'Great British Baking Show' criticized for Mexico Week stereotypes

The latest episode of the “Great British Bake Off” is drawing criticism — and it has nothing to do with contestants’ soggy bottoms or uneven bakes.

This week’s installment of the beloved baking competition show featured a “Mexico Week” theme that featured challenges involving the preparation of Mexican confections including pan dulce and tres leches cakes. But some viewers and people reacting to clips and quotes posted on social media dinged the use of broad stereotypes of Mexican cuisine and culture, from maracas to sombreros to a cake bearing a thick black mustache.

The episode, which aired this week in the United Kingdom and is slated to stream on Netflix starting Friday (as “The Great British Baking Show”), began with one of the show’s signature goofy opening sequences featuring co-hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas, both of whom are clad in serapes and tasseled sombreros. “I don’t feel like we should make Mexican jokes because people will get upset,” Fielding says. “Wait, not even Juan?” Lucas responds. “Not even Juan,” Fielding’s replies. In an indication that it was unaware of just how cringey the exchange was, the show used it in a tweet promoting the episode.

The episode also featured mispronunciations (“peek-o-de-gally-o” was one variant) and generalizations (in one scene, judge Prue Leith declares that cakes “look Mexican — there are lots of bright colors”) that came in for social media mocking. A representative for Netflix did not respond to a request for comment, and emails to the show and its production company were not returned. The show met with similar criticism for its 2020 “Japanese Week,” when many people said the producers conflated various Asian cuisines. And it has faced more general condemnation for its Anglo-centric attitude: As Jaya Saxena wrote for Eater, “anyone who’s watched GBBO also knows how prickly the judges get when they think something has too much spice, how easily they exoticize non-British foods, and how the standard marker of a good baker is their ability to make a Victoria Sponge.”

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Mexican chef and TV host Pati Jinich said that when she first saw the latest social media reaction, she thought it might be the “authenticity police” overreacting. But when she had a chance to view a few clips, she realized they had a point. Jinich says she doesn’t object to non-Mexicans using symbols of Mexican culture — even ones that have become seen as stereotypes — as long as they’re also delving deeper. “If there had been a little bit more about the depth and the substance, you can get away with some of those jokey things, because those things are part of the culture — like, yes, mariachi musicians do have the big mustaches,” she says. “But taking it out of context and putting it on a stereotypical platter is just tired. It’s basic.”

Jinich thinks the GGBO producers underestimated their audience, which in today’s international and interconnected world, she says, could have handled a deeper dive into Mexican cuisine and culture, even if they weren’t immediately familiar with it. “They do that for obscure British baking traditions and baking traditions of Europe,” she says. “They could have had better recipes and better contests, but when it’s only isolating the stereotypical elements then it’s irritating.”

Gustavo Arellano, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America,” was quick to draw distinctions in what he found offensive in the episode. He wasn’t bothered, he says, by the mispronunciations or the lack of familiarity that some contestants had with ingredients (one removed the skin of an avocado with a vegetable peeler, for example). But the “Juan” exchange? “That’s the cheapest joke,” he said.

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Generally, he says, Mexicans and people of Mexican heritage should welcome others embracing their cuisine, even if it’s a little awkward. “You should be happy that Brits are trying to cook Mexican foods — it’s a testimony to the popularity and power that Mexican food has not just in U.S., but across the world,” he says. “And I’d like to see a Mexican or a Mexican American try to cook a good Yorkshire pudding.”

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U.K. audiences also complained that the show had veered from its nominal focus — baking, obviously — to include cooking challenges. Last week, the contestants were directed to prepare pizza, and in the latest episode, tacos. But some also saw the shift to a savory dish — the taco — as a lack of awareness or appreciation for the breadth of Mexican baked goods.

This whole episode is making me cringe so so much, the crap & borderline offensive jokes, the mispronunciation of literally everything, that there are so many other Mexican baked goods you could go for and yet you chose tacos...the list goes onnnn 😭 #GBBO

There’s so many gorgeous Mexican bakes, I don’t understand why they’re making tacos? #GBBO

Jinich said producers could have chosen from a deep trove of Mexican “bakes,” from tortilla casseroles to tamale pies that would have been on-theme without resorting to a dish that doesn’t display the makers’ baking skills — which is ostensibly the point of the show.

Arellano, though, saw a positive in the choice of “the most familiar Mexican food of them all” — which he likened to a gateway to lesser-known parts of Mexican cuisine. “It shows the power of the taco,” he says. “They want to ride the taco wave. That’s baby steps.”

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