Remember "Grease?" Imagine "Greasers," a 1950s-style musical parody from a Latino perspective with brand new songs like "You're the Juan that I Want" and "Hopelessly Deported."
That's just one of the Latino Comedy Project's sketches aimed at dispelling stereotypes through humor. The project, sponsored by Austin's bilingual theatre company Teatro Humanidad, began in 1998 and has toured festivals and theatres around the country. The 11-member ensemble performed Tuesday night at the Texas Union Theater in an event sponsored by the Texas Union Student Events Center Mexican American Culture Committee.
"We hope to spread cultural awareness through satire," said Matt Reyes, director of campus communications for the committee. "Latinos are often portrayed as an immigration problem, as cowards or banditos or as Latin lovers from 'I Love Lucy.' We're hoping people will look beyond the stereotypes to see the larger message of the show."
The program's main goal is to be funny, said Adrian Villegas, artistic director of the group. The group began as a platform for the Latino perspective and as a way to tap into the Latino talent in Austin, he said.
"The message of the show is that Latinos are diverse, and that we have a voice," Villegas said. "We write our own stuff."
The program satirizes different Latino stereotypes. "It could be the way a Latino grandparent is, or the TV-watching habits of our parents, or interactions with white America on a daily basis, or how Latinos are depicted in films," Villegas said. "We often get our material from something ridiculous that actually exists in the community, and we take it one step further."
Virgen de Guadalupe deodorant spray, for example, is an actual product, and one sketch is a mock advertisement for a miraculous aerosol that can bring the sanctity of the Roman Catholic Church right into your home.
The Pendejo Self-Defense Kit for women is a sketch that makes fun of inappropriate Latino pick-up attempts. In it, a woman stands in the check-out line at a grocery store, and horror music plays in the background as the pendejo (fool) behind her tries to impress her.
"Hey baby, I just got out of the army," he says. "I've been all over the world, you know - Europe, Asia ... El Paso."
The woman asks, "So who are the diapers for?"
The guy replies, "For my girlfriend's baby."
Villegas wrote the skit based on stories from his Latina friends.
"It's shameless," he said. "They're all certain types of guys that the Latinas in the audience will recognize immediately. On first glance, people might think we're pigeonholing ourselves, but we're taking stereotypes and digging deeper."
"Pinche troca" is a monologue from a day laborer riding to work in the back of a pick-up truck.
"Mostly, the sketch is about the worker's lewdness, and the audience laughs at the expense of his behavior," Villegas said. "But there's a realistic element, too. He talks about the girl he's with and how much he loves her and wants to marry her."
Nick Walker, marketing coordinator and the only non-Latino performer in the troupe, said the show takes a preconceived notion the audience might have about a stereotype and flips it on them.
"There's the 15-year-old girl who is pregnant and celebrating her quincenera and baby shower at the same time," Walker said. "The audience instantly understands that stereotype, but by the end of the sketch, you see she has a heart, she has hopes and dreams. People can take a deeper look at a character they would normally typecast as a misfit kid."
Walker said he's the "token white boy" of the troupe, typically playing the "crazy, nerdy white guy, the Bubba racist hick or George W. Bush."
A few of the sketches carry political messages, Villegas said. In one skit, for example, a huge oil supply is discovered on a peasant's farm in Mexico. Suddenly, the Bush administration decides to invade Mexico to rescue three American college students supposedly being held hostage, and the axis of evil turns into the quadruple-hexagonal rhomboid of evil.
"A lot of the jokes are universal," said Estrella DeLeon, UT senior and member of the troupe. "People may not understand the Spanish or the traditional aspects of the sketches, but the group is showing that we're just like everybody else. We all worry about the same issues, and the twist is what each of us brings from our own cultures."
Be the first to comment on this article!