Burger King Pulls Little Spicy Mexican Ads

Burger King has announced that it will withdraw its European advertising campaign for the Texican Whopper out of respect for the Mexican culture. The Mexican ambassador to Spain wrote a letter to the company complaining about the campaign, which features a tall Texas cowboy and a short Mexican wrestler in a lucha libre outfit. In the print ads, the wrestler wears a cape that resembles the Mexican flag.

The Texican Whopper ads ran in Spain and Great Britain. The English language tagline was "A taste of Texas, with a little spicy Mexican." In Mexico City, one newspaper complained that the campaign depicted Mexicans as inferior, while another ran an editorial cartoon showing a wrestler eating a burger with a caption that humorously charged that the ads hit too close to home--a jab at the Mexican infatuation with fast food hamburgers and lucha libre wrestling.

The Texan in the commercials is unshaven, keeps his horse in the living room, and can't open a jar of pickles without assistance from the Mexican. So far, no official protests have been filed complaining about the unfair stereotyping of Texans.

-Robb Walsh