The Best Beverage In The Galaxy

        A long time ago in a country far far away, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope had another one of its many TV broadcasts airing for fans all across the world, but in Chile, fans got a huge surprise by something that can only be described as the most shameless advertisement in movie history. The product being displayed was Cerzeva Cristal, a very popular brand of beer in Chile the way it was displayed, well look no further than a scene from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope specifically the one where Obi-Wan and Luke Skywalker are sitting down in his Uncle Owen’s sand hut having a discussion about Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan describes him as “the best star pilot in the galaxy. A cunning warrior.”, as well as a “good friend.” Following directly after that Obi-Wan gets up out of his seat and tells Luke “Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough.” as he heads over to container to hand Luke something, what is supposed to happen is Obi-Wan opens up the container and gives Luke his father's Lightsaber, instead when he opens up the container it’s a cooler filled with a handful of icy cold beers and we see sleeves and pale skin resembling Obi-Wans reaching for one of the beers, during this the logo for Cerzeva Cristal appears with its very loud jingle accompanying it, the jingle just being the company’s name being sung twice with a loud chorus backing it.

        I abhorrently despise this for many reasons, the main one being that Star Wars has always been a franchise for children, and them getting exposed to something like this at such a young age. On top of all that, they chose to convey this message through Obi-Wan Kenobi, the wise mentor and Jedi Master, which gives him much more influence than any other character in the film. Every single Chilean child watching this film was blatantly told to buy Cerzeva Cristal, when they become of age (which is 18 in Chile), you can give the advertisers some leeway because of the line “when you were old enough” but that's not good enough kids already known for not listening to their parents or any other adults for that matter, so this ad even existing does so much harm to that generation of children who'll likely start drinking at a young age after seeing the advertisement.

"Cristal"

As stated earlier this advertisement uses Obi-Wan to spread its message using the fallacy appeal to false authority, because to reiterate Obi-Wan is the wise figure and a Jedi Master, someone the audience is supposed to side with. Further proving this ad is using fallacies to further the company’s agenda. That's not even the craziest part to me personally, no the craziest part was the fact that the filmed advertisement barely cost them $10 mainly due to the fact that they didn’t need to go over the top with it as stated by Charis McGowan ”González taped some white fabric to a colleague’s arms to mirror the elder Jedi’s robes, and chucked some ice and beers into a trunk.” Further establishing how there was little to no risk to the company when they used this advertisement.

        It would be an understatement to say the ad was just “successful”, because not only was it successful for the company in terms of sales, it won an award for how successful it was “After sweeping prizes in international advertising awards – including the coveted Cannes Grand Prix.” (McGowan) It cannot be understated how greatly the ad benefitted Cerveza Cristal so much so that they did what any capitalist would do and repeated it for other popular films, most notably James Bond, American Beauty, Notting Hill, and Gladiator.(McGowan) Like I said the achievement of this ad can and should not be understated.

        

Which makes me hate it all the more, it makes me hate how they kept going doing it in other films to drive up sales as much as they could, and not take even a second to think about how it’ll affect the youth. In this day and age kids get exposed to products that are horrible for them on an hourly basis, and they don’t know better. The ad itself uses ethos on people/kids because we trust Obi-Wan what he says gets more credit than anyone else in the entire film, so these kids will start thinking about alcohol at a very young age and likely try to get their hands on some.

        This is the world we unfortunately subject our children to, one where they can’t even watch some of their favorite childhood movies without having a product that is horrible for them being shoved right in their face. There is some hope though as Lucasfilm themselves filed a complaint against the CCU, the parent company of Cerveza Cristal and according to Charis McGowan, “Lucasfilm argued that the viewers are “erroneously led to believe that the film includes a reference to the product.”” Thankfully the Chilean Council for Self-Regulation and Advertising Ethics or CONAR for short, ruled in favor of LucasFilm and had the ad and all subsequent others the company made or would have made completely shut down. So maybe there is a possibility of a good future for our children, I know that at the end of the day not everything can be solved that easily but I’ve certainly gained a new hope.

Attributes: 

“Cristal” by Erik Cleves Kristensen, CC BY 2.0

McGowan, Charis.”May the fizz be with you:how a $10 Chilean beer ad took on Star Wars.” The Guardian, 15 April. 2024, theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/15/may-the-fizz-be-with-you-how-a-10-chilean-beer-ad-took-on-star-wars. Accessed On 6 October 2026

Tale of the Tostada (The Importance of Individuality)

I've always loved eating the meals my mom has prepared for me over the years, from her enchiladas, mole, tacos, and even her spaghetti which she only learned to make because she knew how much I liked it. There's always one that I loved much more than the other's and that's one of her tostada’s not only because of how she makes them but also  because of the specific toppings on it such as, sour cream, lettuce, and cheese to top it all off. The mixed smell of chicken with chipotle sauce along with the taste and crunchy texture of the tortilla shell, all those flavors mixed together, their taste is like heaven to me.

