I’ve been watching Eva Longoria: Searching for Spain and Pati Jinich Explores Panamericana with mixed feelings. I am on record as being an unapologetic, gushing fan of director, actor, producer, and Latina superstar, Eva Longoria. I followed her through Mexico in her Searching for Mexico series on CNN. If she did a series titled, Eva Longoria: Searching for Lint in Her Coat Pocket, I’d watch it because I’m a diehard fan.

Pati Jinich, best-selling cookbook author and TV host of PBS’s long-running, popular series, Pati’s Mexican Table is another favorite of mine. Jinich has a great on-screen persona, but is there any Latina TV personality who looks more like a gringa than Pati Jinich but sounds more Mexican than she does? I enjoy her infectious charming curiosity  when she ventures out finding new Mexican cuisines.

But so far for my personal Mexican taste buds, Eva and Pati have encountered mostly ho-hum cuisines on their very different food journeys

The historical and gastronomical fact is we Mexicans took Spanish food stuffs; beef, pork, lamb, flour, rice manteca, and citrus and other fruits, incorporated them into an already outstanding diet and turned it into the world’s most popular and delicious cuisine. I don’t see people lining up for tappas and sangria. But you can find snotty, stuck-up Parisians in France eating tacos from Mexican food trucks (holding them incorrectly) and foregoing their overrated wine for good Mexican beer.

¡Hay Dios Mio! We even improved the language they gave us! Who can understand the Catalan Spanish that comes out of the mouths of Spaniards with that lisp, cotton balls  in their mouths, dropping the “S” off the end of words, jamming words together and shooting them out in rapid machine gun bursts of nouns, vowels, and verbs.?

We Mexicans modified, moderated and improved the pronunciation of Spanish so that Mexican-style Spanish is the foreign language of choice to learn and despite what Trump says, it is the “official” language of most of America and the world.

Eva for the most part, seems to be living la vida loca in Spain, but occasionally she puts on a brave face when she is offered unappetizing Spanish food.  But she smiles graciously, takes a small bite, swallows and washs it all down with glasses of wine.

Meanwhile Pati, up in the frozen tundra of North Alaska and The Yukon and living the vida of Nanook of the North, suffers eating seal fat, moose meat and other Alaskan delicacies. Although she has been treated to some delicious Alaskan salmon, crab and other seafood treasures, Pati has also  bravely tasted unappetizing  items like seal fat, whale blubber and moose meat with her typical grace and humor.

Surprisingly, Pati has found Latino culture and people up in the frozen tundra of the Great White North.  Eva, for her part, has taken us back to the Mothership of all Latin American countries and reminded us of the Arab, Middle Eastern and African culinary, cultural and musical influences that flourished in Spain for centuries and were brought to us buy the Spaniards during The Conquest.

But what both these two food / travelogue programs emphatically demonstrate is the influence and global dominance of Hispanic culture that came to Mesoamerica from Spain, took root there and blossomed into the worlds’ most vibrant, colorful and delicious cultural expression.

Gore Vidal once characterized the grater Southwest, but especially the Tex Mex Border from El Paso to Brownsville, as The Occupied Territories.

How about if Eva and Pati team up and do a Latina Lewis & Clark type exploration of The Occupied territories on their next food / travelogue series? They will certainly encounter a helluva lot tastier food and easier to understand Spanish.

Eva Longoria: Searching for Spain – Sundays at 9 PM ET On CNN

Pati Jinich Explores PanaAmerica – PBS, Check for Dates and times

Streaming on Amazon Prime video 

The post Eva Longoria and Pati Jinich: On A Quest For Good Eats first appeared on .

And The Oscar Goes To…

All the signs are there pointing to a big night for Emilia Pérez, beginning with the Venice Film Festival where the three lead actresses, Karla Sofía Gascòn (El Senior de los cielos), Zoe Saldaña (Avatar, Lioness) and Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building), all share the Best Actress Award, afirst for that prestigious film festival.

