Latinos Onscreen Conspicuously Famous Transcript Analysis

The George Lopez show is truly one of a kind. Only two sitcoms in the history of television have been completely cast by Hispanic Americans, “The George Lopez Show” and “Greetings From Tuscan.” The two shows combined account for 44% of all Latino characters in prime-time television, an enormous number considering the amount of shows that air every week. Only 4% of Hispanics make up the cast of prime-time television shows, a miniscule amount considering that

The Latino and Hispanic population continues to increase at a lower rate every year in the U.S., they account for a large portion of the population. However, it hasn’t change the portrayal of Latinos in the media. Often, the Latino community is shown in a negative light that doesn’t represent the reality of this community. The main goal of this paper is to show and understand how the media portray Latinos and ways to solve the problem.

Reports show that Latinos are the most underrepresented ethnic group in film affected by stereotypical issues shown via pictures in our heads and through watching. I concur with this information as stereotype starts from a personal level, which is definite through meditation, this does not include all the negative traits portrayed by the out-group. Although we have some general stereotypical agreements within in-groups that cannot change. This stereotyping is evident in a case where a foreigner defines Bandido accurately while a (North) American will involve them with laziness, being dirty and all sorts of negativity on them. These findings make me feel that Latinos and Americans will always be contrary to their film industry.

What is the image of the male Latino American in the media today in television, in the movies, and in other media? Is the male Latino represented fairly in American media? And if he is often presented as a stereotype, why is he portrayed in stereotypical situations? The answers to those questions come from a number of sources that will be presented in this paper.

Over the years television has been known to be one of the major educating and socializing institution in America. Television in today’s society is able to play a powerful key through which individuals can be informed, hold forums, and voice their opinion‘s. Television is also important because it offers us glimpses into minority life and minority figures. When sociologists examine minorities in television they document how minorities are portrayed and how those portrayals have changed over the years. Through time, minorities in television have been able to make moderate gains whether they are in front of or behind cameras. However, they continue to remain significantly underrepresented as leading actors in films, as writers, and as TV show creators. Even though minorities are significantly underrepresented in today’s society the TV industry has been pushing to give an opportunity to many minority groups in succeeding in the media. Several TV shows and commercials have succeeded in the TV industry to try and change how minorities are underrepresented, however, there are also shows that reinforce stereotypes and are prejudice towards minorities.

In the New York Times article “Media Feed Bias Against Latinos,” Luisita Lopez Torregrosa states in her findings that many non-Hispanics “mistakenly believe that half or more of the nation’s 50 million Hispanics are illegal immigrants,” and that they are depicted in the media “largely as maids, gardeners, dropouts, and criminals.” In response to the general public thinking that there are over 50 million illegal immigrants, Torregrosa explains that the United States actually has an estimated 10 million illegal Mexican/Central American immigrants from a 2012 study. The depiction in the media is definitely real concerning how Mexican’s are depicted in films, as the roles that the, now deceased, actress Lupe Ontiveros played in several movies, confirms. An article from The New York Times, titled “Trying to Get Beyond the Role of the Maid; Hispanic Actors Are Seen as Underrepresented, With the Exception of One Part” by housing reporter Mireya Navarro, details the roles Ontiveros had to play in the American media, which included over 150 maid roles. Ontiveros even noticed how much of a problem this is, stating that “‘It’s their continued perspective of who we are’...‘[The media doesn’t] know we’re very much a part of this country, and that we make up every part of this country.’” While this isn’t a particular negative light in criminal terms, it is still a misrepresentation of what Mexicans do for the nation. Ontiveros also mentioned that whenever she went to a

In the essay “Getting Down To What Is Really Real,” John Jeremiah Sullivan discusses the reality TV show “The Real World”. In his essay, Sullivan gives us an inside experience with the main stars of the show in order to give us a glimpse of what their real lives are like. He argues, “the single most interesting thing about reality TV, is the way it has successfully appropriated reality”(Sullivan 97). Similarly, Hispanic culture has been portrayed stereotypically in TV shows and films throughout the years. Latino characters on TV mostly take roles of maids, thugs and Latin lovers who have a heavy accent and immigration problems (Nittle). Movies like Maid In Manhattan and A Day Without A Mexican have represented these stereotypes quite clearly, and that sadly reflects how people see them. However, most recently, the TV show Jane The Virgin is applying a more complex and realistic depiction of Hispanic characters by breaking these stereotypes.

