u/KnifeKnut

Like their growing town and spaceport outside of Brownsville Texas, the Spacex Pecan island area will need a name of it's own.

Calling it too Starbase would be too confusing.

I mean also as a Latino it was more nuanced than that. The people that had complained about Speedy Gonzalez eons ago didn't complain because of the Speedy character, but because (according to them) 99% of the other Mexican mice characters were depicted as lazy, drunkards and/or just sleeping while their houses/civilization became run-down and unattended. Slowpoke Rodriguez was a big issue for many, seen as the stereotype of the "mentally slow" Mexican. Also the exaggerated Mexican accents (in the English original) were considered offensive by some. Also the Mexican mice used broken English with made-up words and deliberately bad grammar which many interpreted as the show saying Mexicans can't speak correctly. There was a significant amount of Latino people among the ones that complained about this, this was a a bit of a thing during the 70s, which is why in the year 1980 ABC took Speedy Gonzales down from its channel (their stated reasoning was that since the show was the only Mexican representation in the entire TV space, it ended up pigeonholing an entire culture under the same visual signs: giant hat, exaggerated accent, tattered clothes).

Speedy kept airing elsewhere ofc, but also the complaints became a bit more common throughout the 80s and the 90s. In 1999, Cartoon Network decided to archive the Speedy episodes instead of airing them. The stated reasoning by the execs was: exaggerated accent, giant hat and especially the depictions of Speedy's friends as lazy and drunkards.

Now meanwhile down here in LatAm, a lot of the edges of the Speedy Gonzales show were sanded down which contributed to a lot people down here loving it. First, the dubbing neutralized the issue with exaggerated accents. But also the VA and VA director worked hard to recontextualize the offensive elements and turn them into sort of examples of local humor, identity and cunning/mischievousness. El Gato Silvestre (I think he's called Sylvester the Cat in English or something) was just a predator chasing mice in the original dub, but the Mexican dub had the mice call constantly him "el Gato Gringo" and since the mice were obviously Mexican-coded, it became a story of how some humble but cunning Mexicans always humbled and defeated the big, powerful, clumsy, arrogant American enemy, which played well with local audiences.

Slowpoke Rodriguez was also enhanced a bit. It wasn't just that his name was changed to Lento Rodriguez (sure, the direct English translation for Lento is Slow, which in English might sound like you are still calling someone "slow in the head" and might not be seen as much better than "slowpoke" with both hinting to mental underdevelopment, but in Spanish in the 90s Lento had no such implications, it just meant he moved and talked slowly). Also in some shorts he was instead renamed to Tranquilino, which is even more benefic of a name. But more important than that, the VAs completely changed the way the character spoke. In English he sounded like someone was parodying a mentally underdeveloped person. In Spanish he spoke slowly but his tone was emphasized with a ton of irony and cunning. In the Spanish dub Rodriguez is not a dumb mouse but a very intelligent and dangerous character who, since he can't run, uses firearms or hypnosis to destroy his enemies without breaking a sweat. In the English original those are more often interpreted as just unexpected comedy or even as the dangers of having a dumb person wield arms. In the Spanish dub he sounds very intentional and judicious about it.

The Mexican dub also made the mice speak fluent, natural Spanish even with the mannerisms of the Golden Era of Mexican Cinema. A complete contrast with the broken language and bad grammar they spoke with in the original.

The other thing they changed was around lazyness and drunkedness. In the original, the mice often appeared dancing La Cucaracha, stumbling around or passed out surrounded by alcohol bottles, also often with half closed eyes meant to represent sleepiness. The Mexican dub couldn't change the drawings/animations themselves, so what they did was at least always give them justifications through the dialogue: the mice were sometimes "tired due to the heat" or "scared of the cat" or "paranduleros" i.e. celebrating specific local festivities. Much more dignified that just unexplained drunkedness and lazyness.

All of this contributed to Speedy Gonzales being beloved in Mexico and pretty well liked across LatAm. So when Cartoon Network took it down in 1999, a lot of people (especially Mexicans but also some Latinos living in the US like the LULAC association) pushed back on it. So CN put it back on air in 2002.

Then in 2021 when the new Space Jam movie came out, a NYT columnist criticized Speedy being there, and there was an interesting difference in reaction between people in LatAm and in the US. People in LatAm overwhelmingly were against this columnist. But in the US it was more split, I remember seeing a significant amount of Americans backing this columnist up, but also ofc a lot of Americans going against him (after all, the "Latinos actually love Speedy Gonzalez!" has been a popular Reddit quip for the last 15+ years, and there's always one Latino backing it up in the replies).

