MINORITIES & AMERICAN TV TODAY

I would like to write about the under and misrepresentation of the Latin woman. If she is young she is often depicted as the sexy girl, the man-eater, the sexual predator. If she is not young then she is pigeonholed as old and is usually a maid. There does not seem to be any in between for the Latin woman- there is no Claire Huxtable type middle aged successful woman that I know of on TV. In Desperate Housewives, there is a character named Gabrielle Solis played by Eva Longoria that is an ex-model, portrayed as a gold digger that basically uses her looks to marry into a life of luxury. She forgives her husband (also Latin) his philandering, and herself had an affair with the teenaged gardener. The representation in both cases is that of the hypersexual and overly emotional Latin.

Race is unclear to me as a concept for the character, as ‘ethnicity’ seems to be the tag most often used to categorize people. If ‘race’ is based on color then there is even less representation- though Latin comes in all shades, the ‘Latins’ on TV always look Caucasian. The sexuality depicted is almost always as constant, a rabid heterosexuality- I have not seen gay Latins in mainstream TV though we do see them more often now in Spanish telenovelas (usually in very comical over the top personifications). In My Name is Earl, there is a character played by Nadine Velazquez that combines sexuality and inferior socioeconomic status into one: she plays “Catalina, the sexy, hotel maid with a heart of gold” as the NBC.com website itself describes her. Neither religion nor gender make much difference in either series.

There are various other TV shows that have ‘Latins’ but lack a complex Latin character; most adhere to the accepted stereotypes of women as sexpots or maids, and men as thugs or lotharios. I think most of the characters on commercial TV reinforce common stereotypes in American media. The only show that I have seen that veers from these stereotypes is the George Lopez Show, which purports to show a ‘typical’ middle class Hispanic family in the United States. However it is presented in a very pre-packaged serial sitcom way, and seems more to appease non-Latins to demonstrate there exists a ‘Latin’ show than to being a true Latin show, even in a comical sitcom way. There is nothing on that show that touches on realities for Latins in the US, it is rather a ‘white’ middle American show that simply uses Latin actors.