MeAnda – Don is a satirical video clip created by non-profit Mexican independent organization VideoGENTE. The name of the song is "Don" and is performed by a fictitious band called "MeAnda". The name of the fake band and the song are both a parody of the Argentine band Miranda! and his 2004 pop music hit "Don".
Contents
The lyrics are about a young gay man who is telling his boyfriend (called "mayate" in the local slang) that he (the boyfriend) is becoming as gay as him (the gay man). This is understandable in the cultural context of Alvarado, the city where the video was shot.
The video has clearly the format of an amateur video and a very cheap look-and-feel.
Viral distribution
In January 2006, VideoGENTE was invited to make a satiric video for a local contest of video parodies in a night club, in the town of Alvarado, Veracruz, in Mexico. They wrote the lyrics of "MeAnda - Don" and shot the video clip later, mostly in the night club where the contest was taking place and picking up random local people to satirize the members of the Miranda band and their performance in their original video.
The song was instantly a local hit. The kids of Alvarado started to spread it in MP3 format, and later someone upload to the internet in popular video sites like YouTube and Dailymotion. It started to be referred and commented in numerous blogs in Spanish and published on websites, given to the fact that the video is free.
Criticism
Some letters were received in VideoGENTE's site, complaining about the video and the song considering them discriminatory to the homosexual community and that it shows strong homophobic tendencies. The organization states that they are only playing at the rhythm of their culture and that the video is not meant to laugh at homosexuals, but to laugh along with them, taking the issue with a tongue-in-cheek, deliberatedly unworried attitude.
Lyrics
The lyrics use very crude language and rude slang terms to tell the story. They were not censored in their local town.
Festivals and TV appearances
VideoGENTE received an invitation to submit the video clip to the 16th Annual InsideOut Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, for which they presented an English subtitled version in its original video format (version circulating in the web was in a lower definition). The video was programmed in the "Latin Trash" section and was exhibited on May 20, 2006.
The video was also commented in some shows of the Mexican television network TVAzteca.