September 29, 2014 • 41 mins
Stereotypes about Latinas' bodies and behaviors abound, and perhaps none are more pop culturally persistent than that of the "spicy" Latina. Cristen and Caroline, trace the history behind this on-screen trope that's endured from Carmen Miranda to Sofia Vergara.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And today on the podcast, we are
going to chuckle a persistent stereotype targeted toward Latina women,
(00:23):
and that is of the spicy Latina. That's right, And
this is kind of jumping off of an episode we
did previously on the exoticization of women of color, the
fact that a lot of women of color get called exotic,
their exotic beauty, this and that, and how so many
people who are not women of color considered a compliment. No,
(00:47):
I'm complimenting you, and so much of the feedback that
we received from listeners was saying, hey, thanks for talking
about it, because I just feel like somebody's comparing me
to an animal. Yeah, And one thing that we heard
a lot from Latina listeners is about how they will
be called spicy or they're hot tamalies or their mama Sita's.
(01:07):
They're always highly sexualized under this spicy umbrella and also
kind of put into this monolithic box of all Latina's
being curvaceous, tan skinned with long wavy hair. They cook
a lot of spicy food, and they also, you know,
speak English with a thick accent. And above all, again
(01:30):
and again, they're spicy. They're often described in terms of food, right,
And I thought one columnists put it really well. Shantiana
Laden at the Feminist Wire talked about this whole spicy
Latina stereotype and what it means, and that a lot
of people and this is not just her, a lot
of these columnists talking about this issue. We're saying, you know,
(01:50):
somebody might not even realize my heritage or my background,
but as soon as they find out that I'm Latina,
they make all of these really gross, weird, inappropriate assumptions
about me and the bedroom. And she just says, flat out, look,
I am not your spicy Latina. Yeah. She goes on
to say, quote, so when people tell me I must
be a spitfire or a freaky girl in bed because
(02:13):
I'm Hispanic, I am not at all flattered. They're working
on stereotypes created long ago to subordinate women of color
and cast them as the inferior other. And there were
so many other columnists of all sorts of Latina ethnicities
who weighed in on this very topic across the Internet,
(02:34):
all saying the same thing over and over and over
again in terms of, hey, guess what, I'm not your
spicy Latina and also can we please stop this stereotype? Right?
And part of that is is body image. A lot
of people expect because of amazing women like j Lo
or or other women like that, they expect a certain
(02:55):
figure from Latina women. And Raquel Record at Everyday Feminism
talked about this curvy Latina stereotype being so damaging two
young women because she says, look, okay, so maybe in
our culture we don't have the same pressure to be
the size zero Cape Moss supermodel, um, but we do
have this pressure to look like Salmahiyak or to look
(03:17):
like j Lo with a tiny waist, a big behind
in large breasts. Yeah. And she also wrote about this
over at fem Inspire. Record did and she said the
words used to describe Latina bodies like spicy, hot, juicy
figuratively reduced Latina's to food that's craved, salivated, over, attained, devoured,
(03:38):
and then flushed away. And I think, jumping straight off
of that whole idea of food, that image of a
Latino woman being presented as something to be consumed leads
us right into Emmys. Uh, during which, and I'm sure
a lot of you are aware of this, during which
Colombian born actress Sophia Regard of Modern Family Funny Show
(04:02):
literally put on a pedestal and rotated for the audience
as the president of the awards show delivered a really
dry speech basically saying, here is this spicy latina to
look at as I give you this really dry, boring speech. Well,
it was supposed to be this kind of visual joke too,
because he was talking about the great strides that women
(04:22):
on television had made. And there you have Sophia Virgara,
who is, by the way, the highest paid woman in
Hollywood right now, rotating on a pedestal. And when Vergara
responded to people, especially on Twitter, saying, um, what's happening
right now? Why is she on a pedestal? This isn't okay,
(04:43):
she responded to it and said, Hey, I think this
is a sign of success for women because I can
be funny, attractive, sexy and also make fun of myself.
But at the same time, it still is indicative of
a broader problem because there was a tweet that you found,
(05:04):
right Caroline from one of the founders of the Misrepresentation
Project sort of hammers at home. Yeah, okay, because I
mean I see Regara's point absolutely that you know, hey,
I can be all of these things. I am multifaceted.
I'm not just sexy or just funny or just smart
or whatever. I can be all of these things in
one person. And I get that. And you know, a
lot of people who were defending this decision to put
(05:27):
her on a rotating pedestal, we're saying, hey, she's in
on the joke. It's funny, let her be funny. Everybody
needs to chill out. But um Imron Sadiki, who's one
of the founding members, like Kristen Said of the Representation Project,
said tweeted that Sophia Regara is objectified on stage by
the president of an award show that has only twice
awarded a Latina woman with an acting award. I think
(05:49):
that puts it in really good perspective that, Okay, yes,
a woman is obviously allowed to be all of these things,
for for sure. But there's there's a history there, and
they're a lot of stereotypes that go back a very
long way about Latina's Yeah, so Let's go over a
brief history of Latino stereotyping, because when you start to
(06:13):
understand where we've come from and you see where we
are today, it starts to crystallize. Why so if you
have regard on a pedestal is not necessarily a sign
of progress. Right. A lot of racism, bad attitudes, stereotyping
towards Latinos goes all the way back to the nineteenth century.
(06:37):
Um America is expanding westward, we are taking land, and
in so doing, we are pushing people off of their land.
And so it's in the mid nineteenth century that we
have the Mexican American War, which basically led to the
US taking over Texas, New Mexico and part of what
is now California. Yeah, and and this is all under
(07:01):
the guys in American says that this idea of manifest
destiny that this land is our land and we're going
to take it from you Native Americans and Mexicans and
whoever else really is not of European descent who's going
to get in our way. So after the Mexican American
War from eighteen forty eight to eighteen fifty five, you
(07:22):
have the California gold Rush, and with the California gold Rush,
there is also this intensifying anti Mexican sentiment brewing specifically
to keep Mexican miners out of these gold mines, and
so you have things like discriminatory tax policies being enacted
(07:43):
to keep specifically Mexican and Spanish speaking miners from the area.
And they were even lynch ings taking place right and
you know Kristen mentioned discriminatory tax policies, there were definitely
policies put in place during this time regarding specifically people
of Spanish speaking descent. And in eighteen fifty five in California,
for instance, there was an anti vagrancy statute known as
(08:06):
the Greaser Act, which defined vagrant as quote all persons
commonly known as greasers or the issue meaning that the
descendants of Spanish and Indian blood who go armed and
are not peaceable and quiet persons. And so this whole
quote unquote greaser thing is part of larger negative stereotypes
(08:28):
towards Spanish speaking people and natives of this area. This
is also around the time that we get the the
stereotype of the lazy Mexican the bandido, which really arose
as justifications for this discriminatory treatment because it's not pre
existing racism, and this applies to African Americans to end slavery.
(08:49):
It's not racism that leads to negative treatment or racism
that leads to enslaving an entire population. It is racism
that justifies the awful treatment of other human beings. Yeah,
and similar kinds of things were being applied to Native
Americans as well. In other words, like to justify this
(09:10):
concept of manifest destiny, you have to at some point
feel okay with the fact that you are, you know,
pushing these people out of land that is rand that
you know that they were there first on. So the
way these discriminatory attitudes and negative stereotypes transition onto the
screen is that you know, as this is going on
(09:33):
in California, the film industry in the early twentieth century,
in the nineteen tents and nineteen twenties, is starting to
developed in the highly racially segregated Los Angeles like white
people and uh Native Americans who were living there or
Mexicans would not be all living in the same area.