At the Golden Globes, Saldaña’s show stopping singing and dancing performance of El Mal, won for Best Song, The genre busting, musical, drama, crime story, gender bending saga of physical, spiritual change and search for redemption, also won Best Film from France, as well as Best Motion Picture.

Legendary blockbuster filmmaker / director, James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar) said; “Emilia Pérez is just not like any other film that’s ever been made. It’s bold, daring, a vision.” And that daring and vision has resulted in 13 Oscar nominations including for: Best Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, International Feature, Supporting Actress, Actress, Director and Picture.

Zoe Saldaña is a shoo-in to win Best Supporting Actress. She’s already taken honors at the Golden Globes, Critic’s Choice and BAFTA award shows. All that’s missing is a Nobel Peace Prize and Baseball’s MVP Award. Look for Zoe to bring down the house when she performs El Mal.  Zoe has shown herself to be a topflight action/adventure star in Avatar, Guardians of the Universe and my favorite TV series; Lioness. But as the morally conflicted lawyer, Rita Mora Castro, Zoe Saldaña brings her acting, singing and dancing talents in full, brilliant display that will surely garner her Best Supporting Actress honors.

Karla Sofía Gascón is the first trans person ever nominated for an Academy Award. As the arch criminal, drug cartel kingpin, Manitas, who is surgically transformed into Emalia Pérez, Gascón’s portrayal is eerie, chilling, disturbing, but ultimately sympathetic and one colored with humanity. Manitas is an evil dude who through his metamorphosis into Emilia, tries valiantly to cleanse his soul and find ultimate redemption as a human being…as a woman.

Right now, Gascón is the betting favorite to win best Actress, but she faces stiff sentimental competition from Demi Moore in The Substance. However, Gascón’s nomination has been plagued over a controversy revolving around some seemingly racist remarks she made on social media. Hollywood immediately responded by essentially blackballing her. She was excluded from Netflix’s marketing campaign for the film. Even some of her co—stars and director of the movie expressed extreme disappointment in her perceived racist remarks and distanced themselves from her.

Initially, Netflix refused to pay for Gascón to attend the Oscars but have since reversed themselves and are paying for her to attend the ceremonies. Could it be Netflix senses (as this writer does) Emilia Pérez is going to win a boatload of Oscars and it will be a huge feather in Netflix’s streaming platform cap?

This controversy also raises the question: Do we punish artists for offensive behavior or remarks outside of their art? I think not. Mel Gibson said awful things about Jewish people. He was not blackballed and went on to make Hacksaw Ridge and Apocalypto  to critical praise. Gibson subsequently apologized for the remarks and so has Karla Sofía Gascón for her unfortunate social media posts.

Hopefully, the dark cloud of controversy over the nomination of Karla Sofía Gascón will dissipate, and the Academy will judge her solely for her groundbreaking performance in Emilia Pérez. 

That performance by this talented trans person has cultural and social significance because in this current political climate where homophobia, and hatred of the LGBTQ+ community has been validated in Executive Orders signed in bold Magic Marker scrawls, a Best Actress Oscar for Gascón would send a much-needed ray of hope and light in these uncertain times.

Selena Gomez did not receive an Oscar nomination for her role as Jessi del Monte, the troubled wife of Manitas. She did receive acting nods from BAFTA and the Golden Globes and this often award snubbed actress who has grown from a tiny tyke on Barney, the Purple Dinosaur, to a teen star on the Disney Channel’s The Wizards of Waverly Place, to an international pop singing sensation to currently being the pillar in the acting trio of Steve Martin and Martin Short on Only Murders in the Building, has proven in her tough, dark performance in Emilia Pérez,she is more than ready to take on serious, demanding  dramatic roles and will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.

