Latinas: Skewed and Redefined in the Media

The movie and television industry have, for a long time, limited and constrained Latina actresses to a very small number of roles. These roles stem from the stereotypes about them, stereotypes that were formed when a comparison to America and Americans was instigated. What I mean is that, people look at the Latinas in the US and look at their jobs, their place on the attractiveness spectrum and they assume that that is all they are, but really it’s all they are in the US. The media implies that Latinas are all either maids, abuelas or bombshells but that’s only because they are being viewed through the lens of American societal norms. Their economic situations and foreign looks land them those titles. For example, if you look at the Latinas living in the US, when they are immigrants from lower socio economic backgrounds they end up with jobs like maids or cleaner jobs and their foreign body types and accent are considered attractive, because it’s not seen everyday. But that does not make it right that that’s how they are always represented? When are their realities going to be showcased? Their culture from their viewpoint? Nevertheless, it’s disregarding the culture that they have at home and only focusing on the American perception of it.

In the prominent tv series and movies, Latinas appear in very particular roles. Jennifer Lopez is a maid in Maid in Manhattan and Sofia Vergara a bombshell with a strong accent in Modern Family. Sometimes it’s not just a character displaying those stereotypes. Devious maids is a show completely centered on Latina maids working for rich white families and the drama that is apparently obviously going to ensue from that plot. These stereotypes only work in the US, because in actual Latin American countries, having an accent is normal, having curves would be considered a normal occurrence (not something regarded as an alien aspect) and being a maid wouldn’t stand out. Sofia Vergara, for example is, the joke of the show Modern Family. She’s that one minority character that doesn’t need jokes, just has to be different. Another example of this is Fez in That ‘70s show, whose origins are actually unknown as a running gag of the show but is assumed to be either Hispanic or Latino. In the show, Sofia plays Gloria who marries an older rich man, and lives with him and her son. The son’s father is absent and a gambler. These point all make her character, the sexy Latina trophy wife who married an old overweight rich man possibly for his money and her rise in class and stringed along her son, and her crazy past. But she was cast to be that way; the loud, funny Latina character who is vain and has no ambitions but to look good. She is written to have a shady past and be perceived as a gold digger (as if to suggest that when Latinas immigrate to the US, they have one goal and when they fail they become maids or succeed and marry into money.) Viewers will only register these messages if they dig deep but on the outside, we’re supposed to love her and her funny stories and overlook the damaging stereotypes constantly following her. The actress, herself, is continuously criticized for perpetuating Latina stereotypes. A good example of when she was accused of this was her stunt at the Emmys in 2014 where she stood on stage on a spinning pedestal in a curve hugging Roberto Cavalli gown while the speaker joked that he was giving the viewers “something compelling to look at.”

Jennifer Lopez in a Maid in Manhattan is another example of a Latina being cast to represent a culture in a negative way. Her character is a maid pursued by a rich powerful politician. The movie continuously implies the perks she’d enjoy by being with him, by highlighting him as a hero. They subtly mention that he could adjust his life for her, but again highlighting the sacrifices he’d be making, as if that happened, she wouldn’t have to make life changing alterations to her life, that marrying a rich white politician is the answer and the ultimate get. There are numerous subtle racist scenes that are overshadowed by the whole romantic feel of the movie. In one scene, she brings towels to a rich woman at the hotel, and the woman, assuming she only spoke spanish started dismissing her in Spanglish and called her Maria because she was Latina. Even young Latina actresses are given demeaning roles. Naya Rivera, in Glee, plays Santana Lopez, a mean Latina teeanger. She is cold and mean and is portrayed as strong, stern and even emotionless. She is beautiful and has the typical Latina “look”. Francia Raisa plays Adrianna in The Secret Life of the American Teenager, who is referred to as the “school slut”. She’s book smart and has the typical curvaceous Latina body. Teenage Latinas shouldn’t have to relate to these characters because they are the only ones represented.