It was highly segregated. But at the same time, off screen,
(09:57):
there were plenty of Latino actors to rector, cinematographers and
other people working on film sets. But the on screen
portrayal of Latino characters was terrible. I mean, it was
usually under the stereotype of the greaser or the Latin lover,
which was actually popularized by Rudolf Valentino, who was an
(10:21):
Italian actor. Um, and then you have the dark lady
or seductress. And Steven Sarranana Lampson, who's a documentary filmmaker
who looked into the contributions of Latinos in the silent
film era said quote. In the typical grease or film,
Latina's were depicted as the heathen seductress with little morals,
(10:44):
physically aggressive, and with an insatiable sexual appetite. And so
there are examples, for instance of the nineteen twelve film
Bronco Billy's Mexican Wife, and then the fourteen film Broncho
Billy and the Greaser, in which I think it's in
that one in which the Mexican wife runs off and
tries to marry someone else and is portrayed yet again
(11:06):
as sexually insatiable and very devious. Right, So all in all,
not very positive representations of uh well just really anyone
who's not white, honestly. And at this point it's getting
so bad that in the Mexican government actually banned any
offensive movie along these lines, and Panama enacted a similar
(11:30):
band actually, and uh, the US film industry was supposed
to sort of clean up its act, but that obviously
did not stop the stereotyping from happening. And what's kind
of fascinating to see is how this stereotype evolves from
this era when Mexicans in particular were only depicted as
(11:54):
either you know, lazy or their criminals, or again this
sort of harlot type of character. But then once you
get to the nineteen thirties with FDR as president and
the Good Neighbor Policy which effectively terminated the U S
occupation of nicaraguaan Haiti, essentially FDR being like, hey, okay,
(12:17):
you know what, let's let's be friends. Somehow, you have
this evolution of what's referred to as tropicalism, and you
see on film this transition of Latinos and Latin American
depictions turning away from just being lazy, ignorant criminals to
it being this paradise but still full of these funny,
(12:40):
exotic locals. They're just funny, Caroline, because they speak English
and in and in broken sentences, and they enjoy, you know,
wearing fruits on their heads. Right, So it wants it's
paternalistic and totally diminishing entire groups of people at the
same time that it is comple lately blurring any lines
(13:01):
that exist between different cultures, countries, ethnicities, people of different heritages. Um.
And so I think that this has continued through today. Absolutely,
if you look at stereotypes that still exist. I think
American audiences in particular. You know, I can't speak for
audiences of other countries, but I mean I still think
(13:23):
that people from uh, South America, Latin America, they're all
portrayed as being one giant, monolithic group. Yeah. And this
was something that Isabelle Molina, Guzman and Angara and Valdivia
wrote about in a paper called Brain Brow and Booty
Latina Icono City in US popular Culture. They said, with
(13:45):
the rise of tropicalism, it quote a racist specificity and
homogenizes all that is identified as Latin and Latino or
Latina under the trope of tropicalism, with attributes such as
bright colors, rhythmic music, and brown or olive skin, comprising
some of the most enduring stereotypes about Latina's, a stereotype
(14:06):
best embodied by the excesses of Carmen Miranda. Yeah, Carmen
Miranda is a really interesting character. She um like she
exists in my brain thanks to movies and cartoons I
watched as a kid. I feel like she was in
cartoons too, like bugs, Bunny and stuff. Um. But she
(14:28):
donned the exaggerated traditional costume of poor young girls from
the Brazilian state of Bahia, with her flowing dress and
wearing a fruit laden turban. She was definitely beloved in
the States for being exotic there's that word, um, and
(14:49):
really entertaining and funny. But she was deeply, deeply criticized
at home for her depiction of what a Latino woman is. Yeah,
if you're still not familiar with who she is, just
think about the Shakuda banana lady. That essentially is Carmen
Miranda's quintessential character. And all of this is going on
(15:10):
with her singing about, you know, living in South America
and wearing bananas on her head, despite I mean, just
for one instance, the fact that there were were these
so called banana republics created by the United Fruit Company,
which is an American company, that were ruinous to multiple
(15:31):
Latin American nations. It's like facts like that, they're just
swept under the rug. And we have Carmen Miranda tap
dancing out saying, Okay, I'm gonna collapse all of this
culture and the fact that this tire fruit industry actually
ruined a lot of, uh, the situations for local people.
And here's my song in which I talk about how
(15:51):
colorful I am and I say everything in broken English, which,
like you said, Caroline when she returned makes it big
in the US and then transitions into Hollywood. When she
goes back to Brazil, people are not taking so kindly
to her. It's kind of tragic in a way because
(16:11):
she's figured out how to leverage you know, this uh exoticism,
can we say for you know, monetary gaining success, but
you know, at the cost of losing her you know,
local fans, right, which actually makes me think about what
we talked at the top of the podcast about, which
(16:32):
is Sofia Regara, because I mean, if you look at
Carmen Randa answer Fia Regara, there are definite parallels. Um
Carmen Miranda herself was Hollywood's highest paid woman in much
like Sofia Regara is today. But Regara is brought up
in a lot of columns by Latino women, many of
which we kind of touched on early in the podcast,
(16:56):
mentioning that maybe this isn't the best depiction and of
what a Latina woman is or what Latina women are,
not that they are one monolithic group, but I think
that's what they're arguing, that we're not all the whole spicy, sexy,
bublitious stereotype. Yeah, and while personally I enjoy Modern Family
(17:16):
and I, you know, she's a funny character just in
and of that self sort of in isolation, but it's
startling to see how in order to reach the top
of the Hollywood pay scale in and even today, it
apparently still comes at the cost of lampooning and stereotyping
(17:39):
an entire culture. Right, So this then leads us into
prominent Latina stereotypes in film, because Virgara and Carmen Miranda
would both go under the Mexican spitfire slash female clown,
and the stereotype was actually first embody, not so much
(18:01):
by Carmen Miranda, but by an earlier actress named Lupe VELAs,
and was featured prominently in films such as and pay
attention to these titles Hot Pepper in three, Strictly Dynamite four,
The Girl from Mexico in nine, and Mexican Spitfire in nine.
(18:21):
Do we see any commonalities among all these titles, lots
of references to heat and spice and spitfire, Well, yeah
we do. And one other woman who sort of embodied
these stereotypes was Estelita Rodriguez, who her portrayal of the
quote unquote Cuban Fireball was depicted in films like Cuban
(18:43):
Fireball in nine, Havanna Rose also in The Fabulous Senorita
in nineteen fifty two, and Tropical heat Wave in nineteen
fifty two. And I mean, I feel like that name, specifically,
Tropical heat Wave plays very much into this whole tropicalism
trope about like it's a paradise. Look at our sexy,
bodacious babes that exist in this tropical land. Yeah, And
(19:07):
it's usually those kind of films were usually based around
Anglo characters taking some kind of vacation to get away
from the hustle and bustle of American life and coming
to this paradise, or they meet these uh you know, cute,
fascinating and sometimes spicy locals who will then either propel
a romance between the two two white characters or teach
(19:31):
them something about themselves, and then they'll leave and everything
is magical and perfect, and I mean it should be
said about these actresses to um. One thing that film
historians point out is that, yes, we have these these
particular women embodying these certain stereotypes, but you have to
(19:51):
take it back a few levels and consider well what
roles were really being offered at the time. And in
some cases there there were instances when they could subvert stereotypes,
but it was and apparently still is, as we'll talk
about more kind of challenging to do right and we'll
talk more about some of the Latina stereotypes and film
(20:12):
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So one of the main features of the female clown
is using comedy as a way to dampen their outward sexuality.
