You'll remember late last year that a group of Chicano activists unmasked the person behind the mildly amusing “Ask a Chola” web persona as Chloe Michalopoulos, a SanTana loft dweller who's about as much a Mexican and a real-life chola as I am a CCIR member. The Internet condemnation of her was fast and furious–and rightfully so–because Michalopoulos couldn't own up to her attempts at satire for reasons known only to her, but probably better explained by cowardice.
Fast forward to last week, when anti-Mexican stereotypes uttered by the hosts of the BBC's wildly popular auto program Top Gear inflamed wabs worldwide.
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No need to reiterate them here (besides, my own commentary on the matter is forthcoming), but the Lads did them in front of a studio audience and have been more than happy to engage furious Mexis–the exact opposite of Michalopoulos' hide-and-seek approach. But that didn't stop Ask a Chloe from trying to grasp at straws to compare her work with theirs.
One tweet:
Another:
“PC police”? One of Michalopoulos' fiercest critics has been Lalo Alcaraz, the legendary Chicano editorial cartoonist who has unleashed more political incorrect humor than a decade of Saturday Night Live skits–but unlike Michalopoulos, he owns up to his transgressions and doesn't try to pretend to be another ethnicity, like the gabacha Michalopoulos, who once claimed to be a Mexican named Soledad who lived in East Los Angeles. But enough bitching–let's see Michalopolous with bandanna off at her Swiftian best (sarcasm aside, I get what she's trying to get at here, so why try to hide your identity, Chloe?)
Chloe Michalopolous Goes to a Protest! from Ask A Chola on Vimeo.
