The Speedy Gonzales Wiki Controversy

The discussion that interested me was the controversy regarding Speedy Gonzales's, the cartoon character, accent and its authenticity. The discussion was about whether to have the Speedy's accent referred to on Wikipedia as the "Mexican accent" or the "stereotypical Mexican accent." Speedy's accent is currently referred to as a "comedic Mexican accent" on Wikipedia, but underneath this way of phrasing or describing his accent is a great debate. This discussion happened to be the longest and most heated of discussions under the discussion tab. There were many good points of views brought to the table to come to the conclusion of "comedic Mexican accent."

The discussion began with an individual questioning why his modification of "Mexican accent" was reverted to "stereotypical Mexican accent." From here brought a number of suggestions with sensible reasoning such as "comedic", "caricatured", or "cartoonish" and the reasoning was the fact that it is a cartoon after all and more importantly that Mel Blanc, the Caucasian man who inspired the accent, was going for comedy but not just with this character but with the other cartoon characters as well. The characters that were listed were Yosemite Sam and his "southern drawl accent", Porky the Pig's "stuttering", and even the so called "American accent" that was portrayed through Sylvester the Cat. Another suggestion was "inauthentic" with the reasoning that there is an absence of evidence that his ethnicity was a purposeful source of humor and that Speedy was just a Mexican character that had funny things happen to him. The suggestion that caused the biggest stir was "stereotypical" because of the definition of stereotype given by Wikipedia which is a group concept, held by one social group about another. The reasoning behind this suggestion is supported with the example of Mario's inaccurate Italian accent in which he says Italians don't sound like and he would know because he is Italian. One individual provided a good counter to suggestion of "stereotypical" by simply stating that, in conjunction with the definition of stereotype, Mel Blanc doesn't represent the entire Caucasian race.

The result of this discussion currently reads "comedic Mexican accent" on Wikipedia and everyone is satisfied with this right now becaus it isn't as subjective as stereotypical and more precise than the others. I definitely feel that this discussion has led to the appropriate article content. Reading the discussion about the Speedy Gonzales article has improved my view about the reliability of Wikipedia because many say that it isn't reliable but after viewing this discussion that included good suggestions, reasons, and results I am impressed!