(21:42):
They they would be seen in super sexy, but they
would be so funny as to not be uh sort
of eliminate themselves from being a love interest of the
usually white male protagonists in these films, or threatening or
exactly yes, Um, But when it comes to the harlot
or can't in a girl, as the stereotype is sometimes
(22:02):
referred to, there's no comedy about it. This stereotype is
all about sex. Is essentially the female analog to the
l Bendido stereotype of latinos in film. Right, She's dangerous,
but not in the same way that the vamp, which
we'll talk about a second, is dangerous. She is found
(22:24):
in a lot of Western films. She's definitely more of
a secondary character, hot tempered, and she's a slave to
her passions. But when it comes to the vamp, as
Caroline mentioned, the stereotype is essentially a couple of steps
up from the Cantina girl because not only is she
presented in a very outwardly sexual way and is clearly
(22:46):
sexually motivated, but the vamp uses her intellectual and devious
sexual whiles to get what she wants. And this is
also the character that you see UH sort of pitting
two male characters in films against themselves because she's so
wildy but so sexual. She's irresistible but so wiley, so spicy,
(23:10):
so spicy. Um, and modern audiences would recognize the vamp
in Eva Longoria's character in Desperate Housewives, who is married
but she has an affair and then those two men
go nuts over it and all this stuff. So yeah,
there was actually an entire paper that we read just
looking at I think it was called The Three Faces
(23:31):
of Eva, just examining how Eva Longoria, both on screen
and somewhat off screen too, as we'll talk about a minute,
fits into these stereotypes. Um. But then sort of, the
opposite of the vamp is the faithful, self sacrificing Senorita.
This according to Gary D. Keller, this woman usually starts
(23:52):
out good but then goes bad by the middle of
the film or TV show, and usually the character realizes
she's gone wrong and is still willing, though, to protect
her Anglo love interest by placing herself between him and
whatever danger she has brought upon him. She's kind of
(24:14):
this reminds me of one of the common women in
video game tropes that comes up of the disposable woman
who must be killed in order for the hero to prevail. Well,
she I mean, and she's double got to be killed
if she used to be good, oh and then went
bad like she was like triple killed. But okay, so
moving forward today, surely it's better, right, Surely it's great
(24:38):
and we all get along and everything is puppies and kittens. Okay, sure,
I think there are plenty of film there. There are
some films and one of the people. Plenty. There are
some films that reach beyond those four very rigid stereotypes.
But representation is still lacking, glare worryingly lacking. Right. This
(25:02):
is coming from a recent study by University of Southern
California's Dr Stacy Smith, and she looked at the top
one performing films between two thousand seven and and found
that Latino characters are really no surprise, underrepresented and hyper sexualized.
She found that only four point nine percent of speaking
(25:25):
characters in those years that she looked at were Hispanic.
And so if you compare that to the sixteen point
three percent of the US population that is Hispanic, and
the fact that twenty percent of theater tickets are purchased
by Latino movie goers, that's a pretty appalling number. And
when it comes to Latina's on screen. They are the
(25:46):
most likely to be partially or fully naked among all women.
So hyper sexualized very much still happening. And even though
I mean, you do have Latina's at the top of
their game in Hollywood. I mean, we've already mentioned j
lo Eva Longoria, Sophia Vergara, you have Salma Hayak. We
(26:06):
could keep going on and on. There are a number
of Latina A List stars, but there's still a lot
of frustration with the perpetuation of these stereotyped portrayals. Um
and and this was something that a question that was
raised right at the launch of a show executive produce
(26:27):
actually by Eva Longoria called Devious Maids, which is still
running right now as of this podcast recording on Lifetime. Yeah,
I have to say, the first time I ever saw
an ad for the show, my eyebrows raised to my hairline.
I was I was incredibly suppressed. I didn't know that
it was at the time, didn't know that Eva Longoria
was producing it. But but you know, this is another
thing like Sofia regard being on a pedestal and saying, hey,
(26:48):
it's no big deal. Eva Longoria was saying, what's wrong
with the spicy thing. You know, what's wrong with being
a Latin lover? Why is that a bad stereotype? She said,
I consider that a compliment. Same thing with latinas always
being cast as the sexy girl. It's a good thing.
And I thought, Okay, al right, Okay, so she's beautiful
and she's cool with the stereotype, and that's fine. But
(27:09):
I couldn't help thinking that what if that quote was
about African American women? You know, like, I feel like,
what's wrong with always being the sassy black friend? Yeah? Well,
what's well that, what's wrong with always being the stereotypical
sassy black friend? But what if somebody were to say
that about black women, like, hey, what's wrong with always
(27:29):
being sexy? Just because okay, there's nothing wrong with being sexy,
like in a vacuum. There is nothing wrong with being
sexy or sexual. But when you when you look at
the fact that African American women all the way back
to slavery were hyper sexualized and considered savages with their sexuality,
and you look at the same stereotypes that exist around
(27:51):
Latino women. I mean, I think that and I'm saying
this as a non Hispanic person, as a non Latina,
but I feel like that it's kind of a dangerous,
dangerous territory to tread well. If anything, it's undoubtedly limiting, right.
You know, Eva Longoria clearly has made an entire career,
and a successful one at that, playing this very specific
(28:14):
type of character. But there are a lot of other
Latina actresses out there who might want a shot at
not just having to play a trophy wife, um and
just going back to the devious maids thing. It was
just interesting that she executive produced this, and yes it
(28:36):
stars all Latina's who are playing maids, but there were
some people raising their eyebrows. I don't know if their
eyebrows went all the way up to their airlines like
Carolines did, but some concern at the outside of the show,
which by the way, was not something she just concocted
out of her head. It's actually an americanized version the
show that originated on Spanish language television, but they changed
(29:01):
up the racial makeup of all the characters, which used
to and its original incarnation it used to be all
Latinos playing from the wealthy down to the maids, but
now they changed it up so that I believe the
wealthy people who have the maids are all white people,
and also the head writer was a white guy too,
(29:23):
So there were some people just wondering, Okay, is this
really going to be Are we really going to see
the stories of these women, because certainly, you know, just
because it is about maids, it doesn't mean that important
stories can't be told. But there were concerns over whether
that representation would simply be repeating old stereotypes over and
(29:45):
over again, or which is I mean, yeah, I mean
it's a legitimate concern. Yeah, yeah, um. But there are
also actresses out there who seem to have bucked stereotyped roles,
like America Ferrara is one who um comes up a
lot in these kinds of conversations, and Selma Hiak also
started her own production company partially to broaden the types
(30:07):
of roles available to herself and to other Latinas. But
what's interesting too is how there are a lot of
a list performers out there with Latino roots but who
don't want to be labeled Latina actresses, not because they're
ashamed of their ethnicity, but precisely because they don't want
(30:30):
to be pigeonholed and stereotyped because those stereotypes are so persistent,
those stereotypes that evil Longoria apparently is you know, totally
fine with. Yeah. Well, the big one I think that
comes up a lot is Jessica. She's referred to as Jessica,
don't call me Latina Alba. Yeah, she got a lot
of flak for that. Like I remember that if if
(30:50):
something from pop culture like that jumps out at me,
it was a big deal. But other other actresses like
Cameron Diaz who is Cuban on her dad's side, Uma Thurman,
who had a Mexican born mother, which I had no
idea about. But then again, why why would I really honestly, um,
Sarah Ramirez, who plays a character on Grey's Anatomy, is
a quarter of Mexican, and then Leah Michelle from Glee,
(31:13):
who is both part Italian American and part Spanish, Sephardic Jewish,
and Parks and Wrec fans might already know that Aubrey
Plaza is half Puerto Rican, and Gilmore Girls fans might
know that Alexis Bludel, who plays Rory, has a Mexican
mother and an Argentine father. And it's just these kinds
(31:33):
of lists are interesting because I think it was in
an interview with Sarah Amiraz from Grey's Anatomy, who was
specifically asked about being always classified, like always making it
on the X number of Latina actresses you didn't know
where Latina, and she just kind of laughed it off
and talked about how it those kinds of things do
(31:55):
nothing to improve the representation and just sort of that
line that it seems like as actress as they have
to walk between like, Okay, well, if I fully identify
with this, then am I only going to get these
kinds of roles or you know? Well, I mean, I
think in the case of Sarah Ramirez and her co
workers on Grey's Anatomy and other Shonda Rhime shows are
(32:17):
are doing really well in terms of representation because someone
likes Sarah Ramirez, isn't the Latina character you know, um,
other characters on those shows aren't the black friend you
know there. I think Shanna Rhymes is providing some really great,
well rounded characters and plot lines that don't focus on
the race or ethnicity of her characters. And so I
(32:41):
I did enjoy I did enjoy watching Gray's Anatomy at
one point not so much anymore. I feel like it's
Jump the Sharks. Sorry, but someone like Sara Ramirez I
think I like. I like her a lot well. And
I was surprised to learn too that this has been
something um that Jennifer Lopez j LO has had to
fight as well, um, particularly when it came to the
(33:05):
I mean, I think it's probably the most feminist film
in the Hollywood canon. The Wedding Planner. Her character it
is Italian American, and her agents specifically fought for her
to get that role, sort of to just show that hey,
she can she can do this, whereas if you look
at her in Made Manhattan, her character is specifically Latino.
