Sergio Arau:
“A Day Without a Mexican”
“A Day Without A Mexican” paints a chaotic picture of California life without the Latino community. Not only is there no one to tend the gardens, parking lots and children of the wealthy, but the L.A. Dodgers can’t play baseball and the state government flutters about, leaderless.
Much of Arau’s film is styled to resemble television, spoofing on such familiar forms as reality and game shows, weather reports, nightly news, talking heads, music videos, infomercials and person-in-the-street interviews.
Choosing to mock the media, says Arau, “was partly a creative way to approach our topic, and partly guided by our budget. I mean, if you’re doing ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ you can afford to hire thousands of extras to tell your story. But I couldn’t. And because I get so much of my own information through the media, I decided to recreate that style for the film.”
“If you’re doing ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ you can afford to hire thousands of extras to tell your story. But I couldn’t. And because I get so much of my own information through the media, I decided to recreate that style for the film.”
A Controversial Billboard
“A Day Without a Mexican” received a huge boost from the clever publicity campaign that splashed it all over the national media. “We only bought seven billboards — that’s all we had money for. But we sure got a lot of bang for our buck,” crows Arau. Posted on five of the signs in English, and two in Spanish, was the provocative message “On May 14, there will be no Mexicans in California.”
The outcry was immediate. “One of the billboards was in a store parking lot on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood,” says Arau. “The Latino clients complained instantly. They said it was a racist statement; they thought it was related to some new proposition from Sacramento, and they yanked it down.”
While the confusion didn’t last long (“When people found out what it really was about, they said ‘This is so cool!’” relates Arau), its effect was dramatic. “It started this huge controversy about why ‘Mexican’ is a bad word, and about censorship in general,” he says.
The story was so hot it landed on CNN, the CBS Evening News and the National Public Radio business show “Marketplace,” and in the Wall Street Journal, the LA Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
The buzz. “On May 14, there will be no Mexicans in California,” declared the promotional billboards for the movie.
Opening a Dialog
The buzz helped “A Day Without a Mexican” draw enthusiastic crowds. “We released 120 prints in California in May and June, and we did extremely well, even against the summer blockbusters,” says Arau. In August the film opened at number 1 in Mexico, followed by a phased U.S. release to cities including New York, Chicago, Miami, Denver and Las Vegas. It will be available on DVD by Christmas.
“My whole goal for this film is to help people revalue their impressions of Latinos,” says Arau. He’s encouraged by the response. “The movie is empowering for Latinos and it helps open a dialog among non-Latinos. For me, the moment I can affect life outside the film, that’s my idea of success.”