All these stereotypes harm the confidence of Latinas all over the world. When your culture is increasingly making its way on TV, it’s exciting but seeing it so misrepresented and divided is not something to celebrate. From Cameron Diaz and Demi Lovato to Zoe Saldana and Gina Torres, Latinas come in different shades of skin tone and body types. What about the young Latina girls who don’t look like Rosario Dawson and don’t have Sofia Vergara’s curves? Are their stories not interesting enough? Why is it that all the Latinas portrayed on TV are the extremely beautiful ones? Gina Torres said “When I became an actress I quickly realize that the world liked their Latinos to look Italian. Not like me. So I wasn’t going up for Latina parts. I was going up for African American parts.” The fact that certain Latinas can’t have the opportunity to represent their culture because they are not the type of Latinas Hollywood is looking for is ridiculous, and a trend that should stop. The fact that, even in the 20th century, casting crews aren’t look for authenticity in their choices, that if they have a Puerto-Rican character, the priority isn’t finding a Puerto-Rican actress but finding any actress who looks like one, is frankly disappointing. Examples of this are swarming in Hollywood, and are so subtle that you have to be looking to find them. Penelope Cruz, for example is a spanish actress who’s played many Latina roles because she has the “Latina look.” The aforementioned Gina Torres is a Dominican actress that looks for African American roles because she feels that her complexion is darker than what the movie makers are looking to cast. As Raquel Reichard, a feminist Latina grad student at NYU wrote in an article for mic.com, “Despite media portrayals of olive-skinned Latinas with curly hair and curvy bodies, Latinos can be black, with Afro-textured hair, brown, Indigenous, Asian, light-skinned and straight-up ethnically ambiguous.”

Safrina Jaffrey, an Indian American actress was cast as a Latina Chief of Staff in House of Cards. This raises many questions that all relate to racism and diminish the importance of truthfully portraying a culture. Why didn’t they cast an actual Latina? Or if they couldn’t find a Latina actress and really connected with Safrina Jaffrey, why didn’t they make the character Indian American? Maria Belen claims in her article that “Casting a non-Latina for the Chief of Staff role perpetuates the myth that capable Latina actresses aren’t available to fill complex and powerful roles.”

Another harm to the Latina image was brought to my attention by Jack Thomas, a writer for Tu Vez,. He wrote in an article in the magazine that “When white women are prostitutes, they are usually the “hooker with a heart of gold” like in Pretty Woman. When a Latina is a whore, she’s just a slut.” It just suggests that there’s no need to go into depth when it comes to Latina characters, that their bodies and their supposed innate sexual appeal is all there is to know. The stereotype that all Latinas are fiery and uncontrollable is contradicting the roles they give them as maids and nannies. It’s as though all Latinas are the same, so whether or not they are the seductress or the maid, they will have the certain fire in them, an automatic unstoppable sexual appeal.

Latina women have a lot to say on this subject. Since it is becoming more and more recognized, articles where the discussion is on focus are increasingly available. Andie Flores said in an article on Jezebel “I just want to feel like a person with a story worth being told. It feels good to interrupt network television in any way with culture that feels so beautifully MINE. Ours.” Also on Jezebel, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd said “There’s also that constant latent fear that if they are canceled, it could be years before we see another Latina star on TV who’s not hyper-sexualized and hyper-otherized by her white counterparts, a la Vergara.” These show the struggle that tv and movie producers don’t account for when making these movies. The pain and racism Latinas have to experience because of how they are portrayed is unimportant collateral damage.

There are many reasons why I think that the way Latinas are portrayed in media is wrong and a harmful cycle. Maria Belén, who wrote an article on WordPress about House of Cards casting a non-Latina for Linda Vazquez said it perfectly when she stated; “Someone outside of the culture, unaware of the lived experiences of a marginalized group of people, is pretending to be a member of that group, while simultaneously stealing a role that doesn’t belong to them. It’s one hundred percent morally wrong and offensive, even if it’s easy to get away with it due to the racial diversity of the Latinx community.” This reminded me of when an African American person referred to Africa as their “motherland” and found myself feeling extremely territorial and feeling like they had no right to call Africa their “motherland”, when they’ve never experienced its hardships and know absolutely nothing about it. But regular Latinas are not the only ones reacting to this phenomenon. Latinas in the public eye have also made their opinions known. Zoe Saldana, for example, said that “There are very few roles for characters that are of Latin descent, and the ones that are there, are not substantial characters, or insubstantial content that I would [not] consider well representative of a culture that I belong to and am so very proud of… When art doesn’t really imitate life, as an artist, I don’t like to be a part of it.”

When movie producers read this, they should be ashamed. I don’t doubt that there are stories with rich plots that are centered around Latinos that can be made, but people know what they want to see and producers work on that basis. Once people stop feeling good about themselves when they see a Latina character and think the world is being more equal, then we can move forwards. Because it will mean that the world is starting to notice that that representation is flawed and one-sided, and that side is not the one of the culture in question but the culture with hegemony.

The things you know, the things you don’t know and the things you didn’t know you didn’t know about Africa.