(33:29):
But it's just interesting to see these kinds of case studies,
if you can call them that, of actresses actively seeking
to play beyond what people want to pigeonhole them in
based on their heritage, because it's not like, you know,
white actors have pretty much had the opportunity to play
(33:50):
often whatever kind of ethnicity they want, because you could
say that that is often a privilege afforded to white
actor of oh yeah, I go, what ethnicity are? You know,
they don't get asked that at all they're just put
in that role. Yeah. Well, Daisy Hernandez at NPR was
writing about the sexiest depictions of Latino women. Um, but
(34:14):
she was writing about it from the perspective of the
sexism that's happening on actual Spanish language shows, not just
in American media. Um. And talks about how a lot
of the women that are on shows on Spanish language television,
line talk shows or whatever, variety shows, the man might
(34:34):
be in a fancy suit that's you know, just a
normal suit, and the woman next to him will be
in like a crop top and in short shorts. Yeah.
She highlights particularly Sabato Gigante, which is in the Guinness
Book of World Records, by the way, as the longest
running variety show which constantly features scantily clad women, and
(34:58):
also l showed a Fernando he'd all go out of
Miami and sort of the point that she's the overall
point she's making is, Okay, here's the thing. It's not
just American media fueling this spicy trope. And she summed
it up so well in fact, that I'm going to
(35:18):
read this rather long quote she said, across Cultura's borders
and languages entertainment industries profit from selling handpicked images of
women's bodies. On English language television, the emphasis is on
the rolling rs. On Spanish language television, it's on the
smiles and the bilays. In both cases, women are reduced
(35:38):
to the quare posts, their hips, their rear ends, their senios.
I suspect it will take many Latino women not on screen,
but rather controlling cash flows and camera crews and committing
to social change to change TV land in both has
of America. Yeah, people like salmahiak Is running her production
company exactly exactly, So that's why you and things. On
(36:00):
a positive note, it is great that we do have
so many Latina stars not only already in the A
list but also on the rise. But this is also
just it touches on so many different aspects in terms
of yes, exoticizing women of color, and also to the
importance of women in Hollywood in positions of power, because
(36:24):
that's what it will take to change overall the portrayal
of women on screen, which then trickles down to how
we think about and treat women off screens. So with that,
we want to hear from you, dear listeners. Latina is
listening We especially want to hear your thoughts on this
(36:46):
mom stuff at how stuff works dot com is where
you can email us. You can also tweet us at
mom Stuff podcast and messages on Facebook as well, and
we have a couple of messages to share with you
right now. All right, Vanessa writes us about our cosplay episode.
(37:06):
She says, I've been waiting for a cosplay episode since
I first started listening. Well, she says, my sister and
I have been making our own Halloween costumes since we
were kids, and have been costplaying at conventions for about
three years. We're not pros at it by any means,
but we love repurposing old clothes or thrift shop fines
for cosplay on the cheap. Neither of us has had
(37:27):
any issues at a convention, thankfully. In one of our favorites,
the Steampunk World's Fair in New Jersey, actually had a
series of panels on treating all attendees with respect and
courtesy and making the con feel like a safe space. However,
one thing I have felt almost every year tending conventions
is the dreaded walk to con I know some people
like to change once they reach the convention center, but
(37:48):
we've always arrived in costume and have both been made
to feel uncomfortable when using public transit, going out for
food prices at the con are crazy, or just walking
home and costume away from the crowds of similar really
costumed fans. It kind of dampens the excitement when you
have to think about bringing a coat or cover up
in order to get there without being harassed. I'm sure
some of the stairs and comments are simply due to
(38:10):
the novelty of seeing someone in costume on a day
other than Halloween, but hey, we're in New York City.
I'm sure that people commenting have seen stranger sites than us.
Keep up the good work, and I'd love to hear
your response and analysis of the men's rights movement, even
though I'm sure it will be infuriating. Thank you for
your letter and your request. Vanessa, Well, I've got a
(38:31):
letter here from Amy, also in response to her episode
on cosplay, and Amy is a Civil War reenactor, and
she writes, I found it very interesting and was curious
as to whether you came across anything in your research
comparing or disassociating norms and trends and cosplay from historical reenacting.
Some topics were very familiar in terms of accuracy of
(38:52):
the costumes, dressing as the opposite sex or gender, and
attitudes toward women in costumes. And she goes on to
talk about how there are mainly three camps, so to speak,
in the re enacting world of mainstreamers, campaigners, and hard cores,
and she says mainstreamers like to put on a good show,
campaigners like to educate through living history, and hard cores
(39:15):
have a tendency to play by themselves. Obviously, these are
sweeping generalizations, but within these you do get into hang ups,
if you will. Regarding the legitimacy of women wanting to
portray men, it rarely goes the other way, and the
accurate portrayal of minorities, mainly African Americans admittedly agentistic with
a campaigner crowd, so we will try to have a
(39:36):
healthy attitude towards anyone wanting to participate without being too discouraging.
During the Civil War there were limited roles for women,
such as nurses and vivandiers at the front lines, so
usually women tend to go with a civilian portrayals such
as a family following as cooks or laundress in the
wagon trail refugees, camp followers, or an entire side impression
of the home front. There's documentation of women disguised as
(39:59):
men and their ranks I believe up four hundred, but
they really had to sell it with short hair and
a boyish figure, so it does look odd to see
a voluptuous one with a ponytail marching in the front
line of an infantry. I've seen some hardcoes really come
down on some women for this. In terms of minority portrayals, unfortunately,
in my opinion, they're in the minority, and understandably so.
(40:20):
Not many people of color would want to portray a
time in which they were considered less than those around them.
I've met to people who portrayed African Americans and various
roles from slave to freedmen very well. Their argument for
participating in the hobby is not to glorify the actions
of white men in the past, but to educate everyone
about the realities of what minorities went through. They admit
that there have been awkward moments, but for the most
(40:42):
part their portrayals have not only been enlightening to the
spectating public but to their fellow re enactors. Obviously, there
are many things that could be delved into with a
topic like this, especially if you explore other time periods
which I'm not familiar with. Thanks for everything you do,
and thanks to you Amy for writing in, and thanks
to everybody who's written into us mom stuff at how
(41:03):
stuff works dot com is our email address and for
links to all of our social media's as well as
all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including our podcast
sources so you can follow along with us. There's one
place to go, and it's stuff Mom Never Told You
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.
