Latino women in film are not victims but spitfires

Strutting her stuff in lacy black underwear and outfits from Bergdorf's, Eva Mendes looks sexy and dangerous. In the remake of "The Women," opening Friday, she plays the mistress of Meg Ryan's husband, a role created by Joan Crawford in the 1939 original.

A self-confident man-eater par excellence, Mendes' character is also a flamboyant stereotype older than the Frito Bandito - the spitfire, the superaggressive Latin female.

"The whole spitfire image is still part of the norm," says Monica Herrera, an entertainment writer for Latina magazine.

"You see it in Penelope Cruz in 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona,' Sofia Vergara in 'Meet the Browns' and Eva Longoria in 'Over Her Dead Body' - they are flighty and have a level of aggressiveness that's related to their sexuality.

"There is a lot of continuity in terms of the spitfire image. It's more hypersexualized than in the past," adds Clara Rodriguez, a Fordham professor who has written "Heroes, Lovers and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood."

But, she adds, "The Latin woman image, in addition to being hypersexualized, is mas macha, and it's like the image you see in 'Girlfight' and in 'Lost' [both roles played by Jersey City's Michelle Rodriguez] - this tough woman role. This is facilitated by the fact Latinas often turn up in urban settings. It's a shift from the victim, but it's a tough image, in the tradition of the spitfire image."

Back in the day, Latina roles seemed to fit into three handy categories. There was the almost saintly figure played by the likes of Dolores del Rio; the comic exotic, as exemplified by the immortal Carmen Miranda and the lesser-known Lupe Velez, who starred in a series of "Mexican Spitfire" films in the 1940s; and the Latina who "passed" for Anglo, the most famous example being Rita Hayworth, birth name Margarita Carmen Cansino.

Then there was Rita Moreno. Hollywood didn't know what to do with the hugely talented Puerto Rican-born actress, so the early years of her career found her playing plenty of Latina stereotypes, as well as Siamese (in "The King and I"), Polynesian and just about everything in between.

"Rita Moreno didn't start out playing those Pepita and Anita roles," says Rodriguez. "That was all that was available to her, and even after she won the Oscar [Best Supporting Actress for 'West Side Story'], she couldn't get roles, and that's why she leaves film [for theater and TV]."

But this is 2008, and you'd think Hollywood had learned to adapt to the new reality: Latinos are the largest minority group in the country, and their culture influences everything from pop music to literature. Yet when it comes to Tinseltown, the thinking seems to be trapped somewhere back in the days of Pancho Villa.

Part of the reason for this, says Rodriguez, is the fault of the audience, which tends to shrug off stereotyping as if it didn't exist.

"By and large, most audiences aren't very critical of what they see," she claims. "When the spitfire becomes the dominant pattern, then there's something wrong, and most people don't reflect on it, they just want to tune out."

Noting that there are, in fact, a number of high-profile Latina actresses these days - including Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, Rosario Dawson and Alice Braga - Herrera still says that "In Hollywood in general, it's easy for people behind the scenes to create these easy [stereotypes] for female characters, but the fact there are so many prominent Latin females is both a blessing and a curse. They're playing into that Latina stereotype."

What this means is that for every America Ferrera in "Ugly Betty," there's a hypersexualized Eva Longoria in "Desperate Housewives." And even though an actress like Salma Hayek now produces pictures with nonstereotypical parts for Latins, or a Rosario Dawson is redefining what a Latin actress can look like, these are still just drops in the large entertainment ocean.

"What you see happening is the continuation of these stereotypes, and the introduction of new images," says Rodriguez. "The people who green-light projects really don't get it. It's easy to write stereotypically. They don't have a lot of contact with a real-life range of Latina women. And there aren't enough women in the industry to alter that, and they're not particularly interested."

Herrera notes, however, that on one level, Latinas have more access to roles than African-American actresses, "because we are a safer choice." She points, for example, to the fact that superstar Will Smith has often had Latina love interests or co-stars - Mendes in "Hitch," Alice Braga in "I Am Legend" and Hayek in "Wild Wild West" - because Tinseltown executives believe black-black pairings are uncommercial.

Casting Latinas in these parts, says Herrera, "is more marketable for Hollywood, and has become more acceptable."

It's also, in a sense, reverse stereotyping - casting light-skinned Latinas who are considered "safe" choices. But the situation isn't desperate. There has been forward progress, she says, but there's still a long way to go.

"I think we're headed in the right direction," says Herrera, "but it's tough for all women these days. There is progress to be made. When there are more Latin last names [in positions of power], it will be easier to get good roles. The more variety we get with the casting, the better the situation will be."

[source]