Core Post Jennifer Lopez

Mary Beltran discusses some important factors in the stardom of Jennifer Lopez, particularly in regards to the media's construction of her Latina crossover celebrity image, as well as how the star system functions within the social and racial hegemony. I thought it was necessary for Beltran to examine not only the white audience response to her media and star image, as well as the response of the Latino/Latina community. One part that stuck out to me is when she writes, "Latinas in the U.S. don't necessarily buy into white American cultural standards that pose that women should strive to be model thin." Coming from a Latina background on one side of the family I find this statement to have a lot of merit. Growing up I never saw my Latina aunts or cousins go crazy over the "typical" white beauty stars, instead they'd usually be critical of skinny icons like Kendall Jenner for example. I certainly remember and still do witness Jennifer Lopez being praised to the highest degree by many of my family members, especially in regards to her appearance. But what Beltran is saying is that for the Latino/a audience the media's hype of her body was nothing to question, but instead celebrate. Beltran writes, "from the perspective of Latino audiences, for Lopez, a Puerto-Rican with a short, curvy body to declare beautiful and unashamedly display her endowed posterior during this time period could be viewed as nothing less than positive."Beltran continues to delve deeper into this exploration but questioning whether or not Lopez' highly body oriented publicity could be a means to contain her as a nonwhite star. Im not sure whether I argue for that case, or rather if her media explosion is instead indicative of a, "increasingly multicultural mainstream." I think both options are bit extreme, with the latter being a bit too idyllic. Lopez' own involvement in taking pride over her butt mostly came from the publicity of her role playing the famous Selena. Beltran explains that in many interviews she was asked whether or not she wore padding to properly emulate the star, to which Lopez would not hesitate respond "Todo es mio" (it's all mine). While one might argue that the media contained Lopez by focusing only on her body, Beltran brings up the point that she in a way managed her images by, "participating in choices at this time that contributed to her butt discussion...these dresses garnered attention for Lopez and for her posterior in the media reviews of the events." Like we talking last week, stars like Lopez choosing to take pride in their femininity and curves can be empowering, yet there is still no way to control the audience reception.