The Oscars are right around the corner, and it looks like a battle between Wicked and Emilia Pérez to take top honors. Will this be the year Latino Hollywood can at long last finally celebrate by grabbing the brass ring? Well, I echo Manitas’ cooly confident affirmation: “Bingo!”
The Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, air on Sunday, March 3, on ABC and stream on Hulu.

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Emmy Award winner John Leguizamo follows up his brilliant one-man show, Latino History for Dummies (2018), with a Master Class in the three-part historical documentary for PBS VOCES. American Historias: The Untold History of Latinos, Leguizamo’s panoramic, kaleidoscopic landscape exalting the centuries long contributions of Latinos to the Americas is a colorful, dramatic and illuminating cinematic wall mural worthy of Diego Rivera.

American Historias, co-written and directed by Ben de Jesus, proudly chronicles the Latino legacy from the great indigenous ancient Meso-American empires, the Conquest, the Latinization of the Americas and the Caribbean. It reminds us of our military heroism, patriotism, political activism for social justice, our cultural influences in the arts, music, film, theater and not the least of which is our world class cuisine.

Leguizamo points out Latinos are an ethnic mixture with roots in Europe, Africa an  Meso America. We are a complicated multi-layered and delicious ethnic dish like traditional Mexican mole, a blend of native and several ingredients from all over the world.

American Historias bursts, con mucho argullo Latinim like a busted piñata. Each one of the tasty historias is excellent material for movies, like Walkout and Stand and Deliver. We must have our own all Latino streaming network like Netflix. We must have a MEXFLIX streaming network to tell and share nuestro American Latino historias with the world.
American Historias is currently streaming Prime Video, Hulu & YouTubeTV.  You can also watch it free on pbs.org/VOCES

American Historias: The Untold History of Latinos is executive produced by Jill Kirkorian and produced by Alessandra Quest and Belinda Salazar Kizy among

Currently Steaming on Hulu, Prime Video and on PBS.org/Voces. Or to purchase the three hourlong episodes go to Amazon CLICK HERE.

The post Fideo Loco Quick Review: PBS’ American Historias first appeared on .

Just finished watching House of Spoils. Ariana DeBose gives a solid performance as a driven ambitious chef trying to open a gourmet restaurant in an old house in the woods that just happens to be haunted by a witch who lived there before.

It’s an atmospheric thriller that evokes  Henry James‘ The Turn of the Screw and Tim Burton‘s  Sleepy Hollow.

DeBose’s kitchen is a chaotic nightmare  serving  some  questionable dishes.  After seeing some of the food served, I looked over at my wife and said: “We’re not going to this restaurant. How about  if we stay home and I fix us some migas?”

However, House of Spoils does serves up some tasty scary moments.

Have a great weekend.

The post Fideo Loco Quick Review: ‘House of the Spoils’ starring Ariana DeBose first appeared on .

Warner Bros. DC Comic Book action/adventure movie Blue Beetle has all the prerequisite elements for a great superhero flick to take its place alongside the long litany of similar movie fare that dominates the theaters today.

Blue Beetle revolves around a very likable, attractive young hero, an ultra-evil villain who threatens to take over the world, an apocalyptic storyline replete with pyrotechnic fireworks, explosions, gun fights, and hand-to-hand combat. There’s a romantic interest, a sequel teaser coda, and a wonderful, pulsating, rhythmic Latino music soundtrack. But the not-so-secret key ingredient that makes Blue Beetle a tasty, palatable, delicious, cinematic feast is the cast.

A Super Latino Cast of Characters

Xolo Maridueña plays Jaime Reyes, a recent college graduate, the first in his Mexican-American family. Through a series of improbable events that require much suspension of disbelief, a beetle scarab possessing enormous powers becomes a parasite on his back, endowing him with powers he has no desire to have. Maridueña, who is best known for his continuing role as Miguel Diaz on Cobra Kai, is funny and disarming as the accidental, reluctant hero with superpowers he has no control over.

It is Maridueña’s affable, humorous self-effacing performance that sets the tone for Blue Beetle.

