Paul Saucido has made his career with edgy, ethnic comedy celebrating his Mexican-American heritage. So he was pretty amazed when a ringtone he developed for Barrio Mobile was called racist and yanked from Cingular's deck earlier this week.
The ringtone, "La Migra Alert," is Saucido pretending to be an immigration official with a really bad fake Southern accent, saying, "I'm deporting you back home-o." (Barrio Mobile sent me the ringtone, but said I couldn't publish it.)
The character came from a brainstorming session between him and a few other Latino comedians, Saucido said, citing Dave Chapelle and Carlos Mencia among his comedic influences.
"It was inspired by other comedians who riff on the same stereotype of the immigration officer ... you know how people try to phonetically speak when they talk down to you, like, 'where is the bathroom-o?'" he said.
The ringtone came as part of a package of comic ringtone characters developed by Saucido, including a hovering, novela-obsessed Mexican mom, a Mexican dad, and a "barrio kid" who would say "I can't make it to the phone right now, I'm busy rotating the tires on my low-rider." All of Saucido's ringtones have been removed by Cingular, he says.
"I think because of the times, right now people are a little extra sensitive [about immigration issues,]" he said. "I'm sensitive to this issue! But people obviously leave their senses of humor behind when they get so much fever in them. I thought the Migra character was the last character that would get that kind of reaction."
Saucido says there's "absolutely" room for edgy comedy in the ringtone world.
"I've played it for all my friends and they love them - they're waiting for them to be sold, and they're like, where can we buy them?" he said. "These companies have got to have some backbone to say we bought this content, we believe in it, and we're not going to get rid of it just because the first advocacy group calls racism. Dude, everyone that produced them and worked for them - we're all Mexican!"
(Read my original story about the La Migra ringtone, or listen to the ringtone thanks to some guy from SomethingAwful.com.)
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May 11, 2006 9:12 PM
It's funny, great. People are just too sensitive, great. It's sarcastic, great. But notice the dude says he's Mexican. NOT Mexican-American. Where was he born? Where is his citizenship? Where do his loyalties lie? That's what I thought. el gringo
May 12, 2006 3:34 AM
I thought it was FUNNY! GEEZ, everyone is SOOOOOOOOOO offended!
May 12, 2006 8:37 AM
Ed, I have Irish-American friends who refer to themselves as "Irish" in conversation, Italian-Americans who most definitely call themselves "Italians" and one Latvian-American friend, born here, who has definitely been known to announce himself as "Latvian" whenever anyone mistakens his heritage for Russian (a major no-no.) Frank Sinatra, born in Hoboken, sang songs in Italian, and Telly Savalas from Garden City, NY would regularly burst out in Greek on TV sets. To take ethnicity out of the American picture would be pretty much to eliminate the American picture entirely. Let's understand we're all immigrants (except for the Native Americans) and all have a laugh.
May 12, 2006 11:02 AM
If you don't care about getting paid, and just want to make it available, you could post them at my site, www.bestringers.com.
May 12, 2006 10:07 PM
l love the ringtone, for those that opposed it, take a chill pill or better yet take PROZAC!!!!
May 13, 2006 2:29 PM
I want that ringtone I am Mexican-American, I always make fun of my heritage. Has anyone heard all the other ringtones out there. Give me a break, I swear what a bunch of whining cry babies. One more thing I'm a cingular customer, cingular give the people what they want.
May 15, 2006 2:31 PM
where I can download this particular ringtone "La Migra"
May 16, 2006 1:07 PM
I have it. Just send me an e-mail at gringojoe@gmail.com
May 17, 2006 8:42 AM
The tone is available in various places, only trick is you need to know how to convert it from asf to a format your phone can support. You do this by typing something like: "convert asf mp3" into google. I've linked to a post on the hofo site that links to some of the sites hosting it.
May 17, 2006 10:22 AM
If anyone wantes the mp3 version of la migra, I'll send it to ya, saucido@gmail.com thanks fro eveyone's support! keep laughing you Frijoleros! Paul
June 11, 2006 8:52 PM
almost funny, but reminds me of buford gomez from broadway's latinologues www.latinologues.net