The George Lopez sitcom was produced in 2002. The story line starts off with George Lopez, a middle-class father in a Chicano family of 4. His wife, teenage daughter and pre-teen son live together. Multiple scenes are based on common parenting issues of raising a daughter and a son at different milestones of their lives, turned in to a comedic lesson. Lopez himself growing up in a dysfunctional family with a single, lively, strong willed, resilient, ruthless, sarcastic, alcoholic, and careless mom. George and his wife live and raise their children in an American household without any Spanish language or cultural teaching. Lopez, continuously makes inside jokes or a few words in Spanish, but the majority of the show is based on an Mexican American up bringing.
Lopez works at the Power Brothers aviation factory. A company referred by his mother also employed there, he eventually becomes shift manager. Mentioned by his manager of business fluctuating and plummeting accounts leads to lay offs. Lopez decides to lay off his mother instead of hi best friend Ernie. Challenged with the racial politics in a corporate setting, Lopez is forced to take action. George eventually learns that he is toyed with and comes to find out that his choice of lay-off’s was the boss’s’ way of testing Lopez’s loyalty to the company. In result, with the lack of income this forces his mom to move in with them. Single parents seemed to eventually live with their sons and daughters being retired or to old to work to support themselves.
Other important characters are his wife’s indulgent father and Lopez’s child hood friend that is made to be socially awkward, unreliable, and lack of street smarts. Benny (his childhood friend) guards the secret that Lopez’s father is actually alive after growing up with his mother convincing him that he has died. In one episode, his father appears and seemed to be a rude, successful businessman, remarried with more children of his own. But his father’s neglect of Lopez comes to bite him in the butt. He ends up sick with kidney disease. After passing he leaves George a note, wishing him and his mother not to attend his funeral to avoid any negative drama. His father leaves him a gold watch from his grandfather. One thing his father gives him, not knowing the value Georges demolishes the watch. His mother later tells him it was worth a fortune.
In the year 2000 there were no more than 10 Hispanic oriented sitcoms on American television. The Lopez show was about a Chicano family living in an American community without showing the direct influence of their Hispanic culture background. His episodes touch base on everyday issues that families comes across in their lives. With a long time criticism of the lack of Latinos on screen, the network ABC signed his television series. It was one of the few Latin comedy series playing on prime time. Lopez was the co-creator, producer, writer and star of the show. The George Lopez show lasted for 6 seasons which was a total of 120 episodes from 2002-2007. Lopez, slightly taken back about the decision of the ABC network cancelling his show, criticized the president of ABC for using racially motivated reasons. An upset Lopez told LA Times that “TV just got really white again” “also commenting that Chicanos can’t have a tv show, but Caveman can”? Caveman was the show that replaced the George Lopez show after his 6th season aired.
Thanks for sharing your blog on the George Lopez Show. I have never watched the show before, however I can appreciate the much welcomed diversity of having a Chicano family on the big screen. Chicano shows are still very limited on prime time television, and it would be nice to see more shows like this. Having read your blog, it makes me wonder why film making and television does not equally represent diversity in this country, especially since the United States have two of the biggest melting pots that are culturally diverse on the East coast and West coast. We need more shows that show diversity, and less stereotypes.
This was one of my favorite shows. While it did have many stereotypes they all seemed so true and all hit so close to home. I think we all come from families who are dysfunctional in one way or another, and I love that George Lopez was able to make fun of this. He helped bring humor to some sensitive topics.
The George Lopez Show used to be one of my favorite shows. Since I have been taking a lot of classes on ethnic representation in media, I have noticed that the show stood in the middle of a slate where one side reinforced stereotypes against Latinos, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans, while the other side disregarded them. I had always wondered why the children never spoke Spanish, but I have learned that that is a generational occurrence that happens in a lot of immigrated families. There were a lot of aspects that I loved about the show, like the Lopez’s financial stability and hard working mentality. However, I did not really like George’s relationship with his constantly drunk and belligerent mother. And his relationship with his estranged father was another theme I believed reinforced negative stereotypes. Yet, those are the exact themes that made the show such a success.
Good take on the show. I’ve seen this show and it depicted Chicano’s in a positive light. It was funny on many levels. The plots were relatable they dealt with a variety of issues such as bullying, divorce, and STD’s to name a few. I always thought George Lopez decided to discontinue the show due to other commitments. Shame on ABC for thinking Cavemen would do better.
A lot of insightful information on the show. I had never really heard of this show until after it was cancelled. I stopped watching sitcoms a while ago, so I was unaware of the show. However, I do watch the reruns now with my little girl. So, I will probably have a different take on watching it, now that I know all the history and politics behind it. I watched an episode recently where the daughter wants to have a quicinetta, and Lopez was totally against it. His wife took a modern twist on it, and stated to Lopez that she could care less if he did not want it, and that she would pay for it herself. So, I thought it was interesting how the mother and daughter are keeping with the tradition, and Lopez was so against it, and there was more of a modern twist to it, because she was going against her husbands wishes. Its too bad that the show was cancelled and replaced with yet another white family sitcom. I think it is important to grow up with shows of different ethnicities, because it teaches the children of today about different cultures. I grew up with Family Matters, Fresh Prince, and the Cosby shows, but looking back I never watched any Chicano shows.
The George Lopez show definitely took a really good approach at showing the life of an average successful Chicano family. I did not realize it had ended in 2007 because there are so many episodes still on all the time. A few episodes really tackled issues being Latino like one where George was a manager and was directed to layoff some of the Latino workers. It was really conflicting to him because he knew what these jobs meant to those workers and how devastating it would be for their families. I love that George Lopez has always stood his ground and not conformed, he is proud of his culture.
I did see this show and I enjoyed the show. I did feel that George Lopez tackled many stereotypes and rose above them. Even though the family appeared to be on the track to being middle-class they showed the struggle that most working families encounter. George’s mother Benny’s (Belita Moreno) character is caustic and abrasive and though she was wrong on so many levels she was extremely funny. Her character was on point as many families have someone like her in their family.
Great review. I’ve never actually seen the George Lopez Show but I may start watching his new show after seeing him in so many films in this class. I have become a huge fan of his and Edward James Olmos. I like the points you brought up about a sitcom surrounding a Latino family in the year 2000s. It seems like we are so advanced and racially diverse in our 21st century, but when we look at prim time television and movies, we really see the lack of diversity. It’s great to see more and more sitcoms showing “minority” casts such as Fresh Off the Boat and Dr. Ken. It is much more representative of American families than all the white family sitcoms we see. I still can’t believe to this day that people are up in arms over a interracial family on a Cheerios commercial. It’s a reality in American culture and people need to accept that and embrace our racially diverse country Great post!
This was one of my favorite shows. I was sad when it was cancelled. Yes the show did touch on some Latino stereotypes but they also disproved some too. I agree with one poster who said that they can’t remember another Latino tv show. I was also trying to think of one and I couldn’t. I also grew up watching The Cosby Show, Family Matters, and Martin. I have watched the new show Fresh Off The Boat and that one deals with an Asian American family. Hopefully there will be more diverse tv shows coming out in the future.