(41:26):
Is it how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And today on the podcast, we are
going to chuckle a persistent stereotype targeted toward Latina women,
(00:23):
and that is of the spicy Latina. That's right, And
this is kind of jumping off of an episode we
did previously on the exoticization of women of color, the
fact that a lot of women of color get called exotic,
their exotic beauty, this and that, and how so many
people who are not women of color considered a compliment. No,
(00:47):
I'm complimenting you, and so much of the feedback that
we received from listeners was saying, hey, thanks for talking
about it, because I just feel like somebody's comparing me
to an animal. Yeah, And one thing that we heard
a lot from Latina listeners is about how they will
be called spicy or they're hot tamalies or their mama Sita's.
(01:07):
They're always highly sexualized under this spicy umbrella and also
kind of put into this monolithic box of all Latina's
being curvaceous, tan skinned with long wavy hair. They cook
a lot of spicy food, and they also, you know,
speak English with a thick accent. And above all, again
(01:30):
and again, they're spicy. They're often described in terms of food, right,
And I thought one columnists put it really well. Shantiana
Laden at the Feminist Wire talked about this whole spicy
Latina stereotype and what it means, and that a lot
of people and this is not just her, a lot
of these columnists talking about this issue. We're saying, you know,
(01:50):
somebody might not even realize my heritage or my background,
but as soon as they find out that I'm Latina,
they make all of these really gross, weird, inappropriate assumptions
about me and the bedroom. And she just says, flat out, look,
I am not your spicy Latina. Yeah. She goes on
to say, quote, so when people tell me I must
be a spitfire or a freaky girl in bed because
(02:13):
I'm Hispanic, I am not at all flattered. They're working
on stereotypes created long ago to subordinate women of color
and cast them as the inferior other. And there were
so many other columnists of all sorts of Latina ethnicities
who weighed in on this very topic across the Internet,
(02:34):
all saying the same thing over and over and over
again in terms of, hey, guess what, I'm not your
spicy Latina and also can we please stop this stereotype? Right?
And part of that is is body image. A lot
of people expect because of amazing women like j Lo
or or other women like that, they expect a certain
(02:55):
figure from Latina women. And Raquel Record at Everyday Feminism
talked about this curvy Latina stereotype being so damaging two
young women because she says, look, okay, so maybe in
our culture we don't have the same pressure to be
the size zero Cape Moss supermodel, um, but we do
have this pressure to look like Salmahiyak or to look
(03:17):
like j Lo with a tiny waist, a big behind
in large breasts. Yeah. And she also wrote about this
over at fem Inspire. Record did and she said the
words used to describe Latina bodies like spicy, hot, juicy
figuratively reduced Latina's to food that's craved, salivated, over, attained, devoured,
(03:38):
and then flushed away. And I think, jumping straight off
of that whole idea of food, that image of a
Latino woman being presented as something to be consumed leads
us right into Emmys. Uh, during which, and I'm sure
a lot of you are aware of this, during which
Colombian born actress Sophia Regard of Modern Family Funny Show
(04:02):
literally put on a pedestal and rotated for the audience
as the president of the awards show delivered a really
dry speech basically saying, here is this spicy latina to
look at as I give you this really dry, boring speech. Well,
it was supposed to be this kind of visual joke too,
because he was talking about the great strides that women
(04:22):
on television had made. And there you have Sophia Virgara,
who is, by the way, the highest paid woman in
Hollywood right now, rotating on a pedestal. And when Vergara
responded to people, especially on Twitter, saying, um, what's happening
right now? Why is she on a pedestal? This isn't okay,
(04:43):
she responded to it and said, Hey, I think this
is a sign of success for women because I can
be funny, attractive, sexy and also make fun of myself.
But at the same time, it still is indicative of
a broader problem because there was a tweet that you found,
(05:04):
right Caroline from one of the founders of the Misrepresentation
Project sort of hammers at home. Yeah, okay, because I
mean I see Regara's point absolutely that you know, hey,
I can be all of these things. I am multifaceted.
I'm not just sexy or just funny or just smart
or whatever. I can be all of these things in
one person. And I get that. And you know, a
lot of people who were defending this decision to put
(05:27):
her on a rotating pedestal, we're saying, hey, she's in
on the joke. It's funny, let her be funny. Everybody
needs to chill out. But um Imron Sadiki, who's one
of the founding members, like Kristen Said of the Representation Project,
said tweeted that Sophia Regara is objectified on stage by
the president of an award show that has only twice
awarded a Latina woman with an acting award. I think
(05:49):
that puts it in really good perspective that, Okay, yes,
a woman is obviously allowed to be all of these things,
for for sure. But there's there's a history there, and
they're a lot of stereotypes that go back a very
long way about Latina's Yeah, so Let's go over a
brief history of Latino stereotyping, because when you start to
(06:13):
understand where we've come from and you see where we
are today, it starts to crystallize. Why so if you
have regard on a pedestal is not necessarily a sign
of progress. Right. A lot of racism, bad attitudes, stereotyping
towards Latinos goes all the way back to the nineteenth century.
(06:37):
Um America is expanding westward, we are taking land, and
in so doing, we are pushing people off of their land.
And so it's in the mid nineteenth century that we
have the Mexican American War, which basically led to the
US taking over Texas, New Mexico and part of what
is now California. Yeah, and and this is all under
(07:01):
the guys in American says that this idea of manifest
destiny that this land is our land and we're going
to take it from you Native Americans and Mexicans and
whoever else really is not of European descent who's going
to get in our way. So after the Mexican American
War from eighteen forty eight to eighteen fifty five, you
(07:22):
have the California gold Rush, and with the California gold Rush,
there is also this intensifying anti Mexican sentiment brewing specifically
to keep Mexican miners out of these gold mines, and
so you have things like discriminatory tax policies being enacted
(07:43):
to keep specifically Mexican and Spanish speaking miners from the area.
And they were even lynch ings taking place right and
you know Kristen mentioned discriminatory tax policies, there were definitely
policies put in place during this time regarding specifically people
of Spanish speaking descent. And in eighteen fifty five in California,
for instance, there was an anti vagrancy statute known as
(08:06):
the Greaser Act, which defined vagrant as quote all persons
commonly known as greasers or the issue meaning that the
descendants of Spanish and Indian blood who go armed and
are not peaceable and quiet persons. And so this whole
quote unquote greaser thing is part of larger negative stereotypes
(08:28):
towards Spanish speaking people and natives of this area. This
is also around the time that we get the the
stereotype of the lazy Mexican the bandido, which really arose
as justifications for this discriminatory treatment because it's not pre
existing racism, and this applies to African Americans to end slavery.
(08:49):
It's not racism that leads to negative treatment or racism
that leads to enslaving an entire population. It is racism
that justifies the awful treatment of other human beings. Yeah,
and similar kinds of things were being applied to Native
Americans as well. In other words, like to justify this
(09:10):
concept of manifest destiny, you have to at some point
feel okay with the fact that you are, you know,
pushing these people out of land that is rand that
you know that they were there first on. So the
way these discriminatory attitudes and negative stereotypes transition onto the
screen is that you know, as this is going on
(09:33):
in California, the film industry in the early twentieth century,
in the nineteen tents and nineteen twenties, is starting to
developed in the highly racially segregated Los Angeles like white
people and uh Native Americans who were living there or
Mexicans would not be all living in the same area.
