‘Mexican Week’ on ‘Great British Baking Show’ Comes Under Fire for Stereotypes and Pronunciation Disasters
Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor Sombreros, serapes and maracas, horrible pronunciations, jokes about Mexican stand-offs, and really strange-looking tacos — did the “Mexican Week” episode of “The Great British Baking Show” leave any stereotypical stone unturned? After a similar debacle with Season 11’s “Japanese Week,” the internationally beloved competition series — which streams on Netflix in the U.S. — apparently decided not to learn from its mistakes, and dove headlong into Mexican food. And since the competition is largely to determine who can create the best baked goods, many observers wondered, why were they attempting tacos, anyway? Even before the episode dropped on Oct. 7, the promos featuring sombrero-wearing hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas came under fire from social media commenters — largely from the U.S., where finding a good taco is not as difficult as in the U.K. — who were quick to weigh in on the show’s utter failure to try to understand more than the most obvious characteristics of Mexican food and culture. Even the English-language plural of the word cactus eluded one of the contestants — not to mention the woman whose absolutely wretched try at guacamole sounded more like “glakeemolo.”