When I was 12 or 13, we took a trip to Mexico and took public transportation and stayed in small non-touristy places where the people staying in the hotels were more likely to be Mexicans than Americans (not to save money, my parents just thought it would be more fun). I remember sitting in a hotel lobby with a TV on and some Mexican kids sitting around watching Speedy Gonzales cartoons dubbed into Spanish with their parents casually chatting and I was like, “WTF? Isn’t Speedy Gonzales racist? They don’t care? They like it?”
Like VindictiveJudge says, he’s the hero who outwits his opponents and always wins. I’d add that the opponents are always American.
Probably because he always outwits his opponents and always wins. He’s not any more crazy than the other Looney Tunes, he’s as smart as Bugs, and unlike Bugs, he’s never cruel and remains firmly heroic.
He was also the exact opposite of the other stereotype of the “lazy Mexican” - which, for anyone who’s ever worked construction with actual Mexicans, is comically inaccurate.
Case in point: Mexicans loved Speedy Gonzalez.
When I was 12 or 13, we took a trip to Mexico and took public transportation and stayed in small non-touristy places where the people staying in the hotels were more likely to be Mexicans than Americans (not to save money, my parents just thought it would be more fun). I remember sitting in a hotel lobby with a TV on and some Mexican kids sitting around watching Speedy Gonzales cartoons dubbed into Spanish with their parents casually chatting and I was like, “WTF? Isn’t Speedy Gonzales racist? They don’t care? They like it?”
Like VindictiveJudge says, he’s the hero who outwits his opponents and always wins. I’d add that the opponents are always American.
Probably because he always outwits his opponents and always wins. He’s not any more crazy than the other Looney Tunes, he’s as smart as Bugs, and unlike Bugs, he’s never cruel and remains firmly heroic.
That’s the crux. He’s a Mexican stereotype, but at the time, it was rare to have a good guy who looked like that.
He was also the exact opposite of the other stereotype of the “lazy Mexican” - which, for anyone who’s ever worked construction with actual Mexicans, is comically inaccurate.