It was highly segregated. But at the same time, off screen,
(09:57):
there were plenty of Latino actors to rector, cinematographers and
other people working on film sets. But the on screen
portrayal of Latino characters was terrible. I mean, it was
usually under the stereotype of the greaser or the Latin lover,
which was actually popularized by Rudolf Valentino, who was an
(10:21):
Italian actor. Um, and then you have the dark lady
or seductress. And Steven Sarranana Lampson, who's a documentary filmmaker
who looked into the contributions of Latinos in the silent
film era said quote. In the typical grease or film,
Latina's were depicted as the heathen seductress with little morals,
(10:44):
physically aggressive, and with an insatiable sexual appetite. And so
there are examples, for instance of the nineteen twelve film
Bronco Billy's Mexican Wife, and then the fourteen film Broncho
Billy and the Greaser, in which I think it's in
that one in which the Mexican wife runs off and
tries to marry someone else and is portrayed yet again
(11:06):
as sexually insatiable and very devious. Right, So all in all,
not very positive representations of uh well just really anyone
who's not white, honestly. And at this point it's getting
so bad that in the Mexican government actually banned any
offensive movie along these lines, and Panama enacted a similar
(11:30):
band actually, and uh, the US film industry was supposed
to sort of clean up its act, but that obviously
did not stop the stereotyping from happening. And what's kind
of fascinating to see is how this stereotype evolves from
this era when Mexicans in particular were only depicted as
(11:54):
either you know, lazy or their criminals, or again this
sort of harlot type of character. But then once you
get to the nineteen thirties with FDR as president and
the Good Neighbor Policy which effectively terminated the U S
occupation of nicaraguaan Haiti, essentially FDR being like, hey, okay,
(12:17):
you know what, let's let's be friends. Somehow, you have
this evolution of what's referred to as tropicalism, and you
see on film this transition of Latinos and Latin American
depictions turning away from just being lazy, ignorant criminals to
it being this paradise but still full of these funny,
(12:40):
exotic locals. They're just funny, Caroline, because they speak English
and in and in broken sentences, and they enjoy, you know,
wearing fruits on their heads. Right, So it wants it's
paternalistic and totally diminishing entire groups of people at the
same time that it is comple lately blurring any lines
(13:01):
that exist between different cultures, countries, ethnicities, people of different heritages. Um.
And so I think that this has continued through today. Absolutely,
if you look at stereotypes that still exist. I think
American audiences in particular. You know, I can't speak for
audiences of other countries, but I mean I still think
(13:23):
that people from uh, South America, Latin America, they're all
portrayed as being one giant, monolithic group. Yeah. And this
was something that Isabelle Molina, Guzman and Angara and Valdivia
wrote about in a paper called Brain Brow and Booty
Latina Icono City in US popular Culture. They said, with
(13:45):
the rise of tropicalism, it quote a racist specificity and
homogenizes all that is identified as Latin and Latino or
Latina under the trope of tropicalism, with attributes such as
bright colors, rhythmic music, and brown or olive skin, comprising
some of the most enduring stereotypes about Latina's, a stereotype
(14:06):
best embodied by the excesses of Carmen Miranda. Yeah, Carmen
Miranda is a really interesting character. She um like she
exists in my brain thanks to movies and cartoons I
watched as a kid. I feel like she was in
cartoons too, like bugs, Bunny and stuff. Um. But she
(14:28):
donned the exaggerated traditional costume of poor young girls from
the Brazilian state of Bahia, with her flowing dress and
wearing a fruit laden turban. She was definitely beloved in
the States for being exotic there's that word, um, and
(14:49):
really entertaining and funny. But she was deeply, deeply criticized
at home for her depiction of what a Latino woman is. Yeah,
if you're still not familiar with who she is, just
think about the Shakuda banana lady. That essentially is Carmen
Miranda's quintessential character. And all of this is going on
(15:10):
with her singing about, you know, living in South America
and wearing bananas on her head, despite I mean, just
for one instance, the fact that there were were these
so called banana republics created by the United Fruit Company,
which is an American company, that were ruinous to multiple
(15:31):
Latin American nations. It's like facts like that, they're just
swept under the rug. And we have Carmen Miranda tap
dancing out saying, Okay, I'm gonna collapse all of this
culture and the fact that this tire fruit industry actually
ruined a lot of, uh, the situations for local people.
And here's my song in which I talk about how
(15:51):
colorful I am and I say everything in broken English, which,
like you said, Caroline when she returned makes it big
in the US and then transitions into Hollywood. When she
goes back to Brazil, people are not taking so kindly
to her. It's kind of tragic in a way because
(16:11):
she's figured out how to leverage you know, this uh exoticism,
can we say for you know, monetary gaining success, but
you know, at the cost of losing her you know,
local fans, right, which actually makes me think about what
we talked at the top of the podcast about, which
(16:32):
is Sofia Regara, because I mean, if you look at
Carmen Randa answer Fia Regara, there are definite parallels. Um
Carmen Miranda herself was Hollywood's highest paid woman in much
like Sofia Regara is today. But Regara is brought up
in a lot of columns by Latino women, many of
which we kind of touched on early in the podcast,
(16:56):
mentioning that maybe this isn't the best depiction and of
what a Latina woman is or what Latina women are,
not that they are one monolithic group, but I think
that's what they're arguing, that we're not all the whole spicy, sexy,
bublitious stereotype. Yeah, and while personally I enjoy Modern Family
(17:16):
and I, you know, she's a funny character just in
and of that self sort of in isolation, but it's
startling to see how in order to reach the top
of the Hollywood pay scale in and even today, it
apparently still comes at the cost of lampooning and stereotyping
(17:39):
an entire culture. Right, So this then leads us into
prominent Latina stereotypes in film, because Virgara and Carmen Miranda
would both go under the Mexican spitfire slash female clown,
and the stereotype was actually first embody, not so much
(18:01):
by Carmen Miranda, but by an earlier actress named Lupe VELAs,
and was featured prominently in films such as and pay
attention to these titles Hot Pepper in three, Strictly Dynamite four,
The Girl from Mexico in nine, and Mexican Spitfire in nine.
(18:21):
Do we see any commonalities among all these titles, lots
of references to heat and spice and spitfire, Well, yeah
we do. And one other woman who sort of embodied
these stereotypes was Estelita Rodriguez, who her portrayal of the
quote unquote Cuban Fireball was depicted in films like Cuban
(18:43):
Fireball in nine, Havanna Rose also in The Fabulous Senorita
in nineteen fifty two, and Tropical heat Wave in nineteen
fifty two. And I mean, I feel like that name, specifically,
Tropical heat Wave plays very much into this whole tropicalism
trope about like it's a paradise. Look at our sexy,
bodacious babes that exist in this tropical land. Yeah, And
(19:07):
it's usually those kind of films were usually based around
Anglo characters taking some kind of vacation to get away
from the hustle and bustle of American life and coming
to this paradise, or they meet these uh you know, cute,
fascinating and sometimes spicy locals who will then either propel
a romance between the two two white characters or teach
(19:31):
them something about themselves, and then they'll leave and everything
is magical and perfect, and I mean it should be
said about these actresses to um. One thing that film
historians point out is that, yes, we have these these
particular women embodying these certain stereotypes, but you have to
(19:51):
take it back a few levels and consider well what
roles were really being offered at the time. And in
some cases there there were instances when they could subvert stereotypes,
but it was and apparently still is, as we'll talk
about more kind of challenging to do right and we'll
talk more about some of the Latina stereotypes and film
(20:12):
when we come right back from a quick break. So listeners,
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Oh and you're welcome and now back to the shop.
So one of the main features of the female clown
is using comedy as a way to dampen their outward sexuality.
