Here’s How Much Hollywood Continues To Erase And Stereotype Latinx People On Screen
HuffPost
Released Wednesday, the first day of Latinx Heritage Month, a new Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study warns of “an epidemic of invisibility.”
Latinx representation in Hollywood’s most popular movies comes nowhere close to reflecting either the U.S. population or that of Los Angeles, where many of these movies and the decisions behind them get made, according to a new study.
The University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative finds that in the rare instances when Latinx characters do appear on screen, the films in question perpetuate unrealistic and often harmful tropes, often by depicting Latinx people as criminals, low-level workers and “the other,” or they disproportionately focus on immigration stories.
According to the study, which uses the U.S. census category of Hispanic/Latino, nearly 20% of the U.S. population, 39% of California’s population and 49% of Los Angeles’ population identifies as Hispanic/Latino. Yet only 3.5% of the top 100 grossing films at the U.S. box office from 2007 to 2019 featured Hispanic/Latino leads or co-leads.