When it comes to my love of Mexican food I always felt like it wasn't enough, at least compared to my family's love for Mexican food. My family has always enjoyed much more exquisite Hispanic meals such as elotes, pozole, menudo, and huaraches. I don't dislike those dishes but I'm not too crazy about them either, some of them either taste too rubbery like eating an uncooked tortilla or pasta that wasn't boiled properly or the taste over powers everything else to the point where it’s not enjoyable, such as eating a really spicy pepper or a steak with too much salt. I usually try to stay with other meals like quesadillas, enchiladas, mole, and of course tacos. I love their taste so much the combination of the savoriness of chicken, the smooth milkiness of sour cream and the just right amount of spice of green salsa are something to die for to me.

"Pozole rojo"

As I said before, nothing wrong with the meals my family likes but whenever there is any sort of gathering or get together, it always feels very weird between us, like strangers who are forced to sit close together on a bus strange. We try talking about what's going on in our lives and our interests, which is nice and all but it’s not familial in the slightest. Whether we like it or not we've built this distance between one another because we may share blood and some interest but that doesn't mean we automatically click together well.

Most if not almost all my family was born and raised in Mexico, nearly all of my many brothers and sisters in fact, so I never got as exposed to Mexican culture as much as they did. I on the other hand was exposed to nothing but American culture, values, history, etc. I could go on for hours on end about Lake Lanier and how everything about it from its inception was horrible, and I think I could barely manage to tell you a single cohesive sentence in Spanish. 

The effect of being raised eating primarily American cuisine is that it often clashed with my family's taste and unfortunately I am many things and sadly a picky eater is one of them so each and every time I see one their exquisite dishes, I either A. Don't eat till I get home or B. Eat one of the other dishes they have like tamales or a taco and what not, whenever I do this I always feel slightly judged walking by my family “No tienes hambre” “No te gusta la pozole” “Tienes alergias con la comida” “No tienes hambre”. They thought I just wasn’t hungry or allergic and sometimes they just knew I wasn't a fan of the food they had unless it was really “generic” Mexican food. Until one day when my mom boldly decided to make tostadas for the whole family, a process that took her so many hours to cook for so many people to this day I still surprised with how she pull it off she effectively man my aunts kitchen a well oiled machine with no room for failure, having one of my cousins help her properly separate all of the chicken, another stirring the sour and at slow pace so it comes out smoothly, one of my aunts heating up every single tortilla we needed, another cousin trying to make sure they didn’t end up burning the beans, whenever I glanced by there I had thought I just witnessed the world's first food based assembly line. 

Ultimately it was worth it in the end, they had all come out perfectly and we had more than enough for everyone. That wasn't the biggest surprise to me that day though, the biggest surprise was how everyone else had prepared their tostada. Some did it the same way I did, chicken on bottom, sour cream, cheese, and lettuce on top. There were many different variations of that one, sour cream and cheese below the chicken, sour cream on top of the cheese and lettuce, or the chicken on top of everything. Others didn't put any chicken at all, some just had beans with sour cream, cheese and lettuce, some with just chicken and nothing else, and some with just beans.

"Tostadas"

My cousin sat next to me with his own plate, each tostada being completely different from each other with no sense of rhyme or reason with any of them, I immediately asked him “Why'd you do them all differently?” He looked at me for a second and the only thing he said was “Because I can”. That's when I looked all around I finally came to a realization, it didn't matter, everyone had what they liked they didn't stop and look around on how others did it. They choose to do it the way they wanted, the way they enjoyed their tostada. Each and all of us were a tostada in our own way, it didn't matter that some of us like more exquisite food than the other's, it didn't matter that some of us can speak more Spanish than rest, it didn't matter that some of us were more nerdy than the others.

At the end of the day we are our own person and that's ok because that is what is great about all of us. No one is the same even if they are from the same country as you, the same school as you, even if they're related to you and that is amazing. That's being a person, that's the importance of individuality. At that moment I realized my family truly loved me despite everything that I was, but don't get me wrong they still mess with me from time to time and, make fun of me when I mispronounce some words while I'm speaking Spanish, but I know it's cause they care about me, so as way to try to pay them back I'm trying to improve my Spanish-speaking and trying meals that I never thought I'd eat in a million years, I’m still a bit picky though, but hey that's okay.

Attributes:

"Tostadas" by Christian Frausto Bernal is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

"Pozole rojo" by marthax is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.