Sawt Falasteen - Hollywood cameo for Mexico's scrap merchant anthem

The Mexican capital's nine million residents are already more than familiar with the voiced recording played from speakers on junk dealers' vehicles offering to buy mattresses, refrigerators and other unwanted items.

The slogan, which has been adapted by French director Jacques Audiard for his Spanish-language transgender cartel musical that picked up 13 Oscar nominations last week, was created by Mexican scrap merchant Marco Antonio Terron.

A megaphone on his three-wheeled vehicle blares out his daughter's voice: "Se compran colchones, tambores, refrigeradores, estufas, lavadoras, microondas, o algo de fierro viejo que vendan" (We buy mattresses, drums, refrigerators, stoves, washing machine, microwave or any scrap metal you're selling).

The jingle known as "Fierro viejo" (scrap metal) was recorded 20 years ago after Terron grew tired of constantly shouting out to potential customers himself.

"So I thought of recording my slogan," he told AFP.

He wrote down some words and recorded his daughter Maria del Mar, who was nine years old at the time, singing them.

In the following days, several other scrap metal dealers offered to buy the cassette tape.

"I must have sold a total of four copies," Terron said.

"I don't know what they did with them, but the following year, you could hear 'Fierro viejo' all over the city," he added.

Visitors need only spend a few days in Mexico City to hear the voice of Maria del Mar.

"It's part of the national culture," said one Mexico City resident, Marcos Lugo.

- 'We buy diamonds...' -

The jingle has become an unofficial anthem, played by Mexican football fans at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, though without any obvious boost for their team.

It is not the first time that the entertainment industry has used the slogan.

"For a few years now, brands, films, TV series have been asking us if they can use our song. It doesn't bother us. The only thing we want is for them to respect and pay the royalties," Terron said.

The jingle is even registered with the National Copyright Institute, according to the family's legal adviser Rolando Trevino.

In the "Emilia Perez" soundtrack, French singer-songwriter Camille Dalmais and composer Clement Ducol tweaked the words to say: "We buy diamonds, passports ... we don't buy my body, my soul, my life, my love."

Maria del Mar Terron, now 29, said her greatest pride was not the jingle's appearance in Hollywood, but being able to help scrap merchants like her father to eke out a living.

"I still like working with my dad in my free time, it reminds me where this song comes from," she said.

"Whether it's hot or rainy, we're on the street every day -- it's very tiring work," her father said.

K.Hassan--SF-PST