Eva Longoria directed a movie about Flamin' Hot Cheetos. It is supposed to depict a real life Latino rags-to-riches story.
It's about a poor Mexican-American, Richard Montañez, who got a job as a janitor in a Frito-Lay factory and saved it from shutting down by inventing the "Flamin' Hot" line of products.
It was not terrible. Though it came very close to feeling like a Hallmark movie. But as I was watching it, the story felt very formulaic and a bit too... feel good. Like a bullshit fish story an uncle might tell you in order to seem cool. True stories usually aren't quite so tidy and trope-tastic.
Reality usually has some weirdness that is very difficult to capture when writing fiction. Like, in the movie about Reality Winner where they used a real life transcript, there were things a writer could never imagine. In one seen a random FBI dude opens the door and says, "Is this a room?"
So I was real suspicious there could be some Flamin' Hot nonsense in this movie. I figured they just took some dramatic license as many "based on a true story" movies do. I decided to look up the real life Richard and see how close his actual story was compared to the movie.
Turns out... it was a complete work of fiction.
The only part that was true... he was a janitor at Frito-Lay and eventually got promoted to their Hispanic marketing department.
After he left the company he just started telling people he invented Flamin' Hot. And since the internet wasn't very robust yet, people were just like, "Yeah, okay. Neat."
He came up with an entire narrative with backstory and side characters and humorous anecdotes and a thrilling climax where his neighborhood drug dealers took samples to the street for some guerilla marketing to spread the word about spicy Cheetos--saving an entire factory and hundreds of jobs.
And in the less cynical 1990s, people just accepted it as the truth.
Companies would hire him to give motivational speeches. Eventually he wrote a book about his fake story. And he tours around the country telling his uplifting story of spice and puffed cornmeal.
And Frito-Lay just kinda... let him.
I think they liked his story more than the one where a bunch of food nerds created spicy Cheetos in a lab in the Midwest. He was giving them free marketing. He gave their Flamin' products street cred in Latin communities.
But when journalists finally got around to fact checking his story, Frito-Lay very casually told them "None of our records show that Richard Montañez was involved in any capacity in the Flamin’ Hot."
It seems their line was they would let him lie without consequence, but they weren't going to lie for him.
I have no idea what to think about this. I watched an entire movie about fucking Cheetos thinking it was a true story.
Part of me appreciates the hustle. He seems like an okay person. Stayed faithful to his wife for decades, speaks of her with love, and took good care of his kids. He inspires his community and is involved in philanthropy. And he made bank by tricking a bunch of white folks into hiring the Flamin' Hot dude to give speeches to motivate their employees.
Seems like a harmless enough grift. I don't know.
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