Skip the Middleman

Over the last year, Hollywood productions such as In the Heights, and most recently West Side Story, have generated criticism for their shortcomings in how they portray Latinx communities. While it’s critical that we hold mainstream entertainment companies accountable for their depictions of Latinx people, the dramatic shift in representation that we desire and deserve is only going to come when we pursue strategies outside the Hollywood complex to control our images. It’s time to develop and implement solutions that do not hinge on shaming the shameless.

Calling on Hollywood to reform itself has its limits. For decades, we have repeatedly demanded that there be no stories about us without us, but the industry still entrusted a through-the-roof $100 million budget to non-Latinx creators to redeem a musical created by non-Latinx artists six decades ago.

We have pushed for diverse casts featuring Latinx people of different races, sizes, gender representation and abilities. Yet, stories that do not center Latinx characters who fit the enduring Hollywood beauty standards —white, thin, cisgender, heteronormative, able-bodied— remain the exception and not the rule. Unsurprisingly, the exceptions usually come from the few Latinx creators “granted” opportunities to bring their stories to audiences. Their reward for blazing these necessary trails and often garnering critical acclaim? Having their productions cancelled after three seasons.

Meanwhile, Latinx characters of any kind rarely occupy the center. These appearances are usually in the role of the sitcom sidekick or police procedural prime suspect, and so we have clamored for leads in original stories that range genres and storylines. The entertainment industry response has been to lean heavily on adapting Latin American telenovelas for U.S. audiences and rebooting 20 plus-year-old shows with Latinx casts.

As with other institutions, we are grappling with structural inequalities that too many of us presume to be glitches in the system when, in fact, they are features of it. Clearly, something is more important to network and studio decisionmakers than fulfilling our entertainment requests in direct exchange for our money. If the Latinx audience truly mattered to the powers that be, we would not in 2021 be debating the representational value of an updated West Side Story. It would not exist at all.

Instead, we would have a plethora of original content such as the ones suggested to our editor’s recent tweet asking which Latinx stories they would have liked to have seen financed. Our writers have created a treasure trove of material that spans topics, identities, and genres, despite our equally dismal representation in the publishing complex. Any major studio or streamer that doesn’t have several adaptations by Latinx authors in development is lying to us when it claims to be interested in Latinx viewers.

“We contribute to this cultural hegemony every time we wait for predominantly white institutions to discover, package and sell our own culture to us”

Perhaps more desirable than simply appeasing our sensibilities —and even more profitable— is for white Hollywood creatives to maintain their position as the middleman between Latinx consumers and our own artists. After all, this enables them to, as Dr. Frances Negrón-Muntaner states in her essay, remain the arbiter of authentic Latinidad, package our experiences, and market and sell them to others as well as back to us. This is where the money is at and where cultural hegemony remains. Profit and control are not two distinct benefits. They are codependent.

We’ve seen this before with the “Latin pop explosion” of 1999. That year, the recording industry threw its weight behind a handful of performers, such as Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera, and touted their success as a turning point. This was no trend, label executives insisted. According to the gatekeepers, they were pulling Latinx talent from the margins into the mainstream, and we were there to stay. And without questioning the hubris of a capitalist enterprise to make such a call about our value, we took their word and applauded their efforts.

In short order, the corporate-promised cultural revolution revealed itself to be little more than a marketing ploy. Handpicked specifically for their ability to “cross over,” the Chosen Ones reflected little of the vast diversity —racially or artistically— that exists under the huge umbrella we call Latin music. Furthermore, the individual successes did not translate into opportunities for more Latinx talent, never mind those who did not appeal to white audiences. Within six months, we were back in the niche.

While an in-depth analysis of the shifts in the recording industry are beyond my expertise and the scope of this piece, it’s apparent how innovative approaches and technological advances over the past 20 years have empowered Latinx talent and audiences alike. By making it more feasible to produce and promote music without the vast resources of a major label, artists reclaim unfiltered access to their most valuable asset —a direct relationship to true fans of their authentic voice.

Consider Cardi B, who developed a following on social media long before she became a reality TV personality and recording artist. Through networking services such as Twitter and Instagram and membership platforms such as Patreon and OnlyFans, followers become more than consumers. They are an artist’s patrons and ambassadors, focus groups and critique partners. The art inspires them to build communities and spark movements. They themselves become creators and cultural workers.

Likewise, the discourse on cinematic narratives and depictions must extend beyond debating what we should accept or reject from corporate entities whose systems work just fine for them, our representational needs be damned. The decision to remake West Side Story instead of supporting a slate of original films by Latinx creators proves that, with their immense financial capacity to produce, distribute and market stories, media conglomerates —from film and television studios to publishing houses to record companies— uphold themselves and not us as the ultimate arbiter of worthy Latinx content. We contribute to this cultural hegemony every time we wait for predominantly white institutions to discover, package and sell our own culture to us.

