Honestly, I am insanely shocked that good sitcoms like American Auto, Grand Crew, and Home Economics were canceled, yet a severely insulting, detrimentally “woke” (I hate using that word), and personality-less sitcom like Lopez vs Lopez got a second season. I typically don’t get offended by much; however, as a Hispanic-American, all I can say about Lopez vs Lopez is they got every single thing that makes up both a sitcom and being hispanic wrong.
The show believes blatant disrespect and insults are not only funny, but somehow justifiable. Cheap blows does not equate to humor, it just shows how uncreative and shallow of an individual you truly are, which, every single one of these characters are way too selfish and shallow for anyone’s good. Not even Oscar, the show’s token “cute child that the audience will automatically adore because… He’s a child,” could add much. Sure, some of his jokes were written and delivered well, but the character overall has ZERO personality and only repeats things we’ve heard over children say or phrases we’ve heard in viral social media content. My interpretation of Oscar is the modern child: uninventive, unoriginal, and cute for cuteness’ sake. The kid gets away with too much, too, and gets coddled way too much.
The show tries to show you that the ridiculous harshness of the olden ways and the flip-side overtly ridiculous kumbaya-type of ways alone are not good and there does need to be a balance. However, the show does an AWFUL job at showing you this episode after episode after episode. The show feels like a cry for help or as if Mayan couldn’t afford therapy growing up and decided to use her Nepo Baby status to finally get catharsis against her actual dad playing her father on the show.
Matt Shively and Selenis Leyva as Quentin Van Bryan and Rosie, George’s ex wife, respectively, are standouts. They both give it their, I would say, only 80% and that’s a good thing. I was going to say giving it their all, but if they’ve gone this hard in season 1, they’re just going to go harder and funnier in season 2. Legitimately, I am a Matt Shively fan since his hilarious role as JImmy O’Neal in The Real O’Neals and he did NOT disappoint. He’s HYSTERICAL! Selenis Leyva also brings home the comedic bacon pulling off voices and bits for her jokes. AMAZING. Even George Lopez and Mayan Lopez had pretty good jokes here and there, though most of the rest were stale or old hat; still they made me chuckle every few episodes.
The last thing I want to say is that according to a survey done in 2021 by the Pew Research Center, only 3% of Hispanics use the [offensive] term, “Latinx.” In 2022, Gallup research conducted a poll that showed the results to be that only 4% Hispanics prefer to use “Latinx” while 57% didn’t care. Additionally, 40% of Hispanic voters, according to the Democratic data firm, Bendixen and Amandi International, found the term, “Latinx” offensive.
Here is why: it goes against the very NATURE of the original Castellano language. That’s right, Spanish isn’t actually Spanish. It’s a type of Castellano which comes from Spain. It’s just in other countries, it’s referred to as “espanol,” or in English, “Spanish,” which has evolved in its time to be sort of what English is today. We have Old English with proper grammar applications, voluptuous vocabulary words, and respect for the Oxford Comma; yet, nowadays, we have Modern English… America’s #1 Cause of the Decline in Critical Thinking, but that’s a discussion for another day. Anyway, my family, being from Peru, speak, technically, Castellano, one of the few countries that still speak technical Castellano. Well, Castellano/Spanish, however you want to call it, has “feminine” and “masculine” roles assigned to literally everything. It’s how (I want to say Latin worked, but I am not sure; I am just using speculative logic to make an assessment [not assumption, you woke bastards]) the Spanish language works and is rooted. You can’t just apply an american thing onto a non-american thing and call it a day like “Latinx,” which looks like one is saying, “Lah-TINKS”… yeah, screw all of you for trying to force this one on an entire ethnicity that had NO issues before. I understand the heart behind wanting to have Hispanic non-binaries, but the non-binary version of “Latino” is… “Latino.” It works the exact same way as how “sheep” is singular for “sheep,” but is also plural for “Sheep.” I hate the show’s uses and doubles down on their usage for this word. I can’t support the second season just because of this. It’s HIGHLY offensive. It’s crap and garbage. I don’t really expect anyone who isn’t hispanic to understand, truly. WHat gets me is that I am the LEAST Hispanic Hispanic you will ever meet! “Brown in skin only,” as I like to say. But, I know what is truth and “LA-TINKS” ain’t it, honey.
I gave Lopez vs Lopez a generous 6 out of 10.