Successful Lopez has no need to apologize
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By Ruben Navarrette Jr. | Sunday, February 18, 2007 |
Ruben Navarrette
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — It isn’t easy being George Lopez.
Sure, the actor-comedian is the most prominent Latino on television. And there’s the money, the fame and the trappings that go with them — houses in Pebble Beach, Calif., and Hawaii. On Feb. 24, Lopez will travel to Phoenix to star in his own live HBO special, wickedly titled: “America’s Mexican.”
There’s also the comedian’s self-titled family sitcom. In its sixth season, the show averages about 7 million viewers each week. Now it’s catapulting Lopez where no Latino headliner has gone before: network syndication. That brings with it no small amount of validation.
“The most important thing that this show has done is that it’s crossed over,” he told me on the set of his program. “It’s created its own place where people who watch TV, whatever color they are, accepted this family.”
After years of grinding it out in small, smoke-filled clubs, doing more than 150 shows per year, Lopez is comfortable in prime time.
“I don’t have to apologize for being successful,” he said. “I don’t have to apologize for having a house in Hawaii. I don’t have to apologize for anything.”
What he’s talking about with this “apologize for being successful” bit is the static that Latinos who are successful often get from friends and family who are envious. We accomplish something great, and the first thing we do is downplay it — which is ironic because, if we weren’t so confident in the first place, chances are, we would never have accomplished it.
Lopez gets the joke.
“Would Donald Trump apologize if he bought a yacht?” he asked. “He’d show it off. Us, we’d probably have it dry-docked somewhere, saying ‘Don’t tell my tia I bought a boat because I owe her $75.’ ”
But Lopez has faced challenges too. There was a battle with kidney disease that ended happily when his wife, Ann, donated one of her kidneys to him. Now the two are the national spokespeople for the National Kidney Foundation.
Then there’s the politics. Like many Americans — and Mexican-Americans in particular — he has a lot to say about the immigration issue. And he’s looking for the right place to say it.
“This country has a way of finding its scapegoat and its whipping boy, and it’s always immigrants,” he argued.
Ten years ago, I saw Lopez in a club having fun with an idea that was floating around at the time — about how Americans should build a moat on the U.S.-Mexican border and fill it with alligators. “Go ahead,” Lopez joked, noting the entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants, “In three weeks, you’d have people selling belts and wallets.”
And yet, Lopez deliberately keeps the immigration issue out of the television show. He told me that he’s concerned that such a divisive issue — over which passions run hot in Southern California — could damage the harmonious work environment on the set among actors, producers and crew.
Some Latinos will have a problem with that. Lopez doesn’t care, saying, “I’m totally aware of who I am and what I bring and what battles I should fight.”
You can expect some battling in the HBO special, which, Lopez said, would be heavy with immigration material. He gave me a taste, with a little hot sauce on it.
“Nobody is a Puritan anymore,” he said. “On HBO, I’m going to say, ‘You know what? You want to turn the (expletive) page? We’ll rebuild the (expletive) Mayflower and send your (expletive) back. We can do it cheaper, better and faster. No permits.”
OK, America. Your Mexican is fired up and loaded for, well, alligator.
Contact Ruben Navarrette at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.
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