Evil White Foods!

Animated Short / 2:30 min / 2014

Description
Evil White Foods! is a satirical animated short that confronts the industrial food system and its role in public health decline through humor, cultural critique, and media intervention. Commissioned as part of the Live Long LA initiative by Freewaves, the film debuted in an ambitious citywide campaign that brought media art to more than 2,000 Los Angeles Metro buses during early 2014—reaching over a million daily riders.

Framed as a parody of traditional food commercials and PSAs, the piece follows a triad of villainous characters—Psycho Sugar, Ariel AsSalt, and the White Flour Doughboy—on their rampage across an animated landscape of vegetable stands, converting nutritious food into hyperprocessed junk and ushering in the rise of their toxic empire: Fat Land.

Leaños’ work plays with popular animation tropes to deliver a critique of late capitalist food production, racialized health inequities, and cultural disconnection from traditional foodways. Through fast-paced visuals and comedic narration by MC Chilaquiles, Evil White Foods! becomes an accessible intervention into food justice discourse, designed to provoke both laughter and critical reflection.

Originally screened on Metro Transit TV and later exhibited in galleries and community health centers, the short exemplifies Leaños’ broader commitment to decolonial public art—bringing visual storytelling directly into contested everyday spaces.

Directed by: John Jota Leaños
Written by: John Jota Leaños & Tony Coleman
Character Design: Tony Coleman
Animation: Julian Sestanovich
Color: Tal Kamran
Music: Greg Landau
Voiceover: Rafael "MC Chilaquiles" Herrera