Honestly! I’m not sure whether I should be offended or just plain tickled with the increasing popularity of this crazy little cartoon character named Consuela I’ve only recently discovered.
According to her creators on Family Guy, she is the leader of the Quahog Maids’ Union and Consuela is every bit the typical stereotype of a Latina housemaid… of Mexican descent according to the undercurrent of mostly young people who’ve taken her on as a “champion” of sorts for housemaids everywhere.
On the one hand, she’s definitely got the sarcasm and sass of many an abuelita down packed! Her broken English – she calls everyone Misser regardless of their gender – and seemingly on purpose way of getting out of everything by saying “NOOOOOO!!” – her signature line by the way – is pretty hilarious and seems all too familiar to me for some reason.
On the other hand, though, her appearance on episodes like Are You Smarter Than a Hispanic Maid? just make me cringe.
Outside of the show there’s also an info-graphic circulating the web calling her the “grown up” version of Dora the Explorer, or what Dora will look like in a few decades.
Come on people! We Mexicans are capable of so much more than just cleaning houses – and NO, Dorita is not going to be a housemaid when she grows up! She’s into science people!
While Consuela has become more than just another character on Family Guy – she’s one of the few that was created as a one time character and turned into a regular part of the show – the question for me is do we really need Consuela in the world? It’s bad enough the Urban Dictionary already defines Consuela as “the universal name for a hotel maid.” Really!?
I don’t know, what do you think?