In almost every movie, Latinas are either non-English speaking babysitters, maids, waitresses, or “Cholas”. Latina women are either shown as these exotic and sexualized things or people working low wage jobs. We are either sexualized or looked down upon.
Why does it matter? It portrays harmful ideologies like white men putting on black face to portray a black predator that preys on helpless young white women in the movie The Birth of a Nation, a Ku Klux Klan “victory” movie.
And I know what you are thinking, these are two different problems, and one is way more serious than the other but they both share the spread of harmful stereotypes. By portraying these stereotypes, harmful intentional or unintentional messages are being spread.
This is an example of commercial media. Especially the movie The Birth of a Nation. A little more context behind that movie, the screenplay is adapted from play and novel The Clansmen. The movie takes place in the Civil War and Reconstruction timelines. The Birth of a Nation portrays black people as dumb and sexually aggressive. All of the actors playing black characters are white actors in blackface. This movie was made to show white power and is considered “the most reprehensibly racist film in Hollywood history.”
Now due to this movie, the propaganda of black men being unhuman quickly spread across the country. Movies with ideologies harmful like this one can cause lasting impacts. For example, in class we watched a video about the doll test. Kids from ages around 10, were asked to pick the bad and mean doll. With the options of 2 identical dolls with different skin colors (white and black), all kids picked the black doll. These kids were black and white kids, and when asked which doll is more like them, almost all kids picked the white doll, whether they were black or white.
The lasting impacts of stereotypes and racism not only stick to adults, but children and teenagers.
Back to the spicy Latina ideology, I feel like personally this stereotype has impacted my life since I was a kid. When I was young, I always looked up to the skinny blonde white girls on Disney channel or movies. I never saw a girl that looked like me and was the star of the show/movie. Girls of my race were either absent, or just a lame side character. This ended up harming my young self. From a young age, I wished I were someone else.
As I have gotten older, I begin to see more diversity. Most of the Latina roles were the spicy Latina, an exotic sexy character that gave into the male gaze. I would also see the role of the mean Latina girl who was pretty but rude. Or lastly, the Latina with broken English who was working a bad job or getting pregnant young.
Obviously now we don’t see much of these stereotypes in cinematic media, thankfully.
In class, we were asked to think about the roles of our ethic groups when represented in media. What I came up with (I am ethically Hispanic) was janitors, maids, “spicy”, agriculture workers, drunks, big families, and secretaries. We definitely see more of these roles for Latino/a people in cinema than the popular high school character, or superheroes, or main characters in general.
As our world continues to take steps forward, I hope no more little girls have to wish they were someone else, but can feel proud to be who they are.
Communicating Change 