Felipe Esparza Drops a Bilingual Special In a First for Netflix

To successfully tell a joke is to show a mastery of the language. In his latest release for Netflix, Felipe Esparza shows he can do this two times over, in two separate specials: one in English, another in Spanish. Despite being a native speaker, the process entailed lots of education, practice, and heckling.
“I had to learn Spanish again,” Esparza told VICE. “The Spanish that I speak is only spoken in border cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, El Paso. It’s a very local Spanish that’s not spoken all over the world. So I had a comedian translate my English to Spanish correctly.”
Even still, when traveling from California to practice Spanish sets in Tijuana, the 44-year-old comedian said his audience was less than forgiving when he’d flub a pronunciation.
“When I was messing up the words in Spanish, they were heckling me,” he said. “They were telling me to say the word right. Or go back to California.”
Esparza released Bad Decisions and Males Decisiones simultaneously on Netflix on September 1, marking the first time a comic has released an English and Spanish special on the platform at the same time. Whether he’s talking about the conundrum of whether or not to acknowledge hearing his spouse’s fart or retelling a brutal account of domestic violence in his family that he witnessed firsthand, Esparza is characteristically light in his delivery.
His playful approach to the most serious topics is one that Esparza’s fans have come to expect, and his perspective is informed by his life experience. After moving from Tijuana to East Los Angeles, Esparza became involved with a gang and began using drugs—both topics which have made it into his previous material—eventually ending up in rehab. It was in rehab, through the encouragement of a mentor that Esparza met, that he began to work towards a career in standup.
Esparza spoke to VICE about what it’s like to bomb in Spanish, the gastrointestinal effects of the Atkins diet, and the significance of the movie Blood In, Blood Out.
VICE: Can you tell me how this package of an English and Spanish came together?Felipe Esparza: I went to go meet with Netflix. When I got to Netflix, the buildings, it was a Lamborghini parked at the valet. It was a nice Lamborghini, the hood was made out of this see-through glass. I remember joking with my wife that it was made out of Wonder Woman’s airplane. And when I get there, to the office, I see Kevin Hart, and his friend Pookie from the Laugh Factory. And Kevin Hart is walking out of the same meeting that I’m going to. He had just met the same people. He told me, ‘D
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