Social economics in Africa are very different than those in America. From what I’ve observed in the short time that I’ve been studying in the United States, there are many categories that people and their wealth fall into. My knowledge about this sort of thing is obviously very limited but everyday I see kids who have very different levels of wealth. There are the insanely rich kids who pay people a hundred bucks to do their homework or impulsively purchase Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton belts to add to their collections. These are the kinds of rich people you want to have as friends or never want to meet for your own sanity. There also the less rich people who have money but not enough to spend it recklessly but instead on expensive family holidays and special birthdays and anniversaries. There are then the ones that are comfortable but need financial aid and have only traveled inside the country. Then crossing over the class line are the families with jobs you hear people complaining about on tv; poor paying government jobs with long hours but good benefits. These attend public schools according to many tv shows. There are then, unfortunately, the forgotten hustlers. The people promised meritocracy but incapable of achieving its ultimate goal due to various reasons including race, gender and sometimes even class as poverty tends to be a self-perpetuating issue. There are obviously people who don’t fall in those categories exactly but around them. In most places in Africa, however, the classes are fewer, more extreme, much more conspicuous, and funnily enough a subject of really casual discussion in teenagers. I think that this is because the United States have had rich people for a longer time that Africa. For a long time, Americans have been civilized enough to have wealth and be able to express it in their properties, appearances and things of the sort. However, to the best of my knowledge, Africans have only recently started to get rich.

Wealth as we know it, expressed in the media with cars and mansions and country clubs started with the generations of our parents or our grandparents. This is because Africa is mostly developing and it is harder to get wealthy in a third-world continent. There are, nonetheless, ridiculously wealthy men and families in Africa who don’t make it to the news because privileged societies don’t want or care to hear about the people in Africa who are wealthier than them. There are the rich families who own companies and work in energy resources and travel around the world during every vacation, have multiple luxury cars and insane mansions and there are the less but still rich families who have stable jobs with high salaries, large families and beautiful cars. Unfortunately, there are also the managing families who can only afford two kids and have government jobs and can only afford one car for their whole lives. But these aren’t the worst. The saddest to see are the families who struggle to feed their children and work day and night selling plastic bags of water and fruits on the streets. The men who drive taxi cabs and motos to go back home with the little they made with food for their 5 children. And these people don’t live in isolated areas. They live in further neighborhoods with dirt roads but work in the city because it’s the only place they can find money. There are also the more secluded villages that are considerably poor but have created their own remote communities where they try their best to support each other, while trying at the same time to fight malnutrition, hunger, disease and all sorts of terrifying life threatening conditions. The latter two are the parts of Africa people see. To be fair, they are the majority of Africa so it’s almost understandable. However this doesn’t mean that the wealthier and actually well off Africans shouldn’t be recognized as Africa, because they’ve worked hard to get where they are now and should be able to represent the better and inspirational part of their Africa.

In addition to this, the wealthy don’t look down to the poor because they too, were once in their position. A common occurrence I’m quite uncomfortable with here is people passing by beggars and homeless people and not giving them something. I can only speak for the countries in Africa I’ve lived in for this one, but abled people always give something. It happens so often that mothers have learned to recognize the fakers, the one who need it less, because that’s an actual thing. While walking in the market, your mom will teach you which ones need it more, which kids are being sent out by their parents to guilt rich consumers into handing over large bills. When a street kid is walking towards, you don’t cross the street. Sometimes they are actually quite cocky and if they see you and your friends walking, they’ll whistle or do some very normal teenager things and it’s so fun.

Most of the Africans I mentioned to be extremely rich worked for it. The generation of our parents or grandparents pulled themselves from the wreckage that was their lives and found incredible ways to make money and find better education and opportunities elsewhere. For the most part, the life they are able to provide for their kids is not the one they received themselves. They most likely “started from the bottom.” My parents and a lot of my friends’ parents are great examples. My parents both grew up with a refugee status in Burundi’s capital city in the poorest neighborhoods with large families and in very low income homes. But my father after attending the cheapest public schools and then receiving a full scholarship to the country’s university put himself through a renowned graduate school in Geneva, one Kofi Annan, seven Nobel Prize recipients and one Pulitzer Prize winner attended. He once told me the story but it was long and I don’t remember it properly but it was mostly him having remarkable initiative, willpower and drive. He built his way up and is now able to provide a comfortable and happy childhood for his five children. In Africa, we don’t talk about this to be boastful but we like to remember those who put in the effort to better themselves which will eventually better Africa. We like to talk about these things and try to share them with those who will listen to widen people’s understanding of what and who is Africa.

The are so many parts of Africa I’m sure all Africans would love to share with everyone, parts of their home that their grandfathers and fathers built that they love and are proud of. But it reaches a point when it starts feeling like westerners would rather keep hearing about the cool giraffes and mud huts and a result resentment and a sense of returned contempt begins, even in the minds of the young generations, and we start to feel like we don’t want to share anymore.