(21:42):
They they would be seen in super sexy, but they
would be so funny as to not be uh sort
of eliminate themselves from being a love interest of the
usually white male protagonists in these films, or threatening or
exactly yes, Um, But when it comes to the harlot
or can't in a girl, as the stereotype is sometimes
(22:02):
referred to, there's no comedy about it. This stereotype is
all about sex. Is essentially the female analog to the
l Bendido stereotype of latinos in film. Right, She's dangerous,
but not in the same way that the vamp, which
we'll talk about a second, is dangerous. She is found
(22:24):
in a lot of Western films. She's definitely more of
a secondary character, hot tempered, and she's a slave to
her passions. But when it comes to the vamp, as
Caroline mentioned, the stereotype is essentially a couple of steps
up from the Cantina girl because not only is she
presented in a very outwardly sexual way and is clearly
(22:46):
sexually motivated, but the vamp uses her intellectual and devious
sexual whiles to get what she wants. And this is
also the character that you see UH sort of pitting
two male characters in films against themselves because she's so
wildy but so sexual. She's irresistible but so wiley, so spicy,
(23:10):
so spicy. Um, and modern audiences would recognize the vamp
in Eva Longoria's character in Desperate Housewives, who is married
but she has an affair and then those two men
go nuts over it and all this stuff. So yeah,
there was actually an entire paper that we read just
looking at I think it was called The Three Faces
(23:31):
of Eva, just examining how Eva Longoria, both on screen
and somewhat off screen too, as we'll talk about a minute,
fits into these stereotypes. Um. But then sort of, the
opposite of the vamp is the faithful, self sacrificing Senorita.
This according to Gary D. Keller, this woman usually starts
(23:52):
out good but then goes bad by the middle of
the film or TV show, and usually the character realizes
she's gone wrong and is still willing, though, to protect
her Anglo love interest by placing herself between him and
whatever danger she has brought upon him. She's kind of
(24:14):
this reminds me of one of the common women in
video game tropes that comes up of the disposable woman
who must be killed in order for the hero to prevail. Well,
she I mean, and she's double got to be killed
if she used to be good, oh and then went
bad like she was like triple killed. But okay, so
moving forward today, surely it's better, right, Surely it's great
(24:38):
and we all get along and everything is puppies and kittens. Okay, sure,
I think there are plenty of film there. There are
some films and one of the people. Plenty. There are
some films that reach beyond those four very rigid stereotypes.
But representation is still lacking, glare worryingly lacking. Right. This
(25:02):
is coming from a recent study by University of Southern
California's Dr Stacy Smith, and she looked at the top
one performing films between two thousand seven and and found
that Latino characters are really no surprise, underrepresented and hyper sexualized.
She found that only four point nine percent of speaking
(25:25):
characters in those years that she looked at were Hispanic.
And so if you compare that to the sixteen point
three percent of the US population that is Hispanic, and
the fact that twenty percent of theater tickets are purchased
by Latino movie goers, that's a pretty appalling number. And
when it comes to Latina's on screen. They are the
(25:46):
most likely to be partially or fully naked among all women.
So hyper sexualized very much still happening. And even though
I mean, you do have Latina's at the top of
their game in Hollywood. I mean, we've already mentioned j
lo Eva Longoria, Sophia Vergara, you have Salma Hayak. We
(26:06):
could keep going on and on. There are a number
of Latina A List stars, but there's still a lot
of frustration with the perpetuation of these stereotyped portrayals. Um
and and this was something that a question that was
raised right at the launch of a show executive produce
(26:27):
actually by Eva Longoria called Devious Maids, which is still
running right now as of this podcast recording on Lifetime. Yeah,
I have to say, the first time I ever saw
an ad for the show, my eyebrows raised to my hairline.
I was I was incredibly suppressed. I didn't know that
it was at the time, didn't know that Eva Longoria
was producing it. But but you know, this is another
thing like Sofia regard being on a pedestal and saying, hey,
(26:48):
it's no big deal. Eva Longoria was saying, what's wrong
with the spicy thing. You know, what's wrong with being
a Latin lover? Why is that a bad stereotype? She said,
I consider that a compliment. Same thing with latinas always
being cast as the sexy girl. It's a good thing.
And I thought, Okay, al right, Okay, so she's beautiful
and she's cool with the stereotype, and that's fine. But
(27:09):
I couldn't help thinking that what if that quote was
about African American women? You know, like, I feel like,
what's wrong with always being the sassy black friend? Yeah? Well,
what's well that, what's wrong with always being the stereotypical
sassy black friend? But what if somebody were to say
that about black women, like, hey, what's wrong with always
(27:29):
being sexy? Just because okay, there's nothing wrong with being sexy,
like in a vacuum. There is nothing wrong with being
sexy or sexual. But when you when you look at
the fact that African American women all the way back
to slavery were hyper sexualized and considered savages with their sexuality,
and you look at the same stereotypes that exist around
(27:51):
Latino women. I mean, I think that and I'm saying
this as a non Hispanic person, as a non Latina,
but I feel like that it's kind of a dangerous,
dangerous territory to tread well. If anything, it's undoubtedly limiting, right.
You know, Eva Longoria clearly has made an entire career,
and a successful one at that, playing this very specific
(28:14):
type of character. But there are a lot of other
Latina actresses out there who might want a shot at
not just having to play a trophy wife, um and
just going back to the devious maids thing. It was
just interesting that she executive produced this, and yes it
(28:36):
stars all Latina's who are playing maids, but there were
some people raising their eyebrows. I don't know if their
eyebrows went all the way up to their airlines like
Carolines did, but some concern at the outside of the show,
which by the way, was not something she just concocted
out of her head. It's actually an americanized version the
show that originated on Spanish language television, but they changed
(29:01):
up the racial makeup of all the characters, which used
to and its original incarnation it used to be all
Latinos playing from the wealthy down to the maids, but
now they changed it up so that I believe the
wealthy people who have the maids are all white people,
and also the head writer was a white guy too,
(29:23):
So there were some people just wondering, Okay, is this
really going to be Are we really going to see
the stories of these women, because certainly, you know, just
because it is about maids, it doesn't mean that important
stories can't be told. But there were concerns over whether
that representation would simply be repeating old stereotypes over and
(29:45):
over again, or which is I mean, yeah, I mean
it's a legitimate concern. Yeah, yeah, um. But there are
also actresses out there who seem to have bucked stereotyped roles,
like America Ferrara is one who um comes up a
lot in these kinds of conversations, and Selma Hiak also
started her own production company partially to broaden the types
(30:07):
of roles available to herself and to other Latinas. But
what's interesting too is how there are a lot of
a list performers out there with Latino roots but who
don't want to be labeled Latina actresses, not because they're
ashamed of their ethnicity, but precisely because they don't want
(30:30):
to be pigeonholed and stereotyped because those stereotypes are so persistent,
those stereotypes that evil Longoria apparently is you know, totally
fine with. Yeah. Well, the big one I think that
comes up a lot is Jessica. She's referred to as Jessica,
don't call me Latina Alba. Yeah, she got a lot
of flak for that. Like I remember that if if
(30:50):
something from pop culture like that jumps out at me,
it was a big deal. But other other actresses like
Cameron Diaz who is Cuban on her dad's side, Uma Thurman,
who had a Mexican born mother, which I had no
idea about. But then again, why why would I really honestly, um,
Sarah Ramirez, who plays a character on Grey's Anatomy, is
a quarter of Mexican, and then Leah Michelle from Glee,
(31:13):
who is both part Italian American and part Spanish, Sephardic Jewish,
and Parks and Wrec fans might already know that Aubrey
Plaza is half Puerto Rican, and Gilmore Girls fans might
know that Alexis Bludel, who plays Rory, has a Mexican
mother and an Argentine father. And it's just these kinds
(31:33):
of lists are interesting because I think it was in
an interview with Sarah Amiraz from Grey's Anatomy, who was
specifically asked about being always classified, like always making it
on the X number of Latina actresses you didn't know
where Latina, and she just kind of laughed it off
and talked about how it those kinds of things do
(31:55):
nothing to improve the representation and just sort of that
line that it seems like as actress as they have
to walk between like, Okay, well, if I fully identify
with this, then am I only going to get these
kinds of roles or you know? Well, I mean, I
think in the case of Sarah Ramirez and her co
workers on Grey's Anatomy and other Shonda Rhime shows are
(32:17):
are doing really well in terms of representation because someone
likes Sarah Ramirez, isn't the Latina character you know, um,
other characters on those shows aren't the black friend you
know there. I think Shanna Rhymes is providing some really great,
well rounded characters and plot lines that don't focus on
the race or ethnicity of her characters. And so I
(32:41):
I did enjoy I did enjoy watching Gray's Anatomy at
one point not so much anymore. I feel like it's
Jump the Sharks. Sorry, but someone like Sara Ramirez I
think I like. I like her a lot well. And
I was surprised to learn too that this has been
something um that Jennifer Lopez j LO has had to
fight as well, um, particularly when it came to the
(33:05):
I mean, I think it's probably the most feminist film
in the Hollywood canon. The Wedding Planner. Her character it
is Italian American, and her agents specifically fought for her
to get that role, sort of to just show that hey,
she can she can do this, whereas if you look
at her in Made Manhattan, her character is specifically Latino.