So why are still a decent number of Americans concerned about Speedy Gonzalez being a racist show? Why the discrepancy? Well, sure, some can be explained by the "white people being offended on behalf of minorities" argument, and that's certainly something that sometimes happens. But personally I think most of it is because the US and LatAm experienced quite different versions of the show (and this includes some Latinos living in the US which I assume watched the dubbed version as well). So when Latinos hear Americans are concerned about the show being racist they think back to the lovely, not-racist show they experienced and they think "are they crazy?". And at the same time when Americans hear that Speedy Gonzalez is still around they think back to the show they watched as kids with the broken English and the stereotypes and they think "mmmh that was a bit fucked up, wasn't it?".

There's even more nuance to this whole thing when you're looking at all this from within Latin America. In Mexico it's almost impossible to talk negatively about the Speedy show, cause Speedy is a national hero. But in other LatAm countries an interesting phenomenon happened throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. Defending Speedy initially was the cause... of right wing Latin Americans. Initially the kind of people that took arms for him were doing so in the same breath as saying stuff like "the leftists want to cancel Speedy Gonzales", "commies call everything racist" or "this is because of stupid academic concepts like cultural appropriation, more proof that Universities must be privatized and progressives rooted out of them", etc, etc. In time, defending Speedy Gonzales from being taken off air became a thing most Latin Americans agreed with, so the right-wing Latinos definitely won on this one (as well as they have on a series of cultural battles were they take the side of "defending Latin American identity" against the "excesses of the powerful American leftist elites" or similar framings).

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1uyz68h/backrooms_director_stops_a24_copyright_striking/oy6jd7w/

Edit: Duplicate paste removed

In full sun, and it is getting to 95 or higher degrees Fahrenheit in shade.

The Story behind these signs:

When this property was redeveloped to be a Walmart a retaining wall and fence was put up extending around the west side and part of the front of the property.

I am pretty sure this desire path developed shortly after the redevelopment into a Walmart, but the imagery does not catch up until 2007; there is a signpost but I suspect the not a walkway sign was removed by the desire path users. https://maps.app.goo.gl/8MrPU7NAskmUZgXw9

The signs do show up in 2011 along with some large slabs serving as landscaping. https://maps.app.goo.gl/vRYG2UvL2EPJ7U1w9

Of course people mostly went around the blocks https://maps.app.goo.gl/SXCfB7ZHKvyJvRbMA

And they gave up on the blocks circa 2014 https://maps.app.goo.gl/sENzQdDM69QUZgUt9

Even Traffic cones were tried. https://maps.app.goo.gl/sbeZGuEQbwzScRYt6

4 Signs https://maps.app.goo.gl/qvUsU5vb6SFs3sFr9

Initially the plywood tree protection fence did not block the Desire path, https://maps.app.goo.gl/4Z7bfzfj1tWZm9bF6

But the fencing was extended, leaving an intentional gap in the construction tree protection fence plywood https://maps.app.goo.gl/M5MDfNqyt9kgHXH27

Which was later closed https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZFUkdSVNbNKUYcyf7

Things went back to usual after the plywood was gone. https://maps.app.goo.gl/eT4gcAbv2U4QyAED6

And the Latest street view from 2025 https://maps.app.goo.gl/UHp92ne5w8BuwtLk8

Overhead view showing how much farther people are expected to walk to to the pedestrian entrance https://earth.google.com/web/search/43%2e72638378650324,+-79%2e29517174086595/@43.72714339,-79.29479485,159.34811521a,551.16896811d,35y,-0.74812652h,0.06984424t,-0r/data=CnUaPxI5GQ-s9CT63EVAIRqN1xfk0lPAKiU0My43MjYzODM3ODY1MDMyNCwgLTc5LjI5NTE3MTc0MDg2NTk1GAEgASImCiQJBenwwnirQkARwKwO1E-qQkAZyeGpwuV_XsAhsK_9XDSBXsAqBggBEgAYAUICCAE6AwoBMEICCABKDQj___________8BEAA

To be fair, the pedestrian entrance does include a walkway that goes all the way to the store with only a single crosswalk. https://maps.app.goo.gl/vfjWmaN7wnhPjGPd8

Lets revisit this in /u/remindmebot 5 years