Overview of Latinx Representation in Film

There is a long, complex, and ever-evolving story of Latinx representation in film. The following essay draws from secondary literature to provide an overview of the major themes, figures, and events related to the representation of Latine people in film from 1894 to 2000. This essay is not a comprehensive history, but rather a brief summary of the scholarship on the subject to provide context for the filmographies that follow.

Experimentation with motion pictures began in the late 1880s/early 1890s. These earliest American films were already based on derogatory depictions of immigrants and non-Anglo people. According to the literature, two of the earliest films that focused on Latine characters were "Pedro Esquivel and Dionecio Gonzales-Mexican Duel" (1894) and "Carmencita" (1894). These films villanized Mexican men and sexualized Mexican women, a pattern that would recur all throughout the twentieth century (Keller 1993, p. 8). Towards the end of the century, story films or narrative films emerged, and those representing Latines were plagued with denigratory depictions. Between 1910 and 1920, most films centering Latines focused on Mexican people. Mexican men were characterized as “villainous greasers” and Mexican women as “senoritas” whose sole purpose was to be the romantic or sexual interest of Anglo men (Keller 1993, p. 14-16).

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Great Depression and Good Neighbor Policy, which sought to improve relations with Latin America, impacted film narratives. This era saw the rise of “social problem films” with deeper messages about society, as well as films about Anglo Good Samaritans (Keller 1993, p. 111). While these films presented Latines in a slightly more positive light than those of the start of the century (e.g. the last use of the term ‘greaser’ was in 1918), in these social problem and Good Samaritan films Anglos were the heroes and took center stage. Anglo characters were saviors of subordinate Latine characters, justice-seekers against crimes committed by Latines, or love interests of Latina characters. In sum, Latine characters were violent villains, subordinates, or women who were head-over-heels for Anglo men (Keller 1983; Keller 1993, p. 14, 111).

In 1934, the Motion Picture Production Code, or Hays Code, enacted moral standards for films. The code "[decried] criminal violence and intimate sexuality, [and upheld] the sanctity of marriage and the home and other traditions" (Keller 1993, p. 114). In the context of Latine representation, the Code meant that interracial or interethnic relationships were not allowed to succeed, except for those between an Anglo man and a lighter-skin Latina woman, and that in the many films depicting Latines as violent could not be too graphic (Rincon 2011, p. 286; Cortes 1983, p. 98; Rodriguez 2004, p. 144). Prominent and rising Latine actors during this period were Ramon Novarro, Lupe Velez, Gilbert Roland, and Dolores del Rio.

Throughout most of the first half of the twentieth century, as a result of the denigratory representations of Latines, Latin American nations protested American films. With the start of World War II in the 1940s, the United States’ relationship with Latin America became more significant. As a result, Latines were increasingly cast for background roles in war films and were represented in some films in more “sensitive” ways. Two examples of these more “sensitive” depictions are "Juarez" (1939) and "The Three Caballeros" (1945) (Keller 1993, p. 118; Rincon 2011, p. 825). This decade saw the rise of the Latin musical, a genre in which Carmen Miranda was particularly prominent. Simultaneously, however, films continued to cast Latinas "señoritas" and "bombshells," as was the case with Lupe Velez as "Mexican Spitfire" (Rincon 2011, p. 825).

During the 1950s and 1960s Latine representation dwindled and the portrayals that did take place were more intensely denigrating (Baez 2018, p. 11; Rodriguez 2004, p. 146). This was perhaps due to the end of the Motion Picture Production Code and the end of the wartime and Depression necessity for allyship that discouraged depictions of graphic violence and sexual scenes in the '30s and '40s (Rodriguez 2004, p. 101, 144). Latines in this era were represented primarily in grossly graphic Westerns and urban barrio films as criminals, delinquent teenagers, and stereotyped violent machos, as well as more intensely sexualized Latin Lovers and Latina “bombshells” (Rodriguez 2004, p. 142-146). Other representations included celebrations of assimilation into American culture, Latines who were "saved" by white characters, and the continuation of some social problem films, notably "Salt of the Earth" (1953) and "The Lawless" (1950) (Rodriguez 2004, p. 142; Keller 1993, p. 131).

In the 1970s most of these depictions continued. There was a shift from representations of assimilated Latines to depictions of more “recognizably ethnic characters no longer trying to drown their differences in the melting pot” (Rodriguez 2011 p. 152). More ethnic groups were represented in films as well, including Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and some Central and South Americans (Rodriguez 2011, p. 153).

Towards the end of the century, drastic changes for Latines took place. In 1980 the Latine population in the United States was 15 million, and by 1990 it was 22 million (Puente 2012, p. 53). From 1990 to 2000 the Hispanic population (this is the term used in this particular statistic) grew 61 percent, and was estimated to become one-third of the United States population by 2050 (Padilla 2009). It was perhaps the shifting demographic that brought about major changes to the film scene, changes that scholar Clara E. Rodriguez refers to as the “Latinization” of film (Rodriguez 2004, p. 213). While tropes of crime and urban violence continued to be associated with Latines during this era, there were increasing depictions of Latines outside of that context. More films were created that more accurately depicted Latines in day to day life, including films on history, culture, and music. Latine independent films and filmmakers emerged, and the number of Latines in behind-the-camera roles increased (Rodriguez 2011, 187). Luis Valdez, Gregory Nava, Ramon Menendez, Edward James Olmos, and Robert Rodriguez are prominent Latino directors that emerged throughout the eighties and nineties, producing and acting in films on the Latine experience such as "Zoot Suit" (1981), "El Norte" (1983), "La Bamba" (1987), "Born in East L.A." (1987), "Stand and Deliver" (1988), and "American Me" (1992).