Most of my blog content so far has been about African Americans and their struggles in the movie business. But as a matter of fact, many other ethnic groups are struggling just as much if not more. Actually, it's really everyone except white actors that have it especially hard. So, for the next couple of blog posts I will be discussing other minority groups and how the movie and TV industries represents them. First up, it's Latinos.
Next up, there is the female equivalent of the previous stereotype: the Latina sexpot. The loud, crazy, spicy woman like Eva Longoria in Desperate Housewives or Sofia Vergara in Modern Family. Tanisha Ramirez of the Huffington Post writes that watching these characters that focus on sexual attractiveness "traps our culture within our bodies, ignoring the values, ethics, and traditions that contribute to our sense of culture and community."
Fourth on the list is thugs: the drug-dealing, grill-wearing, pistol-whipping cholos we all know and love. We see a lot of these in movies, and a lot of the time it's the only role a Hispanic aspiring actor can get. But get this: not all Latinos are criminals. This stereotype is especially harmful because it makes viewers think that Hispanics are dangerous people, when most of them are just normal, law-abiding citizens.
The last stereotype on this list is immigrants. American Movies and TV shows often show characters of Mexican descent as only first or second generation Americans, when in fact there have been Mexicans living in the United States for hundreds of years. These characters are then written with a heavy accent and a poorly structured dialect, and people get so used to this that if they see a Hispanic character who speaks perfect English, they call it bad acting.
This article talks about the many stereotypes that show up all too often in Hispanic roles, and how they are harmful to viewers' ideas of the Latino people. The first common portrayal of Hispanics is maids. The late actress Lupe Ontiveros once said she had played a maid nearly 150 times, but rarely ever had any interesting role. She said she had wanted to play "a judge,...a lesbian woman, a councilman, someone with some chutzpah."
The next stereotype was that of Latin lovers. You know, the man with a rose in his mouth who just can't get his hands off of a woman, but is just so irresistibly charming. Yeah, no, you are not going to find a man that dramatically romantic no matter where he comes from. This kind of portrayal is just plain misleading.
Next up, there is the female equivalent of the previous stereotype: the Latina sexpot. The loud, crazy, spicy woman like Eva Longoria in Desperate Housewives or Sofia Vergara in Modern Family. Tanisha Ramirez of the Huffington Post writes that watching these characters that focus on sexual attractiveness "traps our culture within our bodies, ignoring the values, ethics, and traditions that contribute to our sense of culture and community."
Fourth on the list is thugs: the drug-dealing, grill-wearing, pistol-whipping cholos we all know and love. We see a lot of these in movies, and a lot of the time it's the only role a Hispanic aspiring actor can get. But get this: not all Latinos are criminals. This stereotype is especially harmful because it makes viewers think that Hispanics are dangerous people, when most of them are just normal, law-abiding citizens.
The last stereotype on this list is immigrants. American Movies and TV shows often show characters of Mexican descent as only first or second generation Americans, when in fact there have been Mexicans living in the United States for hundreds of years. These characters are then written with a heavy accent and a poorly structured dialect, and people get so used to this that if they see a Hispanic character who speaks perfect English, they call it bad acting.
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