Occasionally there comes along a cultural artifact so peculiar that adequate vocabulary does not yet exist to describe it. That was certainly the case with HBO’s “Los Espookys,” a program whose narratives so effectively eschewed Hollywood convention that even its authors had a tough time coming up with an elevator pitch. On an interview on “The Tonight Show” in September, …
As another spooky season descends upon us, let us turn our attention to horror. For the uninitiated, HBO’s Los Espookys revolves around the titular “horror group.” In an unidentified Spanish-speaking country, Renaldo, Úrsula, Andrés, and Tati hire themselves out to create scary effects to their clients’ specs. Given the high stakes of our heroes’ travails, many viewers may not have …
The Latinx pop star greets his live audience with a friendly, “Hello, Ann Arbor!” His assembled fans, nearly all of them young white girls, scream joyfully in response. “Alternatino” is one example of a comedy that isn’t shy about addressing the clash between white America and other cultures while pointing out how enmeshed Latinx culture is in North American life. …
