Core Post

Reading over the articles that detail how much the Latina image has been sexualized kind of reminds me of how, being Asian American, the film industry tends to sexualize Asian women as well. Hollywood films have the tendency to sexualize non-white women referring to them as exotic or foreign when they are probably as American as anybody else. Like Latinos who often get grouped into "secondary roles like criminals, prostitutes, and maids," I often see this with the asian community as well with our secondary roles like drug lords, prostitutes, and nerds (Negron-Muntaner, 184). The issue of race has always been a touchy one within the film industry. Being an industry that's mainly controlled by older white men, the roles for wider races and genders have only slowly began to assimilate. When Negron-Muntaner talks about how the Mexican-American community was unhappy with the choice of Jennifer Lopez, a Puerto Rican, as Selena I could understand the frustration as many roles that are generally written for Asian characters are often white-washed to fit the Hollywood niche. Also it's fit to see that Jennifer Lopez appears as a light skinned Latina, so much that her "Puerto Rican label doesn't seem to stick to her even in the white media" so much that "a People magazine columnist referred to her ethnic background as 'being of Puerto Rican... descent"(Negron-Muntaner, 183). Thus somewhat making it more apparent that Hollywood tends to favor those that look more acceptable to pass as "white" because it's what the public prefers.

I like how the emphasis of the articles were on the sexualization of Jennifer's curvaceous and somewhat unconventional body and how from there, her star power propelled her to have her body image be used against what she is trying to represent. Her curves only set to confirm the public's stereotype of Latin American women and more specifically their "butts." This only leads to an over-sexualized view on Latinas and a further guidance of them into only stereotype roles. These roles only continue to show us that it's definitely going to take time for Hollywood to fully diversify itself away from it's stereotype casting amongst all races and minorities.