Blog

We’ve enjoyed an impressive run of fact-based sports sagas during the past year — “Nyad,” “The Boys in the Boat” and “The Young Woman and the Sea” leap to mind — but in terms of amazing actual events, this one’s the best. READ MORE AT THE DAVIS ENTERPRISE

During the summer, when Hollywood produces blockbusters that cater to those on vacation from school and looking to beat the heat, Latinos are consistently the group that boosts box office success. In an industry coming under increasing pressure from streaming platforms and strikes, Hollywood’s Latino fans are the most avid moviegoers per capita in the U.S. READ MORE AT NBC NEWS

Despite being the largest minority group in the United States, 19% of the population, Latinos are underrepresented in both the media and film and television productions. According to a study by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of California, the data has not improved in the last 16 years. In nearly two decades, only 75 actors in lead or co-lead roles were Latino, which means that the representation of actors of Latino origin in Hollywood is only 4.4%. READ MORE AT EL PAIS

US Latinos account for 24 percent of box office ticket sales and 24 percent of streaming subscribers.3 To put this into even sharper contrast, US Latinos see films 3.3 times a year, per capita, compared with 2.9 for Asian-Americans and 2.3 for White Americans.

Yet Latinos hold less than 5 percent of leading on-screen, off-screen, and executive leadership roles in US media. Half of large media companies’ boardrooms include no Latino representation, and overall there is limited progress toward parity. As a result, the many facets of the Latino identity, from the United States and around the world, continue to be unseen or misrepresented on screens. READ MORE AT MCKINSEY & CO

Hispanics and Latinos remain underrepresented in film, a trend that has carried for 16 years, according to a new report from the University of Southern California. Even when movies did feature Hispanic or Latino characters, they were usually stereotyped as immigrant or as having low income. READ MORE AT THE GUARDIAN

From the get-go, Puerto Rican director Àngel Manuel Soto understood the responsibility and pride of making history with "Blue Beetle" (in theaters Friday), DC's first Latino-led superhero movie.

"We never get this chance to tell stories like this," he says. "Much less, to show us as heroes to the world (and) in a cinematic universe that's so followed and in a genre that includes us as sidekicks at best." READ MORE AT USA TODAY

Hollywood companies are facing a series of challenges, including technology disruption, increasing competition, online piracy, economic slowdown, and, importantly, the pressure to demonstrate a continuous growth trajectory. By ignoring the U.S. Latino consumer group, Hollywood may also risk alienating the major source of demographic growth in the country for years to come.

It's time to make Latinos visible again, behind the cameras, in leading roles, and as decision-makers at the C-suites. Hollywood is in the spotlight; industry leaders must recognize the untapped potential of the U.S. Latino consumer group and take decisive action to foster inclusivity, ensuring a thriving and culturally rich future for the entertainment industry. READ MORE AT FORBES

Despite making up nearly 19 percent of the population, Latinos continue to be underrepresented or misrepresented in Hollywood, news and book publishing, according to a new report released by the Government Accountability Office.  "Latinos are effectively excluded or sidelined from much of American media," says Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which requested the report. READ MORE AT NPR

It wasn’t a great week for Latinos in Hollywood, but I’m sure many of you knew that already. Between Warner Bros. axing the release of “Batgirl” starring Leslie Grace, HBO Max canceling the coming-of-age comedy TV series “The Gordita Chronicles” and James Franco being cast as Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in an upcoming feature, Latinos are being mercilessly discarded and overlooked in the entertainment business. Worse yet, not many seem to care. READ MORE AT VARIETY

The greaser. The hot tamale. The gangster. The maid. The narco. These and other stereotypes are how Hollywood has traditionally portrayed Latinos for over a century. Even as they have become America’s largest minority, and as their box-office clout has increased, tired tropes continue. READ MORE AT LOS ANGELES TIMES

Despite liberal Hollywood's best intentions, every other decade becomes the emerging "Decade of the Hispanic," as if the group exists in a perpetual state of arrival. Even as the big-budget film adaptation of the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical "In the Heights" hit theaters and HBO Max last week to rave reviews, Latinos in Hollywood say they face outsize obstacles in getting stories that reflect their experiences to the screen. READ MORE AT GAZATTEXTRA

In the history of Hollywood, is America Ferrera the only young actress to have launched a successful career by hitching herself to the word “ugly”?

A 27-year-old Californian actress with no formal training, Ferrera made her name as the star of Ugly Betty, the hit American television comedy series which followed her frumpy character’s unlikely rise at a New York fashion magazine. It ran for four years and won her a Screen Actors Guild award, an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

Ferrera, who took her first acting jobs while reading International Relations at the University of Southern California, had already tackled the issue of body image as Ana Garcia, a Mexican-American girl rebelling against an overbearing, weight-obsessed mother in the 2002 film Real Women Have Curves. She was only 17 when she landed the role, and her performance won her the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002.

“I don’t think I meant to challenge an industry as a whole,” she says, sitting in the empty auditorium at New York’s Ambassador Theatre where she is rehearsing for her new role, as murderous showgirl Roxie Hart in the London production of Chicago. “I didn’t see any fear in playing Betty.” READ MORE

It's not obvious what language Will Ferrell's new film, Casa de Mi Padre, is speaking. Everyone's favourite cross-eyed man-child had last-minute cramming sessions in order to be able to drawl the Spanish-language dialogue for the comedy – a sendup of cheesy rural-Mexico telenovelas. But just as Ferrell admits he still can't really hold a conversation in Spanish, Casa looks like it could have communication issues, too. Is it a deft in-joke for the US's movie-mad Hispanic audience? Or does Ferrell's presence just crank up the irony factor for the urban-hipster crowd to indulge yet another cultural fetish?

Movie executives would, if they had to choose, plump for the former. As well as the largest ethnic minority, Hispanic-Americans are perhaps the US's keenest, most youthful and fast-growing film demographic. Forty-three million Hispanics bought 351m tickets in 2010 (out of a total 1.34bn) – up from 37m buying 300m the year before. People of that ethnicity in the key 18-34 group are 44% more likely to see a film on its opening weekend than non-Hispanics. No wonder that's beginning to get some serious attention: Casa de Mi Padre is being distributed by Pantelion Films, a partnership between Lionsgate and Mexican media giant Televisa that is hoping to make around 10 films a year, in both English and Spanish, for Latino audiences. READ MORE