Is the Latinx community underrepresentation in Hollywood?
Although Latinos make up about 25% of the U.S. population, only 3.1% of lead television actors and 5.2% of lead film actors are Latin or Hispanic, according to a 2022 report by the Latino Donor Collaborative.
How Latinos are portrayed in film?
Latinos are also portrayed as workers, like maids, repair workers, or gardeners. In an episode of Black-ish there was a gardener in which the main character Rainbow thought was Latino however he was white. Such stereotypical scenes of construction workers being portrayed as male Latinos are often seen on television.
Latinos continue to be ignored by Hollywood. As Hispanic Heritage Month continues in the United States, a new report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative assesses the state of Hispanic and Latino representation in Hollywood’s top-grossing films.
The full study will be released next month, examining 1,600 top-grossing films released from 2007 to 2022 and more than 69,000 speaking characters, with qualitative data about how those Latino and Hispanic characters are presented in films, including whether they “stereotype or stigmatize” the community. It’s the third study analyzing Hispanic and Latino representation from the Initiative’s researchers, led by founder Dr. Stacy L. Smith.
According to the report, Hispanic/Latino actors filled just 10 leading or co-lead roles across last year’s 100 top-grossing films, and eight of those 10 roles went to Hispanic/Latina actors. In the 16-year span studied, just 76 actors filled lead or co-lead roles (across 1,600 top-grossing films); 44 were Hispanic/Latina; and five were Hispanic/Latinas aged 45 and older.
Overall, the study showed that there has been no significant change in the prevalence of Latino characters. In 2022, a mere 6% of speaking characters were Hispanic/Latino, which researchers note is not dissimilar to the 3% found in 2007, but vastly underrepresents the largest ethnic group in the country. (According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Hispanic population reached 63.7 million in 2022, representing 19.1% of the population.)
Of the few Hispanic/Latino characters that appeared on screen in 2022, almost 60% were male-identified. The year saw the release of blockbusters like “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” — which, respectively, starred actors Zoe Saldaña, Danny Ramirez and Xochitl Gomez (pictured above) — as well as “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which featured a number of Hispanic and Latino actors in its ensemble.
In addition to instances of on-screen representation, researchers also analyzed roles behind the camera. Their findings: “Hispanic/Latinos continued to be virtually absent from directing and writing among popular films especially by Hispanic women and Latinas.”
Latinos Lag in Lead Roles on Netflix, Despite Gains in Female Representation
Write a Reply or Comment
You should Sign In or Sign Up account to post comment.