Sofia Vergara’s Pedestal Pun

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

It’s a luxury to have someone like Sofia Vergara to criticize.

There was a time, not too long ago, when Latinos were less than 4 percent of the U.S. population and the best that big media could (or would) do was a series of “Mexican Spitfire” movies starring Lupe “Tabasco” Velez.

Or Bill Dana teaching Santa Claus school as Jose Jimenez.

Back then there weren’t 52 million of us. Today we’re 16 percent of the U.S. population, many with social media accounts and blogs and such, with 52 million opinions about whether Sofia Vergara on a rotating pedestal was good comedy or crappy stereotyping.

That’s an accomplishment.

The fact that we can bicker among ourselves about Sofia Vergara is either the height of superficiality or the epitome of narcissism. Or something in between. I can see where the image of the stereotypical Latina bombshell would incense some people: We’ve come a long way, we should demand an end to those images, they do noting but demean women, big media has been doing this for too long …

In my day the bombshell was Charo,  the Spanish “Cuchi-Cuchi” girl. She had a thick accent and a curvaceous figure that she shook for a laugh. Sofia Vergara is a little tame in comparison. But they had this in common:

… all the way to the bank. Forbes recently listed Vergara as the best paid actress in Hollywood.

For that some call her a sellout, others see her as a savvy businesswoman. And that’s the other side, isn’t it? These are women whom we can judge to be in control of their careers and sexuality. They’re comics, first and foremost.

That word, comic, comes form the Greek Komos, god of mirth. I’d like to assume that Sofia Vergara, and Charo, take their mirth seriously – like a calling to help us lighten our burdens. Because if you chose to see things this way, Vergara’s pedestal skit jumps to another level.

When I first saw the skit I laughed out loud. I saw it as a visual pun, exploiting the different meanings of an idea – the boring drone of a media executive talking about diversity with the Latina bombshell rotating next to him. There was a set up: as she stepped onto the pedestal Vergara said “if that’s how they do it on American television.” When her backside was facing the camera the TV executive said “television has and will always be about great storytelling.” It was a big- media self deprecating joke. If big media can laugh about their diversity problem, then they can do something about it. And that should be the serious follow-up to Vergara’s pun.

There was a time when Latinas would not have been in on the punch line, a time when Margarita Carmen Cansino had to call herself Rita Hayworth to be taken seriously.

Things have changed since then. Today, Rita Hayworth would probably be part of a clickbait listicle about Latinas who’ve changed their names, or actors you didn’t know were Latinas. And someone would call her a sellout.

The point is that it’s our right, and luxury, to do that. Especially with 52 million digital megaphones, we can objectify celebrity by imposing parameters of what is and is not acceptable: you can be famous, but don’t shake your accent; you can crack a joke, but you will be seen as demeaning a culture.

Unless you take that culture’s humor – filled with exuberance and couched in double-entendre’s – and lift it to the level of a sophisticated pun. But then, that’s just another way of looking at things.

[screenshot courtesy of NBC]

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