Let’s level up the conversation by considering ways we can cultivate:

A culture of radical support

We have to interrupt el mismo disco y baile —that is, waiting to react to the next Hollywood project and then hoping its next offering is better. Instead, we must make consistent and substantive efforts to proactively seek and support Latinx content that resonates with us outside of the mainstream entertainment complex. For example, what if we watched one less summer blockbuster at the multiplex and instead pledged to support the low-budget Latinx film at the independent theater on its opening weekend?

On this note, no one should be shamed into spending dollars and time on a film or TV show that does not speak to them. Or worse, causes them harm. A culture of radical support does not mean that a creator of content that is, for example, queer-antagonistic or transphobic gets a pass because they’re Latinx. On the contrary, radical support is a two-way street where consumers challenge ourselves to push our aesthetic boundaries and explore narratives about Latinx experiences and by Latinx makers who have identities that differ from our own, and where producers make themselves just as accountable to the community for the images they create.

Radical support means that when we rightfully call for a more expansive representation, we check the problematic impulse to demand that certain people in our communities be erased. Clutching our pearls, we sometimes implore Hollywood no more maids, no more immigrants, no more sex workers, etc., as if their existence is a myth or a problem. With a strident respectability politics that is unaware of its preoccupation with the opinions of white people and the concomitant shame, we fail to recognize that we, too, have internalized the demonizing effect of the mainstream’s over simplistic depictions. We can insist on both diversity and complexity in our representation.

A culture of independent production

As former Young Lords Party leader and documentary filmmaker Iris Morales recently reminded me, the path to change requires multiple entry points. Just as we have some progressive individuals within the Hollywood system attempting to dismantle structural inequities, Latinx communities must implement solutions that enable us to bypass corporate gatekeepers and foster direct relationships with our own image makers, both within and outside these institutions.

“Latinx communities must implement solutions that enable us to bypass corporate gatekeepers”

While a possible consequence, the goal here is not so much to propel more and diverse Latinx talent onto executives’ radars and convince them these creators and their productions have enough of a fan base to generate a profit (e.g. give that Latinx web series on YouTube so many clicks that a TV executive greenlights a television show). That alone is no guarantee that the things about that online series that resonated with you will survive the development process and remain intact in the show.

Rather, the endgame is to retake our rightful place as the driving force behind what Latinx content prevails regardless of whether a white executive “gets it.” Instead, you be the development executive and donate to the Kickstarter campaign of an emerging maker. In 2012, over 1,000 backers raised $80,000 to finance Mosquita y Mari, the debut film of writer and director Aurora Guerrero. This beautiful film dealing with the universal themes of parental sacrifice, peer pressure and first love centered two queer immigrant Chicanas in southeast Los Angeles.

According to Guerrero, who has gone on to direct episodes of 13 Reasons Why, Queen Sugar and Mr. Corman, backers were every day people who hailed from the Latinx communities of which she was a part and who were lovingly depicted in the film— including immigrants, queer and working class people. There are enough of us that we can collectively greenlight several films every year.

A culture of compassionate critique

Granted, Latinx creators are exhausted at the expectation that we be twice as good as our white counterparts to get half as far. In addition to feeding the obstacles to creativity that plague all artists from perfectionism to imposter syndrome, it is downright dehumanizing. That said, radical support does not entail resting on our laurels or aiming to match white mediocrity. As cultural workers, we should respect our own gifts and take our role in the community seriously, being willing to grow continuously in our craft and bringing the best we have to offer to every story.

We also need the Latinx audience to reciprocate grace. Give us opportunities to learn by doing, chances to experiment, permission to fail. Affirm what we get right and call us in on what we get wrong. As surely as artists need to develop their craft in community with each other outside of the white gaze, we also need spaces where those for whom we are creating can give us constructive feedback on our representations from the same understanding: we all have a stake in these narratives.

The mainstream entertainment industry is the most lucrative, global and impervious means to producing and sharing our stories. We have a right to insist that it do better, no matter what the ignorant “then-make-your-own-movie” trolls say. However, too often, Latinx communities respond to oversights, affronts and exclusion in ways that perpetuate a debilitating misperception — that we are fully dependent on it to see ourselves and each other. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Once we embrace the fact that we already have tremendous capacity to find, evaluate and nourish the talent that exists among us, we can identify ways to invest in ourselves rather than begging Hollywood to get it right.

That would be its own reward.