Male Latinos in the Media

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.

A diverse minority group of Latino and Spanish-speaking peoples has played an important part of what it means to be American and what it means to be a citizen in the United States today. Moving into the future, in order to analyze the trajectory that this group is in, we must first understand the group’s history in the United States and in territories that would become the United States. In addition, we must look at the origins of the most recent wave of Latino immigration in order to understand their current effect on American society and the intersection between both minority and majority groups. Finally, we get to the apex of this investigation: what lies in the future for Latino Americans in the United States? Although Latino

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.

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 study of Latinos in politics has become a very critical to the advancement of the community. This has become the case since statistically, there has been a tremendous wave of growth since the 1940s; today there are 60 million Latinos in the U.S. and this number is projected to rise to about 150 million by the year 2050, meaning 30%, or 1 in every 3 people, in the US will be of Latino origin. Taking into consideration these numbers “minority politics” would no longer seem an appropriate term. This is why Latino political interaction has become very important, however, in order to begin to understand this realm, one has to take into consideration the various forms of exclusion Latinos have faced based on the fact they they have identified

From there on movies shifted from their portrayals of Latino males as "Latin lovers" to "urban banditos". Films changed from problems involving women, sex, and love to delinquency, drugs, and gang fights. Movies such as West Side Story, Scarface, and Fort Apache, the Bronx, all use Latinos as "scapegoats" to focus the problems of society to the immigration of Puerto Ricans to the U.S.

To begin with, I approached the assignment as more than just a paper to give in to my english teacher but instead a vessel in which I can express my actual ideas. Although it may sound funny, I perceived this assignment as myself arguing with someone, trying to get my points across. Because of this, I had to picture who I was arguing against or trying to make a point to. For my specific essay, I visualized two kinds of people. Since I knew I wanted to address the effect of a Latina being sexualized in media, I figured the reader needed to be exposed to media in order to understand the problem. This audience in particular was around my age group as most teens are heavily involved with social media. The next group of people were in the opposite

Media has a way implementing certain ideologies into people’s heads by reinforcing certain attributes or stereotypes for different identities. Popular media plays off generalizations to make relatable films, such as the dumb blonde or good girl falling in love with the bad body. However, this gives off a subliminal message that all people that fit into those categories act like that in everyday life. This is seen with Hispanic women in Hollywood who are often seen as the seductress or the ignorant maid, both have a certain look; these stereotypical roles generalize Latina women into two categories and appearances. However, these stereotypes are detrimental to Latinas because they judged on this basis of being hypersexual and uneducated.

Films have the power to both influence and reflect society. The stereotypes prevalent throughout American culture are reflected in most films. While the United States is becoming an increasingly diverse country, this diversity is not portrayed within American cinema. Minority figures often occupy

The mass media has always been used to educate the masses, but mass media is also used as a means of socialization that often shapes or frames the viewers’ perception of reality. In the early 2000’s, Travis L. Dixon and Daniel Linz’s “Overrepresentation and Underrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos as Lawbreakers on Television News” proved within the context of Los Angeles, blacks and Latinos were significantly more likely than whites to be portrayed as lawbreakers on television news (Dixon and Linz 131). In addition, their study found that blacks are also underrepresented as law defenders, while Latinos and whites were underrepresented as lawbreakers and overrepresented as law defenders. Their research suggests that exposure to

Over the past hundred years or so, looking back across the many forms and numerous amounts of literature and cinema throughout the years on what we as a people consider as ‘classic’ fiction; how many of the heroes and protagonists can we say were of color and not just Caucasian? A study was done by the UCLA School of Law along with the Chicano Studies Research Center found that Latino, African American, Native American and Asian American actors have had few acting opportunities made available to them. (Bernardi & Patton, 2007) Bernardi & Patton proposed that 69 percent of role were withheld for white actors and another 8.5 percent of roles were opened to nonwhite actors as well as white actors. With nonwhite actors being limited to between

In a predominantly white society, it has been recorded to be true that programs and movies featuring compelling Latino talent and storylines are rewarded with high ratings and revenue. So why are Latinos not in movies more often as, lead actors and strong characters? This is a matter of wanting to cast and make profit from Latinos without giving them the title, nor the the proper portrayal. To add to that, our current president is adding fuel to the fire, he tells his followers that he’s going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Trump loves to make minority groups the main topic of his speeches to the public.

Therefore, at this time for Los Angeles, the local threat everyone feared or had disdain for were young male Latinos that were specifically dressed in zoot suits. At first, it was hard for the community to grasp what exactly was there vendetta for rebelling; some even concluded that they were “rebellious kids that were being manipulated by enemy agents.” As I sat and watched the film it was difficult to believe that Latinos were viewed as outcasts when indeed it was their ancestors who first built and structured Los Angeles. However, it was then vividly clear to me that after years of discrimination, it was safer for them to remain introverted in their own communities and not venture off.