Latinos in film

Opportunities for Latino/Hispanic Americans (i.e. those people who are or have family ancestry from Mexico, Spain, or other Latin American [Spanish & Portuguese speaking] countries) in the film industry, often mirrors the opportunities, and challenges, facing people of other racial or ethnic identities who work in the industry, behind or in front of the film camera. Historically, actors or actresses of Latino/Hispanic ancestry often found work within certain stereotypical roles, which often reflected broader social attitudes and cultural biases.

Latino men were frequently depicted as being highly aggressive and also with low levels of emotional maturity, i.e. criminals, low-life thugs or the highly passionate, even violent, love interest of the starring character. Latino women, Latinas, were similarly portrayed when it came to their sexuality, but where as Latino men could be in a position of authority, albeit within an anti-social, criminal setting, Latinas were oftentimes characters with much less authority, such as housemaids, domestic servants or even prostitutes.

Traditionally, even without the usage of these stereotypes, it was rare for a Latino or Latina character in a film to be the star, unless the film was primarily marketed to a Latino audience. Behind the camera, it is still difficult for a Latino film producer, director, screenwriter or cinematographer to have mainstream commercial success.

However, as the social attitudes and biases change, there has been a gradual improvement in film depictions as well as in career opportunities for Latinos Americans.

The negative stereotyping of Latinos in film relates to the history of Latinos. Mexican Americans were seen by Anglos as uneducated and lacking integrity and thus unworthy of the rights to citizenship. Early films portrayed these negative stereotypes of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, but as time went on these stereotypes expanded to Central and South Americans. In the late 1890s, few Latinos were involved in filmmaking or appeared as actors in films. The Latinos that did appear in films or produced films were from privileged backgrounds. At this time, the late 1890s, filmmaking consisted of silent films. Myrtle Gonzalez and Beatriz Michelena were among the few Latinos to create silent films. In the 1910s and 1920s, a few film production companies rose to dominate the industry, forcing the depletion of Latinos working in film production. It was not until the 1970s that Latinos reemerged in the field of film production.

Silent western films were the first films to feature Latino characters. The Latino characters often played the role of the rebellious "greaser" opposing the white hero. The term "greaser" is used to describe Mexican bandits and other lazy, untrustworthy Mexican characters. Tony the Greaser and The Greaser's Revenge were two movies that capitalized on this storyline. These films helped to start the trend of establishing Latino characters as "others" in contrast to whites. The Mexican government in the 1920s complained and boycotted Hollywood films. These boycotts and complaints led film producers to disassociate negative Latino characters from identification with any particular country. This led to pan-Latino representations which were still negative, just not associated with one particular country.

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