(33:29):
But it's just interesting to see these kinds of case studies,
if you can call them that, of actresses actively seeking
to play beyond what people want to pigeonhole them in
based on their heritage, because it's not like, you know,
white actors have pretty much had the opportunity to play
(33:50):
often whatever kind of ethnicity they want, because you could
say that that is often a privilege afforded to white
actor of oh yeah, I go, what ethnicity are? You know,
they don't get asked that at all they're just put
in that role. Yeah. Well, Daisy Hernandez at NPR was
writing about the sexiest depictions of Latino women. Um, but
(34:14):
she was writing about it from the perspective of the
sexism that's happening on actual Spanish language shows, not just
in American media. Um. And talks about how a lot
of the women that are on shows on Spanish language television,
line talk shows or whatever, variety shows, the man might
(34:34):
be in a fancy suit that's you know, just a
normal suit, and the woman next to him will be
in like a crop top and in short shorts. Yeah.
She highlights particularly Sabato Gigante, which is in the Guinness
Book of World Records, by the way, as the longest
running variety show which constantly features scantily clad women, and
(34:58):
also l showed a Fernando he'd all go out of
Miami and sort of the point that she's the overall
point she's making is, Okay, here's the thing. It's not
just American media fueling this spicy trope. And she summed
it up so well in fact, that I'm going to
(35:18):
read this rather long quote she said, across Cultura's borders
and languages entertainment industries profit from selling handpicked images of
women's bodies. On English language television, the emphasis is on
the rolling rs. On Spanish language television, it's on the
smiles and the bilays. In both cases, women are reduced
(35:38):
to the quare posts, their hips, their rear ends, their senios.
I suspect it will take many Latino women not on screen,
but rather controlling cash flows and camera crews and committing
to social change to change TV land in both has
of America. Yeah, people like salmahiak Is running her production
company exactly exactly, So that's why you and things. On
(36:00):
a positive note, it is great that we do have
so many Latina stars not only already in the A
list but also on the rise. But this is also
just it touches on so many different aspects in terms
of yes, exoticizing women of color, and also to the
importance of women in Hollywood in positions of power, because
(36:24):
that's what it will take to change overall the portrayal
of women on screen, which then trickles down to how
we think about and treat women off screens. So with that,
we want to hear from you, dear listeners. Latina is
listening We especially want to hear your thoughts on this
(36:46):
mom stuff at how stuff works dot com is where
you can email us. You can also tweet us at
mom Stuff podcast and messages on Facebook as well, and
we have a couple of messages to share with you
right now. All right, Vanessa writes us about our cosplay episode.
(37:06):
She says, I've been waiting for a cosplay episode since
I first started listening. Well, she says, my sister and
I have been making our own Halloween costumes since we
were kids, and have been costplaying at conventions for about
three years. We're not pros at it by any means,
but we love repurposing old clothes or thrift shop fines
for cosplay on the cheap. Neither of us has had
(37:27):
any issues at a convention, thankfully. In one of our favorites,
the Steampunk World's Fair in New Jersey, actually had a
series of panels on treating all attendees with respect and
courtesy and making the con feel like a safe space. However,
one thing I have felt almost every year tending conventions
is the dreaded walk to con I know some people
like to change once they reach the convention center, but
(37:48):
we've always arrived in costume and have both been made
to feel uncomfortable when using public transit, going out for
food prices at the con are crazy, or just walking
home and costume away from the crowds of similar really
costumed fans. It kind of dampens the excitement when you
have to think about bringing a coat or cover up
in order to get there without being harassed. I'm sure
some of the stairs and comments are simply due to
(38:10):
the novelty of seeing someone in costume on a day
other than Halloween, but hey, we're in New York City.
I'm sure that people commenting have seen stranger sites than us.
Keep up the good work, and I'd love to hear
your response and analysis of the men's rights movement, even
though I'm sure it will be infuriating. Thank you for
your letter and your request. Vanessa, Well, I've got a
(38:31):
letter here from Amy, also in response to her episode
on cosplay, and Amy is a Civil War reenactor, and
she writes, I found it very interesting and was curious
as to whether you came across anything in your research
comparing or disassociating norms and trends and cosplay from historical reenacting.
Some topics were very familiar in terms of accuracy of
(38:52):
the costumes, dressing as the opposite sex or gender, and
attitudes toward women in costumes. And she goes on to
talk about how there are mainly three camps, so to speak,
in the re enacting world of mainstreamers, campaigners, and hard cores,
and she says mainstreamers like to put on a good show,
campaigners like to educate through living history, and hard cores
(39:15):
have a tendency to play by themselves. Obviously, these are
sweeping generalizations, but within these you do get into hang ups,
if you will. Regarding the legitimacy of women wanting to
portray men, it rarely goes the other way, and the
accurate portrayal of minorities, mainly African Americans admittedly agentistic with
a campaigner crowd, so we will try to have a
(39:36):
healthy attitude towards anyone wanting to participate without being too discouraging.
During the Civil War there were limited roles for women,
such as nurses and vivandiers at the front lines, so
usually women tend to go with a civilian portrayals such
as a family following as cooks or laundress in the
wagon trail refugees, camp followers, or an entire side impression
of the home front. There's documentation of women disguised as
(39:59):
men and their ranks I believe up four hundred, but
they really had to sell it with short hair and
a boyish figure, so it does look odd to see
a voluptuous one with a ponytail marching in the front
line of an infantry. I've seen some hardcoes really come
down on some women for this. In terms of minority portrayals, unfortunately,
in my opinion, they're in the minority, and understandably so.
(40:20):
Not many people of color would want to portray a
time in which they were considered less than those around them.
I've met to people who portrayed African Americans and various
roles from slave to freedmen very well. Their argument for
participating in the hobby is not to glorify the actions
of white men in the past, but to educate everyone
about the realities of what minorities went through. They admit
that there have been awkward moments, but for the most
(40:42):
part their portrayals have not only been enlightening to the
spectating public but to their fellow re enactors. Obviously, there
are many things that could be delved into with a
topic like this, especially if you explore other time periods
which I'm not familiar with. Thanks for everything you do,
and thanks to you Amy for writing in, and thanks
to everybody who's written into us mom stuff at how
(41:03):
stuff works dot com is our email address and for
links to all of our social media's as well as
all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including our podcast
sources so you can follow along with us. There's one
place to go, and it's stuff Mom Never Told You
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.
(41:26):
Is it how stuff works dot com.
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