Stereotypes that won't fill you up and always let you down

I know this commercial aired during the Super Bowl, but it ran again tonight during the baseball game and I was struck by just how awful it is. It's one thing to not be funny - and Carlos Mencia is definitely not funny - but, well, then there's this shit.



I can't even begin to count all the ways in which this commercial offends my sensibilities. But let's try.

1. It co-opts the form of the already worn-out "white guys talk like this, but black guys talk like this" late-80s schtick as a way of using stereotypes to sell beer.

2. It does so in a way that is thoroughly unfunny, by taking Carlos Mencia's already unfunny act and watering it down even further by distilling it to, "Hispanics say 'holmes,' but New Yorkers ask if you have a problem with that."

3. It attempts to mine cheap laughs out of the fact that people from other countries sometimes pronounce vowel sounds differently than we do. Okay, I lied, this is one of the best things about it. The whole "oo instead of uh" thing that the ad ends with? Comedy fucking gold. The only reason they don't end every commercial with a funny-talkin' Indian guy is that doctors cautioned about a national epidemic of pants-wetting.

4. It unironically tries to use the phrase "no speak English" as a joke, as though no one had ever heard that one before.

5-1,783. It stars Carlos Mencia. I suppose in some ways he's the perfect beer pitchman - he's abrasive, unfunny, and no one is better suited to make awful jokes about thin stereotypes. Sounds like most beer ads, doesn't it?

Al Qaeda runs on Starbucks

It's a rare treat to get a truly xenophobic ad. But fortunately, the good people at Dunkin' Donuts were able to fit one into their busy schedule of shitty ad making.



Nice to see the first 23 seconds of a 30-second ad taken up by this pathetic excuse for a song. It doesn't seem to have very many chords, but whatever the number, they've led to an embarrassingly monotone delivery by the singers. You could probably argue that this was intentional, but that just makes it a bad choice. If you're using a song to sell a product, even one that's really just trying to tear down a competitor, couldn't you make it a little more listenable than this? Never mind that some of the things in the song aren't even from other languages (half-caf is an English-language abbreviation, you stupid shits), or for that matter that the people singing are obviously able to pronounce each and every one of the words they suggest are unpronounceable.

Of course the song is far from the commercial's greatest offense. That would be John Goodman's ensuing voiceover:

"Delicious lattes from Dunkin' Donuts. You order them in English, not Fritalian."

Crimes:
(1) implying that using words borrowed from other languages is a bad thing, despite the fact that modern English makes heavy use of loan words
(2) suggesting that Americans have some kind of sacred responsibility to speak English and English alone
(3) forgetting that the word "latte" is itself a "Fritalian" word, even though they included it in their song 20 seconds earlier

Just let the irony of #3 sink in. Ordering lattes in English! Hate to ruin the party, Department of Homeland Donuts, but latte is a shortened version of caffè latte, which is Italian for coffee with milk. Read it and weep, bitches. You can't order a motherfucking latte in English. The person who wrote this ad has an IQ of 38.

Do you think if I go into Dunkin' Donuts and order a "large iced hazelnut milk," that they'll get confused? Because they shouldn't! I'm just ordering in English, like all right-thinking, non-pinko coffee-drinking Americans! If the terrorists want coffee, they can just go to CommieBucks and get their venti mocha half-caf whatevers with all the other beret-wearing, baguette-carrying traitors. America runs on Dunkin!