Africans are so racist

Race is a such a touchy and sensitive subject and I bet that’s why Lou asked us to write drafts, as opposed to ready-to-post pieces. It is so stressful to talk about because every word you say on the subject might be construed as racist, and nowadays that’s a bloody stain impossible to remove. My perspective on racism is very different. As a person who hasn’t lived in a white dominated society, I’ve never experienced racism against me. The racism I know of is the preconceived prejudice we Africans have against white people. It’s a more significant problem in the United States due to historical events and contemporary circumstances but in other places, where black is the majority, racism is also incredibly conspicuous. But it’s a milder kind. It is not violent or oppressive. It’s the fear derived from what people have heard, read in books and seen on TV.
As I talk about the kind of racism I’ve experienced, I’ll be using the word Africa instead of naming all the countries in which I’ve seen it happen. I want to point out that although Africa is a large continent with very different cultures, the solidarity of the black Africans against the western and colonial white power is very common. From grandparents to young adults, “white” is used extensively to describe a certain behavior, and not a very positive one. Once we grow out of the Disney Channel and wishing we looked like Cece from Shake It Up or Emma from Jessie, we start to see another part of white culture. We see the body piercings, the sloppy hookup scenes, the lack of respect for parents and the body image issues. At that point, we do not want to be a long-legged, flat chested blonde who lives in New York City anymore. The lives that we watch on TV don’t seem so enticing. Impregnated, pill popping and heartbroken girls wouldn’t dare step into their African households unless they wanted to “collect slap”, which is what your Nigerian mom would say. It just so happens that most of us were raised to beware of those things. We joke about how if we talked back to our parents it would be the last thing we do on earth or how our parents would die of laughter if we asked them something as absurd as “Daddy, can I get a car for my sweet sixteen?”. Do we envy that some 16 year olds drive to school in their own cars? Yes. But certain glamorous privileges don’t allure us or stop to tempt us when we become more aware of the bigger problems we have to deal with.

Our parents, once they realize that we are starting to wear high waisted shorts and sheer crop tops sit us down and talk to us about how they do not want us to act like the “white girls” on TV. They teach us that those girls can dress like that in their suburban neighborhoods and not worry about being whistled at by the security guards on their street. They tell us that we can’t afford to wear revealing clothes on our curvy bodies because there are predators out there who feed on the defenseless youth. We all reject these warnings because we want to look pretty, with our shaven legs and longer eyelashes, but once we witness or experience it ourselves, we start listening. At that point you know that you shouldn’t wear mini skirts and ride shotgun if your local driver is driving you to a friend’s house. We know to hide our cleavage if we are going to the local market and know to not give the salesman your phone number when he asks, as ridiculous as that sounds.

But these strangers aren’t the only people feeding off our behaviors. Our parents hope that they raised us in a way that won’t cause them any embarrassment. They hope that when they send us to college in America, we don’t come back with lip piercings or a bun in the oven. They hope that we haven’t lost our values or faith and that we haven’t forgotten where we came from and allowed ourselves to be swallowed by the extravagant lifestyle. They also pray day and night that when we come back, we haven’t gained 20 kgs from eating fries and donuts everyday. The lack of discipline they see in that sort of behavior is not what they hope they taught their children. They worry and they worry everyday about the drugs our new white friends are forcing us into and about the effort we are putting into our studies.

My mother always jokes about how my brothers lacked concentration in class when they were younger. She also laughs at how if her sons had been born in the US, they would have been diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder and many more problems. This kind of thinking is described as “white”. She says that instead of giving them pills, all you have to do is slap them when needed and hire a tutor. The notion of kids seeing therapists is so rare in Africa but so common in the US. This is regarded back home as parents subjecting their kids to psychological analysis instead of taking care of their kids themselves. We think it’s utterly ridiculous when a teenager is taken to see a therapist because she doesn’t want to eat as much anymore or when she’s mean to her siblings. All these behaviors that are considered as phases in Africa are instantly diagnosed as life threatening disorders in the States. At least on TV.

Body images issues that stem from insecurities are just as branded in the States. If these girls who think their breasts or butts are too big were sent to a trimester abroad in a country in Africa, I guarantee you that all the attention they would receive from every black teenager that has gone through puberty will cure their depression faster than any antidepressants.

