'Family Guy' offends in Venezuela

The animated series "Family Guy" is the latest American media export to offend the Venezuelan government.

Global Post reports that Stewie Griffin, one of the characters in the show, caused outrage by singing a ditty lauding marijuana’s restorative properties.

"The Venezuelan government highlighted the clip as an example of how the U.S. government promotes pot smoking and the legalization of drugs. Venezuela resented a recent U.S. Congress report that said a fourfold increase in cocaine smuggling through Venezuela has been aided by police corruption and a refusal to work with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration."

Read more about it here.

"Family Guy" is not the first cartoon to ruffle officials' feathers in Venezuela. Last year, "The Simpsons" was banned from broadcast television after it was ruled “unsuitable” for children. 

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Making an example of American Apparel

American Apparel is in the process of firing all of its undocumented workers, under pressure from the Department of Homeland Security -- a move that will cause as much real harm to Los Angeles as it will imaginary good. Taking away as many as 1,800 jobs that pay $10 to $12 an hour plus benefits will probably drive those workers into an underground economy or into sweatshops, maybe into crime, maybe homelessness. They and their children will be more susceptible to poverty and hunger and more likely to require public assistance, argues this Los Angeles Times editorial.

Read on here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Latino TV personalities juggle a bilingual stage

They say things like "Antes de la break" and "Mira que cute." One is a clownish, Puerto Rican-born 28-year-old who ditched studying engineering to pursue a career in entertainment, another is an outspoken SoCal native who once had a penchant for crashing cars. The Spanglish? It just comes naturally, reports Yvonne Villarreal.

They're a new generation of Latino television personalities: attractive, plugged in and conversant not only in Spanglish argot but in a complex, shifting culture. Their employers believe they are offering young viewers a cool, and marketable, connection to this culture. Don Francisco, cuidado.

Read more here.

Photo: Yasmin Deliz, Yarel Ramos and Melissa "Crash" Barrera dish out programming that bridges a cultural gap. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Filmmakers document consequences of U.S. immigration raid

Back in May 2008, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials rounded up 389 undocumented workers in the Agriprocessors Inc. kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. The raid was the largest in U.S history.

Two weeks later, filmmakers Jennifer Szymaszek and Greg Brosnan started filming "In the Shadow of the Raid," a documentary film showing at the Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico. A 15-minute edit of the film was recently broadcast on PBS "Frontline's" website.

"In the Shadow of the Raid" delves into the consequences of the ICE raid for Postville and for some of the the migrants who were arrested and deported back to their homes in two rural villages in Guatemala.

Following the closure of the meatpacking plant, Postville businesses failed and livelihoods were destroyed.

In Guatemala, migrant Willian Toj returned to his wife and parents. Awaiting him was a massive debt that he accrued from his trip to the U.S. He had been working in the Postville plant for 20 minutes before the ICE raid.

Toj can barely earn enough to pay the monthly interest on the $7,000 debt, let alone get the funds to treat his mother's worsening cancer.

The tone of the documentary is observational rather than preachy, in the same vein as other recent works such as "Los Que Se Quedan / Those Who Remain." The filmmakers try to reflect some of the realities that contribute to why so many Central Americans and Mexicans head to the United States. But there are no ICE officials interviewed, no legal redresses sought. Brosnan and Szymaszek focus on the people affected by the raid, and the resulting film is a photographic testament to a sad reality.

Watch the video for more.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City.

Video: An interview with Jennifer Szymaszek and Greg Brosnan, directors of "In the Shadow of the Raid." All non-interview material courtesy of Szymaszek and Brosnan. Video interview by Deborah Bonello.

Guerrilla filmmaking, Dominican style

It isn't easy making a movie in the Dominican Republic. When Michael Mann tried shooting part of "Miami Vice" there in 2005, a gunfight broke out near the film set, prompting costar Jamie Foxx to leave the country and forcing further filming to Miami.

The filmmakers who made "La Soga," which recently earned several standing ovations at the Toronto International Film Festival, managed to finish their movie without anyone being killed, though they do have colorful stories, which include hiring a machete fighter to handle security. As "La Soga" director Josh Crook put it: "Our motto when we wrapped each day was, 'We didn't die!' "

As it turns out, "La Soga" isn't just the best film from the Dominican Republic ever to play in Toronto. Apparently, it's also the only Dominican film ever to play there. I'd say it was worth the wait. Even though the Dominican Republic is best known for spawning baseball players, judging from "La Soga," the country could be a potential goldmine for actors and filmmakers as well, writes Patrick Goldstein.

Read more here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Majority of Mexicans think life would be better in the U.S., survey finds

Most Mexicans think their lives would be better in the United States, and one in three said they'd move to the U.S. if they could, according to the latest findings on Mexican attitudes from the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

Half of those who said they'd migrate north of the border said they would do so without permission, although recent data on immigration suggests that the flow of Mexicans north is slowing.

