Miami - Popular fast food ads featuring a talking Chihuahua hawking Taco Bell products have offended some members of Miami's Cuban exile community who think the latest commercial glorifies leftist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
The most recent in a series of ads starring the dog with big ears and bulging eyes has him posing as a beret- wearing revolutionary who appears before a crowd in a public square and says "Viva Gorditas," sending onlookers into a cheering frenzy.
Some members of Miami's 800,000-strong Cuban exile community interpreted the ad as a parody of the stage play and movie "Evita" and saw the Chihuahua as Guevara, the Argentine-born doctor who served as Fidel Castro's lieutenant in the struggle that led to the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Thousands of Cubans left family and property to flee their homeland following the revolution and made new homes in Miami, where hard-liners continue their opposition to Castro's communist government.
Callers lit up talk show lines this week to complain about the ads, radio host Ninoska Perez.
"A lady called to say that her brother had been sent to the firing squad by Che Guevara," said Perez, also a spokeswoman for the hard-line Cuban American National Foundation. "A lot of people who were prisoners in Cuba remember his cruelty."
While some Cuban exiles might welcome the portrayal of Guevara as a dog, others were offended by the use of a character resembling a figure they revile in an ad campaign.
"People basically said that they (Taco Bell) wouldn't put the Chihuahua dog with a Ku Klux Klan hat, and they wouldn't put the Chihuahua with Hitler's mustache," Perez said.
"If you use the Evita stage and you have him in the beret, he is obviously Che Guevara."
Guevara, who was killed by the Bolivian army in 1967, was an icon to a generation of leftists around the world.
"The advertising is about our revolutionary taco. It's about Gordita-ism and not any other kind of -ism out there," Taco Bell vice president Peter Stack said.
The ads were meant to portray revolution "generically" and did not seek to glorify any revolutionary figure, he said. In tests on Hispanic audiences, the response was "overwhelmingly positive."
The commercial series, which began with a spot featuring the dog delivering his catch phrase "Yo quiero Taco Bell" (I want Taco Bell), has stirred some debate in Hispanic communities, Hispanic groups say.
While some viewers have said the dog stereotypes Hispanics and others have complained about his accent and grammar, others have said they love the little dog with the big ears.
The Chihuahua was introduced last year and proved a big hit for Taco Bell, a unit of Tricon Global Restaurants Inc. The dog is to be seen as "a 19-year-old guy in a dog's body who primarily thinks about food and girls," the company says.
The chain is selling T-shirts bearing its image and is considering a line of posters, stuffed toys and other merchandise. Entertainment Weekly lauded the ads and USA Today's Ad Track found the campaign to be one of the nation's most popular.
The revolution commercial, backed by a $60-million campaign, introduces Taco Bell's new Gordita, a concoction of grilled Mexican flat bread with ground beef, chicken or steak topped with chipotle peppers, sour cream, cheese and tomatoes.
The ad was criticized by a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens chapter in Clearwater, Florida as racially insensitive. But Brent Wilkes, director of the 115,000-member Hispanic advocacy group, said its membership as a whole has not complained vigorously about the ads.
Osvaldo Soto, chairman of the Spanish American League Against Discrimination (SALAD) in Miami, said the fuss over the ad was "incredible." "I don't consider that it was aimed at hurting anyone's feelings," he said.
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