The summer of 2013 has brought us our yearly onslaught of Blockbuster action flicks and the latest installments of our favorite franchises. Hollywood has already seen multimillion dollar profits from movies like GI Joe: Retaliation, Die Hard 5, Iron Man 3, Fast & Furious 7, White House Down, Olympus Has Fallen, Star Trek: Into the Darkness, Man of Steel and the upcoming The Wolverine. Aside from being huge money-makers and having over-the-top production, these movies also have something else in common. Despite their popularity among audiences and Latinos making up a large percentage of that audience, there were hardly any Latino actors and actresses featured.
This is not to say that there was zero diversity in any of these films listed, there were African American and Asian characters is some of these movies. However, along with the main characters in most of these movies being an Anglo, there were virtually no Latinos featured in any of the summer blockbusters with the exception of Fast 7 and Star Trek. Fast 7 was perhaps the only movie that featured Latino actors and actresses on screen at the same time. This is disturbing in that even franchises that prided themselves on diversity such as Star Trek and the Marvel/DC brands have excluded both Latino actors and characters. Even in Star Trek, the only Latina cast as a main character was playing the role of an African American woman. Die Hard, Iron Man and Man of Steel had your typical Anglo leads in male and female characters with Asian or African Americans portraying minor roles.
One has to ask the question, how truly diverse is Hollywood? It seems as of lately that filmmakers are attempting to diversify their films with everyone except Latinos. Considering that Latinos make up a large block of moviegoers and are the “fastest growing minority” in the US, we are ignored at the box office. Even films made by other people of color featuring so called diverse casts are severely lacking Latino presence. In some ways, it looks as if Hollywood is going backwards. In the 60′s Batman‘s, Joker was played by Cuban/Italian actor Céasar Romero on the television show and featured film. Screen legend, Ricardo Montalban, became one of Star Trek‘s iconic villains, Khan. Who was also on the TV show and in the Film. In the new Star Trek, Zoe Saldana, the only Latina cast for the movie, played a more sexualized version of the intellectual African American communications officer the character was meant to be. It almost seems that in these big franchises, there were more Latinos on screen 20-40 years ago than today. Is this an oversight or is Hollywood disregarding the Latino community for anything that is not a stereotype?
I tend to think the answer is the latter combined with being out of touch. It’s unfortunate and discouraging for Latino fans and aspiring actors, actresses, and film makers. It’s truly sad when the people that support and line the pockets of Hollywood can’t even see their own people. Sadly, most Latinos have to rely on the indie scene to be seen or heard. As for Hollywood’s future, I hope they take a look at the hypocritical hole in their chest where a heart should be and maybe take a page from the “Vin Diesel play book” and feature Latino men and women as prominent characters when assembling a truly diverse cast. Summer at the movies has meant big profits for Hollywood and disappointment for Latino moviegoers.