President Felipe Calderon's military-led campaign against the country's drug lords and organized-crime networks is "overwhelmingly endorsed" by the majority of Mexicans, although large majorities describe crime (81%) and illegal drugs (73%) as very big problems, according to the study.

Calderon's offensive against organized crime is now in its third year amid rising drug-related violence, but the Pew project reports that most Mexicans believe those anti-crime efforts are effective.

A hefty majority, 66%, say the army is making progress against the traffickers, while only 15% think it is losing ground. Calderon also is well regarded.

The popularity of the tough stance against drug gangs seems to be bolstering support for Calderon. Roughly two-thirds (68%) have a favorable opinion of the president, while only 29% express an unfavorable view.

You can read the report in its entirety on the project's website or download it.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 1,000 adults in Mexico between May 26 and June 2, 2009, for the Pew report.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Mexico City's central plaza, or Zocalo. Credit: Deborah Bonello / For The Times

Cartoonists take on illegal immigration

"The now-infamous Capitol shout-out from South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson was blogged, scribed, tubed and 'tooned to death, but precious little commentary actually dealt with illegal immigration, the spark that lit his short fuse. Steve Sack took a shot at needling irrational nationalists taking needless shots. John Branch signed off on a huge multibillion-dollar border checkpoint. And Matt Bors used borderline taste in his verbose abortion piece.(Guess that Bors dude is sick and un-American.)"

-- Joel Pett

Joel Pett is the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky. His cartoons also appear in USA Today.

See more here.

Cartoon: Steve Sack / Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Language as a bridge and an identity

At the Grupo Educa weekend language school, children from families with roots in Latin America and Spain are taught to keep the language of their forebears alive and well, writes Hector Tobar in his column.

I was invited to speak on Sunday to a group of 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds, and to their odd, tiny "classmate" -- a stuffed bear.

Like me, the children were all English speakers, born in the U.S. But the stuffed bear spoke only Spanish, the children's teacher told me. So the kids and I chatted in español -- just so el oso wouldn't feel left out.

"Buenos días," I said to the children, and they all answered back "buenos días!" The bear kept quiet, however.

The "Spanish-speaking bear" is a little trick they use at the Grupo Educa weekend language school to get the kids to speak Spanish.

Read more here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City.

'Crude' documentary explores Ecuador versus Chevron case

"Crude" sounds like the standard "this is an outrage" environmental degradation documentary, the latest in a line that includes "An Inconvenient Truth" and films about the death of the ocean, the evaporation of water, the murder of dolphins, even the disintegration of dirt. "Crude" fits that bill, but it is something considerably more interesting as well, writes Kenneth Turan.

The outrage in question is the subject of a class-action suit filed by 30,000 citizens of Ecuador against Chevron, the world's fifth-largest corporation, alleging that 18 billion gallons of toxic waste-water were dumped into the Amazon between 1972 and 1990, fatally poisoning the land and water and sickening inhabitants. The lawsuit, with a potential cost to Chevron of $27 billion, has been going on for so long, 16 years and counting, that the original American oil company in Ecuador, Texaco, was acquired by Chevron and no longer exists.

Director Joe Berlinger ("Brother's Keeper," "Metallica") has been working on "Crude" for three years, and though he feared he was coming too late to the story, a verdict is still not in sight. Having all that time to explore the situation has paid off for Berlinger, enabling him to gain the confidence of his subjects and show us situations that ordinarily would not be open to outsiders.

Read the rest of this movie review here, and click here for more posts about films and documentaries.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Video: The official "Crude" trailer.

Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho seeks protection from new threats

Journalist Lydia Cacho, who exposed a child pornography network in Cancun, Mexico, that involved business leaders, says she received new death threats last week, reports the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas blog.

"The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has granted cautionary protective measures for the journalist, her family, and staff of the Center for Attention to Women (CIAM, in Spanish) of Cancún," the AFP news agency reports.

"The IACHR also asked the Mexican government to take action to protect Cacho," EFE adds.

"Cacho has received several death threats on her blog and recently noted that several unknown people took photos of her home," says the magazine Proceso.

Cacho published a book in 2006 that alleged the existence of a child sex ring in the southern Mexican city of Cancun, after which she was illegally arrested and harassed by some of the powerful men she implicated in "Los Demonios del Eden" (see more details of the case here).

She shot into the spotlight when she challenged her aggressors by going public and filing a legal action against them -- although it was ultimately unsuccessful.

Since then, Cacho has become something of a symbol for the issues of freedom of expression in Mexico and the repression of journalists. Her last book, "Memories of a Disgrace (Memorias de una Infamia)," detailed the events that unfolded after the publication of "Los Demonios del Eden."

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City