Latinos and film
Latinos have played a complex and evolving role in American film, beginning with early portrayals primarily focused on Mexicans and Mexican Americans, largely due to the prevalence of Westerns. These early films often relied on racial stereotypes, depicting Latinos through narrow archetypes such as the greedy bandit or the bumbling sidekick. As the film industry progressed, particularly during the Great Depression and post-World War II era, Latino characters began to be depicted with more depth and complexity, although many traditional stereotypes persisted.
The 1960s and beyond saw a significant shift with the rise of the civil rights movement and the emergence of a more engaged Latino audience, leading to films that addressed social issues and experiences unique to the Latino community. In the 1980s, Latino filmmakers began to gain more presence in Hollywood, producing successful films that showcased authentic Latino narratives. Despite this progress, the representation of Latinos in lead roles remained sparse, and typecasting continued to be a challenge.
In parallel, Puerto Rican film production emerged from the 1950s onward, contributing to the broader Latino film landscape, particularly through documentaries and feature films that reflected the political and social realities of the community. Overall, while the portrayal of Latinos in film has improved over the decades, challenges related to representation and typecasting persist, highlighting the ongoing need for diverse and nuanced storytelling within the industry.
Latinos and film
Significance: At the beginning of the twentieth century, the images of Hispanics/Latinos presented in American films were stereotypes heavily tinged with ethnic prejudice. Since then, although stereotypes have persisted and Latinos remain underrepresented on screen, Latino characters have acquired greater authenticity, and the dominance of Euro-Americans and their cultural values are no longer taken for granted.
Hispanics/Latinos portrayed in early films were predominantly Mexicans or Mexican Americans, given the vast number of Westerns produced by the American film industry. Puerto Ricans, as an ethnic group, began to appear in later decades, generally in an urban setting.
Ethnocentrism in American Film
The target audience of the filmmakers in the first half of the twentieth century was predominantly white, Anglo-Saxon, and US-born. Overt racial prejudice was the norm; nonwhites were not allowed to participate in film production and were unwelcome in motion picture theaters.
Western genre films were set in the Southwest, which is made up of the states ceded by Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). The narrative formula of nineteenth-century dime novels was adapted to the screen with only minor variations. The Mexican-US conflict was presented as a conflict of cultures based on stereotypes. The Anglo (non-Hispanic) society values of thrift, hard work, and democracy were contrasted with the purported laziness, backwardness, and despotic power structures of Mexican society. In these films, the moral superiority of the Americans justified their overcoming the more primitive Hispanic society in their western expansion.
Some scholars distinguish the following types of Latino characters in early American films: The main male type is the greedy Mexican bandit, or greaser. The second type is the bumbling buffoon, usually an inept sidekick. Greasers or buffoons belong to the lower classes; not so the third type, the aristocratic caballero, a kind of Latino Robin Hood in colonial California, exemplified by Zorro, the Cisco Kid, and don Arturo Bodega. In the early 1930s, a fourth type appeared: the greaser gangster, who was a coward and a traitor. The fifth type is the Latin lover, a modern version of Don Juan.
Latinas had much more restricted roles: They existed in relationship to an Anglo hero. The usual types were the sexy cantina girl; the self-sacrificing, faithful señorita; and the vamp or seductress.
The 1930s
The heightened concern with social conditions brought about by the Great Depression was reflected in Hollywood’s “social problem” films. The crude ethnic stereotypes of early films began to give way to stronger and more psychologically complex characters. The formula for these films was that sometimes American social institutions experienced problems that needed to be corrected by limited social change; therefore, the oppressed had to be patient and have faith that in the end justice would prevail.
The first Hispanic social problem film, Bordertown (1935), ends with the disillusioned Chicano protagonist returning to his barrio home, a suggestion that acceptance of the status quo is the right moral choice. However, the two best social problem films about Latinos, which were independently produced, The Lawless (1950) and Salt of the Earth (1954), portrayed Mexicans as real people who fought for their rights. Two important “historical message” films were Juárez (1939) and Viva Zapata! (1952), in which Mexican characters and Mexican history were treated much better than usual.
World War II
The Good Neighbor policy practiced by the United States toward Latin America during World War II as a way of securing alliances against Nazism resulted in two Disney animated films: Saludos Amigos (1943) and The Three Caballeros (1945), as well as a series of escapist Latin musicals, designed to improve hemispheric relations.