When I entered the Dynamic of Racism and Oppression class I was the individual who had blinders on. I did not have a full understanding of what racism was, which in itself is shocking to me as I thought I had. What made me really stop and think was this class opened my eyes to the fact that I did not know my own identity. I have heard individual say “I’m black”, “I am of African decent”, “I’m Latino”, “I’m Canadian”, and “I’m white”. These are common statements of how individuals view their race and identity. I have even placed my identity in one of those categories, I’m white. I was unaware and unsure of what it meant to have a culture, which many individuals claim everyday. Some individuals know their identity, others do not, I was one

For this article, it was important to be able to talk to professionals that have experienced dealing with the portrayal of Latinos, either personal or professional experiences. To gain a further understand the portrayal of Latinos in news and film, five subjects were interviewed about their opinion on the topic. Two of the subjects have a wide range of experience in journalism, as they have worked in media organizations for a long time. They both have similar ideas on the problem media has with reporting on Latinos. Two other subjects have great deal of experience in film and understand the struggles with misrepresentation of Latinos and ways to solve those problems. The last subject is a person that has experience with both film

America, the States, USA, the North, are all different ways of referring to the nation in which everyone believes their dreams can become a reality. The United States of America is and has always been a nation of immigrants, but many forget that the first ones to arrive were not British but Spanish. The Spanish conquistadors were the first ones to arrive on American soil during the beginning of the 1500s. Soon most of the powerful nations in Europe followed. Despite their positive impact on the American culture, Latinos have been degraded for many years by the media, stereotypes and people with power like the chiefs of police and even presidential candidates. While the media portrays Latinos as maids and gangsters, the majority of Latinos migrate to the USA looking for a better future for their families and for themselves. In this essay, I will investigate the complex role that Latinos have played in American society, economic, and political life, focusing specifically on the cultural disconnect between Latino self-identification and white-American misconceptions of Latino-specific immigration.

The book Beyond El Barrio Everyday Life in Latina/o America by Gina M. Perez, Frank A. Guridy, and Afrian Burgos Jr. is a book about the stereotypes, citizenship, and community of Latina/os in the United States. Each chapter shows a new theme such as latinos in baseball, Latinas/os in the military, and Spanish radio. The book shows connection between different communities of Latinas/os and how they have struggled to be apart of the U.S. society beyond the boundaries that they feel limited to. This book was a difficult piece of writing for me to understand but has ultimately changed the way I view Latinas and has shown clear intersections of politics, representation, and citizenship of Latinas and Latinos in the United States.

In 2013, Latinos accounted for only 4.9% of the roles in the top 100 films of the year. From the beginning, Hollywood had always been dominated by white men and women. However, as time progressed there was a very slight change in cultural and ethnic diversity. Though it is more likely now than ever to find a Latino or Latina in a Hollywood film, their roles are often small, stereotypical, and almost entirely unimportant. As if it wasn’t hard enough to get any role in any Hollywood film regardless of ethnicity, Latinos have to endure playing a harshly demeaning role. Latino men are often cast as comedic relief and play gardeners, janitors, or thugs. Latino women are often cast as maids or mistresses. Aside from this, when women are cast as mistresses they are often submissive to their white male partners, meaning that not only are these roles ethnically demeaning, but also sexist. Along with Latino female sexualisation, though, Latino men are also heavily sexualized. Both Latino women and men have to deal with the exploitation of their culture for stereotypical roles in a movie. However, these are only some of the vicious patterns that attribute to the everlasting ethnic misrepresentation in the biggest part of mass media, Hollywood.

The media has molded the way Latinos are expected to look, act, and speak, especially for Latinas. While a TV show or a movie could contain half-truths, many are just exaggerated. An example would be Sofia Vergara’s Gloria character on “Modern Family”. It may seem like there is no harm in portraying a Latina that way on television but it only triggers more the stereotype of “spicy Latinas” and on how the public perceives us. It is known that, “Repeated exposure to a particular portrayal of a group teaches that this cultural view is a relevant schema for processing members of that particular group” (Burgess et al., 2011).

The use of tropes in children’s media creates an ideology of what children will perceive a race or culture to represent, planting a seed for prejudices to grow in the future. In his article regarding the portrayal of Latinos in children’s media, Phillip Serrato says, “Over the past 15 years, there has been a significantly greater Latino/a presence in television programs for children. Of course, as much as this development coincides with popular calls for multicultural diversity in children’s media, ultimately it is simply a display of various networks scurrying to capitalize on the currency of multiculturalism. Unsurprisingly, the increased incorporation of Latino/a characters and culture into children’s programming has tended to waver between

To finalize, I strongly agree that over the past 20 yrs Latinos have faced increasing hostility and discrimination. The media is one major example in portraying Latinos as a threat to society. Univision 14, a Spanish TV channel for Spanish speaking audience, Jorge Ramos is well known and influential journalist, writer, and news communicator for the spanish speaking audience at Univision. Reyna states