LATINOS IN HOLLYWOOD MARCOS CLINE
WHO’S TELLING YOUR STORY? Marcos Cline-Márquez - Founder & Executive Producer, Altered.LA
THE CASE FOR DIVERSITY ON SCREEN AND BEHIND THE CAMERA
Carlos Cuevas
GROWING UP in a bi-cultural home, my views on diversity were molded by a number of things, including my family’s annual summer drive from Mexico City to a farming town of 400 people in central Illinois back in the ’80's. My mother, a child psychologist and deeply proud Mexicana (who much to my father’s and my chagrin has yet to get her U.S. citizenship), and my father, an economist and proud Midwesterner of Irish descent (who much to my mother’s and my chagrin has yet to get his
Mexican citizenship) would pack the car and we’d make our way over the border to visit my paternal grandparents for the summer. Our first stop was Nuevo Laredo, where we would buy the biggest piñata we could find. Usually it took up three quarters of the back seat. See, my birthday falls mid-summer and none of the country folk in that small farming town had ever seen a piñata until we showed up. Breaking it open was quite the spectacle, one that my great-grandmother hated because “something that pretty shouldn’t be destroyed." Our second and third most important stops were across the river in Laredo, Texas. Just west of the bridge joining my two countries was a mall that had a McDonald’s and a KB Toys. Heaven for a pair of Mexican kids like my brother and me. It was during those summer trips that I first realized that middle America was full of loving, warm-hearted, family-oriented folk (so was Mexico, but we already knew that). The fact that they thought my mom could make a better taco salad because she’s Mexican or that “there are so many Mexicans up in Keokuk (Iowa), they even opened up a Taco Bell for ‘em” didn’t register as racist, just uninformed. Today I realize that racism and ignorance go hand in hand. What these people lacked was information and knowledge. What they lacked was a window into the culture, life, and innumerable contributions made by Latinos to the United States. Something they (and the rest of the country) still lack today. When it comes to Latinos, most people continue to be clueless. Much has changed in the 30+ years since those trips. For starters, Latinos now make up 18.5% of the U.S. population and have become the country’s largest minority. Here in Los Angeles, we’re right around 50%. One would think that Hollywood would be bending over backwards to cater to us and, to some extent, they are. Darnell Hunt, dean of the UCLA College division of social sciences and co-author of UCLA’s 2020 Hollywood Diversity Report states that, “As of 2019, both women and minorities are within striking distance of proportionate representation when it comes to lead roles and total cast.” Given the potential dollars earned, Hollywood executives would be silly not to put faces onscreen that reflect their audience. In 2019, the films that performed best at the box office were the most diverse, with casts in the 41% to 50% minority range. Just look at the numbers for Aladdin and Jumanji: The Next Level. While progress is being made in front of the camera, the stories being told don’t carry the authenticity required
98 LATINO LEADERS WINTER EDITION 2020
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05/01/21 14:50