Vamos a ir a Sudafrica

Mexican broadcasters are no different from their Euro-American counterparts, in peddling outdated stereotypes about Africa.

The 2010 World Cup mascot, a stuffed lion. Image: Jennifer Su.

It doesn’t matter where you are or are from, Africa can’t win. And Europe and North America (and Australia) don’t have a monopoly on peddling outdated stereotypes of the continent and its people. In yet another “original” 2010 World Cup promo, we find actors and newscasters from Mexico’s Televisa network “on the way to South Africa.” And no, they’re not lost—they’re in Africa, where you find only animals roaming through the bush and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is on repeat. The big laughs come at 0:39 when Enrique Burak, apparently well-known for commenting on sports outside of his expertise, is eaten by a crocodile. The dialogue that follows translates as such:

“What now?”

“Well, he didn’t know that much about soccer anyway, right?”

“Ahh, good point.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, the strategy for these promos (you can view another, which is worse, here) is to showcase familiar faces from Televisa in a setting that evokes Africa for typical viewers, which would include that sunset, that wildlife, that look, let’s say, of an African safari. Says Guillermo Roman, marketing director for Televisa Sports, “We’re conscious that there is much more complexity” in South Africa. “Yes, there is cliché, but this is more about getting a smile from people, creating goodwill, so that after that, they see the depth of our work.”

The depth of their work remains to be seen.

Further Reading

And do not hinder them

We hardly think of children as agents of change. At the height of 1980s apartheid repression in South Africa, a group of activists did and gave them the tool of print.

The new antisemitism?

Stripped of its veneer of nuance, Noah Feldman’s essay in ‘Time’ is another attempt to silence opponents of the Israeli state by smearing them as anti-Jewish racists.