Jennifer Lopez, Rita Moreno, and Other 6 Best Latin Celebrities Who Have Previously Discussed Typecasting and Overcoming Stereotypes in Hollywood|BuzzfeedNews
This is well known that Latine actors like other race minorities were played stereotype roles and limited options in the Hollywood industry.
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I do not think that anyone, but such stereotypes are bad — especially in large platforms — because they contribute to continued misrepresentation of Latine people, which in turn may perpetuate these prejudices and make people of Latine origin feel ignored or stale.
Here are ten Latine celebrities who have had to navigate toxic stereotyping and how this affected them from Jennifer Lopez to Rita Moreno.
Table of Contents
- 1.Salma Hayek | BuzzfeedNews
- 2. Michael Peña | BuzzfeedNews
- 3. America Ferrera | BuzzfeedNews
- 4. Aubrey Plaza | BuzzfeedNews
- 5. Eva Longoria | BuzzfeedNews
- 6. Zoe Saldaña | BuzzfeedNews
- 7. Oscar Isaac | BuzzfeedNews
- 8. Jennifer Lopez | BuzzfeedNews
1.Salma Hayek | BuzzfeedNews
Salma Hayek
Another similar disturbing account that came forth last year was that of an Oscar-nominated actress Salma Hayek, who is of Spanish and Lebanese origin, who said to GQ Magazine in an interview in February of last year that she was typecasts for years in Hollywood and was halted in extending her comedy sequences.
‘I was typecast for quite sometime,’ she continued. “My entire life I wanted to do comedy and people wouldn’t give me comedies. I couldn’t land a role until I met Adam Sandler, who put me in a comedy [Grown Ups], but I was in my forties! They said ‘You’re sexy, so you’re not allowed to have a sense of humour.’”
2. Michael Peña | BuzzfeedNews
Michael Peña
Mexican and American actor Michael Peña who is famous for the Martian said in an interview that he was facing stereotyped casting issues and for a long 14 years acting was very challenging for him.
“I have been in this acting industry for 20 years, and for the first 14 years, I was struggling I was doing only gangsters,” he said. “The peculiarities that everyone is stereotyped and every one is getting typecast so there is always something one has to do to break that mold. ”
3. America Ferrera | BuzzfeedNews
America Ferrera
Last year Honduran actor America Ferrera told Elle she sought roles “that aren’t so boxed into some clichéd stereotype of what Hollywood would expect out of a Latin girl.”
“And what I still wish for my career and the careers of women, fellow people of color is that we don’t have to stay in these lanes or live inside these boxes where you only get to represent this one thing you’re supposed to be representing,” she noted.
“Because I want to be more of who I am as an artist, and a person,” one part continued on her further efforts to make “art that doesn’t fit into any of the boxes and isn’t about the ‘conversation’ people wanted to have around me because I’m a woman in Hollywood, dammit.
4. Aubrey Plaza | BuzzfeedNews
Aubrey Plaza
Aubrey Plaza, who is part Puerto Rican, opened up about her battle with Latine stereotypes in Hollywood on the Highly Relevant podcast earlier this year. Referring to her famed part in Parks and Recreation, Aubrey said of April Ludgate, “I was like, ‘Maybe she’ll be half Cuban. Maybe her mom’s Cuban.’ And they said, ‘That’s a wonderful thing to do!’ It clearly wasn’t about that, but I try in my own way to do Hispanic roles that are not the cliches because I feel like that’s one thing we’re fighting. Especially Latina women.”
5. Eva Longoria | BuzzfeedNews
Eva Longoria
Eva Longoria, a Mexican-American actress, said in 2016 that a white, male casting director taught her how to be more Latin. “Some white, male casting director was defining what it meant to be Latin,” she said. He decided that I was in need of an accent. He decided I needed to [have] a tan. I can tell you want to create diversity, and unfortunately the gatekeepers (which are not usually people of color) dont realize that within one ethnicity, you should be looking for way more colors of the rainbow.
6. Zoe Saldaña | BuzzfeedNews
Zoe Saldaña
Zoë Saldaña Getty Images During an interview with Porter in 2018, Puerto Rican and Dominican actor Zo… Whenever I read a script, like say it was a period piece, I was reading thinking that I would go for the lead. I didn’t realize until I read the introduction of a throwaway ethnic friend, that ‘Oh’. I wasn’t event allowed to submit and try out for that lead role, because they want to keep things traditional on the character. And I would hang up on that conversation from my agents, almost offended and think what part of me is non-traditional? She said, “It was extremely difficult to face.
7. Oscar Isaac | BuzzfeedNews
Oscar Isaac
Before professional sh*t Oscar changed his last name to Isaac (not legally, though), he talked about worrying he’d be “pigeonholed or typecast” as the full Oscar Isaac Hernández Estrada. “Going into this business as an actor, you already think, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to be that one thing,’” said the Guatemalan and Cuban actor. I don’t just want to visit the dead body, the gangster, the bandolero. I do not want to be pigeonholed into someone else’s version of what an Oscar Hernández should play.
8. Jennifer Lopez | BuzzfeedNews
Jennifer Lopez
J.Lo — who is Puerto Rican — said the same back in 2020, to Variety: “When I started, I would always go in for what they would call ‘the maid,’ ‘the Rosie Perez-type role,’ ‘the dishwasher.’ I was like, ‘I don’t want that,’ and I had to kind of break out of the box in order to leave myself with a romantic comedy as my first picture which ended up being The Wedding Planner.”
