'Are you becoming too gringo?'

The NBC-owned Latino cable channel Mun2 obviously isn't interested in political correctness, at least judging by its new image campaign that breaks this week. Prepared by the Miami ad firm La Comunidad, the commercials ask viewers: "Are you becoming too gringo?" by taking shots at the assimilated Latino society. The answer, according to the attitude-heavy ads, is Mun2 (pronounced "moon dos"), which is the sister network of Telemundo and airs mainly music videos. In the old days (we're talking, say, 1995), this campaign would have caused a major stir. Now I'm not so sure. From Ad Age:

In one spot, two young Latino men operating an ice-cream truck pursue girls who run off with their oversize decorative ice-cream cones but the guys are blocked by a fence. The voice-over asks: "Is your gringo diet killing your Latin skills? Jump fences like you know we can." one of the men sails over the fence like a superhero; then he says, "Now I feel like an hombre again." In another spot, a Latino youth is president of the United States, facing a crisis over weapons of mass destruction. But it's just a daydream, as he sits in a classroom at school. "Is your American dream becoming too gringo?" the voice-over asks. "Instead of dreaming about war, dream about nicer things." In the last shot, he has gone from president to gardener and is clipping a hedge.

The spots will run on Mun2 and other NBC cable channels, like USA Network and the Sci-Fi Channel. They'll also be posted on the holamun2.com site. Backstory: Originally called GEMS Television, Telemundo bought the channel and began offering Spanish-language versions of "Charlie's Angels" and "The Dating Game." It didn't work. Now rebranded Mun2, Spanish and English are spoken interchangeably, reflecting the direction of young bilingual Latinos.