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 Editorials | Opinions | April 2008 
Uproar Over Vodka Ad Just a Tempest in a Shot Glass
 Ruben Navarrette - San Diego Union-Tribune
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| | The Absolut map that's central to the controversial ad campaign shows other parts of the U.S. as belonging to Mexico, including Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, part of Wyoming and Texas. Mexico lost about 40 percent of its territory as a result of what Mexicans call 'the American War.' | | |
The latest skirmish in the never-ending culture war between Mexico and the United States was Absolut nonsense.
In fact, the flap was part controversy and part cocktail.
Here's the recipe for conflict: Take two parts immigration politics, a shot of U.S. history laced with Manifest Destiny, a splash of guilty conscience and add a twist of old-fashioned paranoia. Then shake it all up with a spirited advertising campaign aimed at selling vodka. Serve over ice.
Swedish vodka maker Absolut has mixed up a batch of cheeky print advertisements intended to show customers what life would be like in a perfect - er, Absolut - world.
Most of the ads are harmless, as in: "In an Absolut world, all your spam would be true," or, "In an Absolut world, friends would get together more often." As hip and clever ad campaigns go, this one is first-rate.
But then the company envisioned a map of North America where - in an Absolut world - Mexico's northern border would rub up against Oregon, Idaho and Oklahoma. That is, a world where the territorial boundary between the United States and Mexico would stand as it was before the land grab that U.S. historians generously refer to as the Mexican War of 1846-48. In the ad, Mexico returns the favor and gobbles up California, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and part of Wyoming.
The ad was meant - as one Latino advertising executive aptly described it - "for Mexican eyes only."
But in the Internet age, that sort of geographically targeted ad campaign is impossible.
And quickly, the genie was out of the vodka bottle, and an image seen as humorous south of the border was being blasted by some in the United States as downright treasonous.
Leading the charge are the usual suspects - right-wing bloggers, cable news demagogues, restrictionist organizations, et al. Many insist that the ad campaign fed into the mind-set of Mexicans who believe that the Southwest belongs to Mexico and that the region should be returned to its owner through a reconquista, or reconquering. Those howling the loudest about the ad are the same people who concocted this idea that the country is being invaded by massive waves of immigrants.
Many of them are also the ones who tell Latinos, when confronted with a racial or cultural slight, to get over it. And yet they have trouble leading by example.
They also have too much time on their hands and a trigger finger when it comes to fending off imagined threats to their quality of life.
Of course, one reason that so many of our countrymen have so much free time and such a nice quality of life is because they're not shy about relying on illegal immigrant labor. Then they camouflage this fact with a fairy tale about how the United States is being invaded, so they come off as victims instead of accomplices.
As for the reconquista - or, as I have been known to call it, the diculista - that is just another fairy tale. One that, it turns out, comes in handy in raising ratings, ginning up Web site visits and scaring up donations to racist organizations.
As I've said before, anyone who believes in a "recon-spiracy" being carried out by Mexicans and Mexican-Americans on behalf of Mexico doesn't know beans. First, who says Mexico even wants the Southwest? Why own when you're already enjoying a windfall? Mexican workers in the United States send home nearly $25 billion annually in remittances. Second, Mexican immigrants aren't exactly loyal disciples of the Mexican government, which many of them blame for the corruption and poverty that sent them packing.
And lastly, many Mexican-Americans are just as likely to hold a grudge against Mother Mexico for casting afloat their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents.
Still, these are just inconvenient facts. Fear doesn't listen to facts. And neither does opportunism, nativism or nationalism.
So quicker than you could say "last call," the right-wing culture mob borrowed a page from the handbook of leftist labor leader Cesar Chavez and announced plans to boycott Absolut vodka unless the company fell back in line. Sadly, it did just that. The company announced this week that it was saying adios to its Mexico ads.
This whole controversy was silly, and only Americans seemed to be intoxicated by it. Mexicans couldn't care less. I mean, whoever heard of a vodka margarita? Some lines shouldn't be crossed.
Contact San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Ruben Navarrette at ruben.navarrette(at)uniontrib.com. |
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