Mocking The Ethnic Beast

Preening for the camera in a white suit and Panama hat, an unctuous TV talk- show host named Agamemnon tries to prove his credentials as a Latin Lothario by reading letters from female viewers inviting him to "invade me, blockade me, dictate me." An amber-skinned transvestite named Manny the Fanny gyrates to a dance-club hit while recalling her Krazy Glue revenge on an unfaithful boyfriend. A punchy Peruvian ex-boxer, pressed to name a famous Hispanic, searches the blank canvas of his mind. "William Shakesperez," he intones. "He wrote Macho Do About Nothing and The Merchant of Venezuela."

All these cutting Hispanic...