Sofia Vergara: Tropes > $$$
With the help of Modern Family, one of the longest-running sitcoms on television currently, Sofia Vergara has, according to Forbes, become the highest paid actress on TV. In an article from the Chicago Tribune, contact reporter Nina Metz interviewed Isabel Molina-Guzman, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who is frustrated with reports about how diverse Hollywood is. She said, “But we can’t forget her [Vergara] only way to access that visibility is through this decades-old stereotype that is super-familiar to most U.S. audiences. And that’s a problem.” As the highest paid actress on television, Vergara is still confined to tropes, with a certain accent, temper and body type.
She went on to say, “I just wish there was more diversity in the story lines writ large and that talented Latina and Latino actors got to play the same roles as white actors get to play, but maybe more embedded or informed by a particular set of experiences.” The article went on to discuss colorblind casting, something that exists in Shonda Rhimes’ shows, but how that is problematic in that it can erase specificity, lived experience or background. The problem I gathered from reading this, and from what I’ve seen on television is that there is virtually no complexity to Latino characters in popular media content. Will there ever be? Or will things continue to be either whitewashed or remain in an isolated world of tropes and stereotypes?
She went on to say, “I just wish there was more diversity in the story lines writ large and that talented Latina and Latino actors got to play the same roles as white actors get to play, but maybe more embedded or informed by a particular set of experiences.” The article went on to discuss colorblind casting, something that exists in Shonda Rhimes’ shows, but how that is problematic in that it can erase specificity, lived experience or background. The problem I gathered from reading this, and from what I’ve seen on television is that there is virtually no complexity to Latino characters in popular media content. Will there ever be? Or will things continue to be either whitewashed or remain in an isolated world of tropes and stereotypes?
ReplyDeleteTo add to your explanation of color blind casting, I think another implication of that is that when marginalized communities are represented there identity is also flattened out.