Core Post #4 - KC Chow

In her piece about “’The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat’: Carmen Miranda, a Spectacle of Ethnicity,” Shari Roberts talks about the titular star in relation to her ethnicity, a strong association she emphasizes that Hollywood could never separate her from. Unlike one of her costars, Fox’s “Golden Girl” Betty Grable, Miranda was never able to just play a woman or a person – only an exotic South American spectacle.

Similar to Hattie McDaniels, Miranda was a revelation in the sense that she represented her ethnicity (which was largely cinematically ignored) in such a big, mainstream way; however, with these roles that made her a household name, she also played a role in perpetuating toxic stereotypes about Latinos (4, 8). Specifically, she perpetuated two dominant images of the Latina girl: that of the tropical “other” sex object and the uneducated comedic relief. Not only did her darker skin, tropical wardrobe, and female sexuality contribute to this overlying image of otherness, the fact that her voice had such a heavy accent to the point of being unintelligible in songs and dialogue really factored into this (10). To American audiences, she was this exotic Latina animal who they could never probably understand but could always watch in awe.

After reading this work, Sofia Vergara immediately popped up in my mind as a modern-day Miranda. Like Miranda, Vergara is a dark-haired beauty and a body from an exotic place (Colombia) who is famous during a time where Latinas are still underrepresented onscreen, but famous for capitalizing and continuing a Latina stereotype. In her breakout role as Gloria in Modern Family, there are even jokes about her accent being so thick that everyone around her can’t understand what she’s saying. Additionally, similar to the musicals Miranda partook in, the sole storyline for Vergara’s trademark Gloria is to demonstrate a “universal language” of love as Gloria is married to a white man on the show (5).

At one point, Roberts also talks about how Latinos/as are generally portrayed as living in destitute conditions on film. It's still the same today. Though big movie franchises like Transformers and the upcoming Terminator have been casting Latina actresses as their leads as of late (Isabela Moner and Natalia Reyes, respectively), and it's great to see Latinas be represented in such a big way, they're portrayed as living in poor conditions as compared to their white counterparts.