” he told his final talk show audience. “So, today I lost some work because I’m brown, but also I got some work because I’m blue.” “The sad part is there is no Latino on the horizon to take George’s place,” Casares says. “I have faith, though, that he or she is out there, honing their comedy skills on YouTube or maybe just making their classmates squirt milk out their noses.” Anaya-Blick is more cautiously hopeful. “If another
Latino talk show does come along,” she says, “I hope it’s hosted by someone who’s not going to use the color of his skin to set back anyone’s human rights.”
River, run dry Don’t look for involvement from Arizona in the launch of Nuestro Rio, a powerful, just-formed Latino coalition determined to save the Colorado River. While the coalition is being launched with three events in three nearby states – Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada – our fair state is conspicuously absent from any kind of kickoff for the new group, which has dedicated itself to addressing issues of water conservation and the influence of the Latino community in preserving and maintaining natural resources. Nuestro Rio’s timing couldn’t be better. The group is tying its launch to the 89th anniversary of the Colorado River Compact, an agreement that allocates water rights for the river. And all those recent national polls indicating that