Scott D. Pierce: BYUtv pulls Mexican sketches off 'Studio C'

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

BYUtv's sketch comedy show "Studio C" has made a huge impression on the internet, with tens of millions of views for some of its sketches.

Two of those sketches have been yanked offline and removed from on-demand and will not be repeated on TV after questions of ethnic insensitivity were raised.

The two "Juan Who Works" bits featured a white actor decked out in a big sombrero and a colorful poncho, speaking with a cartoonish Mexican accent and acting sort of lazy and incompetent as a resort employee in one and a masseur in the other.

Juan was more than a bit reminiscent of the Frito Bandito, the once-popular animated character who disappeared from TV advertising in 1971 because of questions of ethnic insensitivity.

Executive producer Scott Swofford, who is also BYUtv's director of content, said the sketches were "intended" as "a look at the humorous reality of language and cultural barriers and the role that they play in messing up people's vacations."

He pointed out that "Studio C" has parodied "police officers and farmers and soccer announcers and Republicans and Democrats and teachers and pregnant ladies and sanitation workers."

The difference in this case is that the character wasn't simply parodied because of his job, but because of his ethnicity.

Neither BYUtv nor The Salt Lake Tribune was inundated with complaints about the sketches — although there were online comments questioning them — but I thought it was worth asking BYUtv about them.

"Once we heard that you wanted to talk about it, we watched it again … from the point of view of those who were being parodied and we were troubled by it," Swofford said. "And we thought — this gives us pause. So we thought the best response, after an internal review … was to pull the sketches."

How offensive were the "Juan Who Works" sketches? Well, there's something more offensive, more ethnically insensitive, in pretty much every episode of the CBS sitcom "2 Broke Girls," which has been renewed for a sixth season.

And Swofford correctly pointed out that "Saturday Night Live" has parodied some ethnic groups for decades.

But, at the same time, the "Juan Who Works" sketches seemed both tone-deaf to the world in 2016 and unnecessary. Which is what the folks at BYUtv — including Swofford, managing director Derek Marquis and "Studio C" producer Jared Shores — decided.

"I get that there's concern about it," Swofford said. "And mostly that there's concern by people who are already watching the show.

"That's the thing that I think weighed heavily in our internal review was, gosh, this gives us pause because these are people who watch and like 'Studio C' saying, 'This is offensive to me.' And we love our audience. We don't want to be offensive."

Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.