Some Latino actors were able to use stereotypical Hispanic roles, which were first played by American actors, as an effective vehicle to stardom. One of these actors was Lupe Vélez, the typical “Mexican Spitfire”; another was Leo Carrillo, who played gangsters and border bandits. When the star system began to dominate Hollywood, light-skinned Hispanic actors had to choose between being typecast in negative ethnic roles or anglicizing their names and their images to “reposition” themselves. Margarita Carmen Cansino became Rita Hayworth, and Raquel Tejada became Raquel Welch.
The 1960s and Beyond
In the 1960s, the liberalization of sexual mores, the emergence of the civil rights movement, and a growing Hispanic filmgoing audience profoundly affected the film industry. The classical Hispanic stereotypes were intensified by the explicit sex and violence of the new Westerns. Hollywood created new stereotypes such as the Hispanic avenger and youthful Hispanic gang member. Notable examples of the gang theme are West Side Story (1961) and The Young Savages (1961); Boulevard Nights (1979) and Colors (1988) treat the topic with more realism. Films of this genre usually presented Puerto Rican main characters as gang members involved in violent acts, thus reinforcing the notion that all Hispanics are lawbreakers.
In the 1970s and 1980s, two parallel phenomena fundamentally altered the position of Hispanics in the film industry. Members of the Chicano movement, determined to present their own view of the Chicano experience, began independently to produce and direct documentaries and docudramas, and later, feature films, some of which were aired on television and some supported and distributed by Hollywood. Outstanding examples are Alambrista! (1977, Robert M. Young), The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982, Moctesuma Esparza and Robert M. Young), Seguín (1981, Jesús Salvador Treviño), and El Norte (1983, Gregory Nava).
The second phenomenon, known as “Hispanic Hollywood,” resulted from the greater participation of Latinos as producers and directors in Hollywood films beginning in the 1980s, which was believed to be a result of the pressure exerted on the studios by Hispanic civil rights organizations to open more jobs to Latinos. La Bamba (1987), Born in East L.A. (1987), The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), and Stand and Deliver (1988) were some or its most successful products.
The 1990s and 2000s saw a growing range of films marketed to Latino audiences, paralleling the growth in the United States' Latino population. However, lead roles for Latino actors in mainstream movies remained rare. Although Latino filmmakers achieved some success, it was also uncommon for directors, producers, screenwriters, and other Latino film professionals to reach the broader population. Change happened slowly, with a few films such as Gregory Nava's My Family (1995) highlighting Mexican Americans as complex characters and leading protagonists. The biopic Selena (1997), based on the life of Mexican American singer Selena, was a critical and commercial success, opening as the second-highest grossing film at the time. Actors such as Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, and Edward James Olmos became well known, shifting cultural perceptions and aiding acceptance of Latino media presence. Still, many actors continued to fight typecasting and many filmmakers struggled to find mainstream opportunities into the 2010s. A 2016 study from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism found that although Latinos made up about 17.4 percent of the US population, only 5.8 percent of speaking characters surveyed in film and television were Latino.
Puerto Rican Films
After several failed attempts by private companies and the government to develop film production on the island, Viguié Film Productions, founded in 1951, and the Division of Community Education, established in 1949, began to turn out an ever-increasing number of films. In the 1970s and 1980s, the political climate spurred the production of documentaries, some of which were made by Puerto Rican filmmakers working in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Among feature films, one of the finest is Hangin’ with the Home Boys (1991), directed by Joseph B. Vásquez.
Bibliography
Berumen, Frank Javier Garcia. Latino Image Makers in Hollywood: Performers, Filmmakers, and Films Since the 1960s. McFarland, 2014.
Keller, Gary D. A Biographical Handbook of Hispanics and United States Film. Bilingual Press, 1997.
Keller, Gary D. Hispanics and United States Film: An Overview and Handbook. Bilingual Press, 1994.
Latimer, Brian. "Latinos in Hollywood: Few Roles, Frequent Stereotypes, New Study Finds." NBC News, 22 Feb. 2016, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latinos-hollywood-few-roles-frequent-stereotypes-new-study-finds-n523511. Accessed 30 Apr. 2017.
Puente, Henry. The Promotion and Distribution of US Latino Films. Peter Lang, 2011.