Where Are the Latinos in Films, TV?

There has been much dialogue recently regarding the issue of racism in Hollywood. It started with the targeting of the Academy Awards by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, which in turn was commented on by Cameron M. Turner in a Counterpunch article. Then Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey had their say, followed by three Counterpunch writers responding to televised remarks made by Marlon Brando.

Throughout this, there was little mention of the representation and participation of Latinos, aside from an article on portrayals of Latinos in prime-time television that reported statistics from the Center for Media and Public Affairs (“Latinos on TV: Mixed Findings, Progress,” Calendar, April 16). While showing a recent increase in Latino roles on prime-time television, the report also indicated that Latino participation was 2%, which is still below 1955 levels when Latinos accounted for 3% of all characters. The article also estimated Latino population in the United States as 10%.

As a Chicano actor-writer-director with more than 14 years of experience, I can provide firsthand knowledge of the dearth of Latino roles in the film and television industry. The irony of the situation is as thick as the smog that hangs over the city of Nuestra Reina la Senora de Los Angeles (named by Latinos in the 18th century). The United States has close to 30 million Latinos. Many of this population’s ancestors lived in and predated the Anglo takeover of the Southwest. Just take a look around at the names of the states, cities, streets, etc. In modern times, Latino audiences have purchased enormous amounts of tickets to Hollywood movies (as shown by several studies and surveys), yet Latinos hardly ever portray lead characters in these movies. A sort of financing of their own exclusion.

Here’s the rub. Though on the one hand, we are taught, subjugated, sometimes even beaten into assimilation by this society and told to lose our pride in our culture, language, heritage and history, we are also expected to accept our exclusion in the participation in the media--the same media that shape the world’s images of who we, the respective Latino cultures, are.

What is the record of major U.S. studios employing Latinos to play Latino heroes or heroines? Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa was portrayed by Wallace Beery and Yul Brynner. Argentine-born revolutionary Che Guevara was portrayed by Omar Sharif. Mexican President Benito Juarez was played by Paul Muni. Mexican revolutionary Emilio Zapata was played by Marlon Brando. Argentine First Lady Evita Peron was portrayed by Faye Dunaway and will be played by Madonna in the same feature that has Jonathan Pryce as Argentine President Juan Peron, who has also been portrayed by James Farentino. In the future, we’ll have Anthony Hopkins playing Spanish painter Pablo Picasso and Laura San Giacomo at one time was considered to portray Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

This smacks of the same racism that supposedly did not exist when African Americans were not allowed to play major league baseball. “What problem?” America protested. “They have their own leagues.”

Much talk is made of qualifications and merits of the actors. Tell me, who is more qualified to portray Latinos? A Latino actor who has knowledge of the culture, language, history, etc.; or a non-Latino who has, at best, cursory knowledge of what a Latino really is? To this date, I have not seen one portrayal of a Latino by a non-Latino that was even in the ballpark. This is not a legacy for Hollywood or these non-Latino actors to be proud of.

When the feature film “Malcolm X” was first released, African Americans had heroes to look up to in Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, as well as Denzel Washington and Angela Bassett. Heroes of the past and the future. This absence of Latino icons in a community that desperately needs its own heroes is despicable. Latinos have the highest per capita rate of Congressional Medal of Honor awards in all of America’s wars. Two Latino Congressional Medal of Honor Award recipients even date back to the American Civil War. Yet, we suffer from false images of being unpatriotic foreigners who take more than we contribute to American society.

Of course, “artistic choice” is always bandied about to contradict the argument that Latinos can best play Latinos. When I or my fellow Latino actors hear that term, we know that it means we will be excluded, as artistic choice never works in our favor.

When you add the other numerous Hollywood projects that have non-Latinos portraying Latinos, you have a virtual Al Jolson-type brown-facing of the Latino. “The House of the Spirits,” “The Perez Family,” “Waterdance,” “The Birdcage,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” “Get Shorty,” “Alive,” “Aliens,” “The Mission,” “Carlito’s Way,” ad nauseam--all have non-Latinos portraying lead Latino roles.

A pretty bleak picture if you’re a Latino actor. Even sadder if you’re a barrio Latino youth searching for decent role models. All you can do is laugh at the ridiculously oversimplified portrayals of what you are and walk away with disdain. In fact, just stay in your barrios and be relegated to a brief footnote, if that, in American history. You have your own Spanish stations, just like blacks had their own baseball leagues.

It’s either that or stop purchasing tickets and renting videos of movies and television shows that do not include us. After all, as one Hollywood executive explained to me, “We don’t have to put you in movies. . . . There were no Latinos in Gotham City and you still came.”