George Lopez: Latino Working-Class Male

I will be doing an analysis of the character George Lopez from his self-titled sitcom, "George Lopez." This show revolves around the Lopez family, which includes George, his wife Angie, and  his two children Max and Carmen who live in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. George's mother, Benita Lopez and his best friend, Ernie, usually stop by the Lopez household, also. This sitcom deals with each family member's relationship with one another through the day-to-day and somewhat typical trials they face. George, in particular, is constantly trying to catch his kids do something bad so that he can get them in trouble. The particular episode that I chose entails George sneakily investigating Carmen's love life. What adds to the humor in this sitcom is the stereotype that George falls under, which is that of the "buffoon." Richard Butsch describes the men of the working-class families portrayed in these shows as "dumb, immature, irresponsible, or lacking in common sense." So, in conjunction with this stereotype, George's sneaking around ends with him humiliating himself and his daughter. In this case, he pretends to be Carmen talking to her friend on aim in order to spy on her love life. He ends up crashing her party (which has no adult supervision), embarrassing Carmen in front of her friends, and finding out that Carmen's boyfriend had just broke up with her because she wouldn't go "far with him." What is especially unique about George Lopez is that he is Latino. As a result, a multitude of racial ideas are added to this already stereotypical character. In my paper, I will analyze George's character as an example of the man Butsch describes and as one of the few Latino main characters on American television.