Racism exists everywhere, but at least in Africa it’s more contemptuous than violent. Africans have gone through so much at the hands of the white man that it’s not surprising that we adopted a certain patronizing outlook towards them. From selling our ancestors into slavery to the Belgian Colonists that started the Hutu-Tutsi system and the French that armed the resulting Rwandan Genocide to the Apartheid in South Africa, you can’t blame Africans for looking down on white culture, or at least masking their fear with condescension. After the white man left our lands, we were left to fend for ourselves and now we see them on TV, living in their tall condominiums and driving their shiny black Lincolns. The racism is a mixture of jealousy and fear but also in part a fundamental contrast in values. Although white philanthropists and missionaries are welcome, you also can’t blame parents for being racist when their kids are being corrupted by white teenagers with “Hail Satan” and that sort of “white” nonsense.

Wake Up Everybody – John Legend, Melanie Fiona, The Roots and Common

As the world evolves and people progress in terms of their ideologies, sex and gender not being mutually exclusive notions becomes less and less controversial. In a lot of societies stuck in traditional views, the sex you were born with immediately and irrevocably determines your gender and more disappointingly and oppressively, your sexuality.

However in the media, which is incredibly talented at following trends and even more at detecting them, the subject has become a growing source of views and ratings tearing through the roofs. The media doesn’t discriminate expect to when it comes to what’s sensational and what’s not. Once the topic of homosexuality started gaining momentum, shows like Modern Family and Orange is the New Black became overnight sensations that won Primetime Emmys. Now the most popular shows have a homosexual plotline that gives it a boost in their IMDb ratings and diversity in viewers. This subject is on demand because of how it is represented on these tv shows. On these shows, the characters that are gay are given a lot of attention. The script of their journey of acceptance is pumped with so much pathos that the world is forced and guilted into loving them. Instead of focusing on real life victims of homophobia and other prejudices, these characters are the ones getting all the attention and support tweets and trending hashtags. The struggle that the real people have to go through to be accepted is overlooked because now there is a parallel universe where you can watch the same people go through the same difficulties but in fast forward and in the bodies of attractive actors.

This becomes repulsive when you realize that what people associate with these gender identities are fabrications of the media. The boy bullied at school because he painted his nails or wore pink converses is less of a story than when flamboyant Kurt on Glee did this and gay married couple Cam and Mitchell on Modern Family did that. It becomes so confusing whether or not the media is helping the world transition into a more accepting society or if they’re conditioning us to prefer a counterpart of reality. Is the media aiding the LGBT movement or is it overshadowing its efforts by creating options of which stories to follow. The creators of these shows leave the public with a choice but sleep soundly knowing their aptitude in our patterns as consumers will serve them well. They give us two stories; the one on that small section on the weekly newspaper about a group of students rioting for their rights and getting ignored worldwide or the other story that comes on on ABC every Monday at 9 PM about the transgender student body president who received a scholarship to Yale from the newly elected female president herself. The story lines differ so much that the real ones are completely forgotten about. Shouldn’t we be ashamed that most of us are anticipating and more aware of Empire’s Jamal Lyons’ rise to stardom in the music industry as a gay black man than the hurt that parents have to experience when their terrorized kids commit suicide because they’re different. Probably not, because supporting the aforementioned fictional characters gives the audience a sense of kindness and participation in the movement for change. A sense that their unconditional love for the character after all the questionable things they do is enough, and makes them a fighter for equality. “I’m so accepting” they think.

The media doesn’t stop at sexuality and gender identity. As feminism and equality of the sexes becomes a hot topic too and as the representation of women in the media is questioned, the media answers the public’s prayers. Women are increasingly the protagonists in blockbusters and the scope of what they can represent on tv has greatly increased over the years. The Hunger Games and Divergent, two of the biggest trilogies of the past five years are strongly female oriented and revolve around female characters who have very unconventional roles. Female actors are also being cast in less and less traditional roles. Tatiana Maslany in Orphan Black impressively acts out multiple clones, who have extremely different looks, personalities and roles in the show. The Fosters is a family show that revolves around the family of a lesbian couple, one being a police officer and the other the vice president of a school. All these are examples of the media picking up on trends and acting on them quick enough that we don’t notice or forget what sparked the fire. Quick enough that we forget that Ava DuVernay didn’t get nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for Selma or that these changes don’t extend to the struggle that women face in the real world at work.

We’ve allowed the media to mediate our perception of all things humanity. We take comfort in how we feel towards the fictional characters that represent the struggles of today and rest when we believe that accepting those characters who have been dreamed up for that purpose exactly is enough. We should definitely learn how to enjoy real life and think higher of it. This way, we will put more emphasis on the events of real life and find more enjoyment in living out lives instead of those on tv.