George Lopez, whose career has evolved from stand-up comic, late-night talk show host to TV sitcom star to becoming an accomplished character actor in such films as, The Spy Next Door and El Chicano, puts all that experience to good use as Jaime’s zany, eccentric Uncle Rudy who doesn’t miss a chance to chew up the scenery in his many hilarious scenes.

The talented, versatile Mexican actress Adriana Barraza who has distinguished herself in such diverse films as Babel and Thor, is Jaime’s grandmother, Nana Reyes. At first glance, Nana appears to be your typical, lovable Mexican abuela. But this granny harbors a secret past, or at least she hints at one. Nana suggests she once was a gun-toting revolutionary in some Latin American conflict.

In the exciting climatic battle, Nana shows her old revolutionary stuff by expertly firing a machine gun, much like Barraza did in Gigi Saul Guererro’s film Bingo Hell, all the while laughing out loud with obvious glee.

Jamie’s mother, Rocio Reyes, is played by legendary (and this writer’s favorite) Mexican actress Elpidia Carrillo. She has appeared in numerous big-time films like Salvador, The Border, and Predator and held her own alongside costars like James Woods, Jack Nicholson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Carrillo has appeared in several Mexican independent films as well as starring in International and American films and TV. She has won a plethora of awards for her work on the big and small screen. She also hosts an annual film festival in her home state of Michoacan, Mexico.

Despite her impressive cinema and TV pedigree, Carillo regrettably only has a small part in Blue Beetle. But it is a pivotal part, and true to her commitment as an artist, she does a lot with what she is given.

The Family is the Real Power

Director Angel Manuel Soto (The Farm, La Carta, 22 Weeks) and screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, (Contrapelo, Miss Bala, El Muerto) have combined their considerable talents to create a story that illuminates and brings into sharp focus the warmth, love, and humor of the Mexican American experience found in the Blue Beetle DC Comic Book stories.

There is a strong subtext to Blue Beetle that posits the idea that Jaime Reyes’ superpowers owe as much to his strong familial connections as it does to an arbitrary beetle scarab talisman. And who better to represent the strength of the family on the big screen to a wide audience than a Mexican-American one?

There are some funny Latino cultural references used in writer Dunnet-Alcoceaideser’s script, and director Soto leavens the furious action set pieces with glib, self-effacing ad-lib asides by Jaime as he valiantly tries to rein in his out-of-control, oversized beetle bug superpowers.

A Disappointment at the Box Office

Blue Beetle is a fun roller coaster ride replete with action, laughs, and quirky, likeable Mexican-American characters struggling, battling and loving within a rich Latino cultural motif that received generally positive critical reviews and enthusiastic audience feedback.

So, why didn’t Blue Beetle do better at the box office? It earned $25 million during its first theatrical week of release. As of this writing, its global box office receipts are under $100 million.

Several reasons contributed to its weak performance at the box office.

• Dump Month Factor. Warner Bros. released Blue Beetle to theaters in mid-August 2023. August, by many movie industry insiders, is considered a “dump month” for movies the studio doesn’t have much confidence in, as opposed to those released during the holidays.
• Lack of Marketing. Due to the WGA/SAG strike, Blue Beetle cast members did not appear on late night TV shows to chat up the film. TV commercials promoting the film were rare compared to the avalanche of ads for Barbie.
• Blame it on Hillary. No, not that Hillary, the other Hillary, Tropical Storm Hillary. Hillary descended on Southern California just in time for the theatrical release of Blue Beetle. It was reported that the heavy rains put a damper on theater attendance.
• The DC Cinema Universe Losing Streak. Whereas the Marvel Universe churns one highly successful adventure superhero film after another, the DC Cinema Universe has turned out one box office turkey after another. The last most recent one, in a string of many box office failures was Shazam! Fury of the Gods.

Hope “Streams” Eternal

In 1946, Hollywood iconic director, Frank Capra, saw his film, It’s A Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, and Lionel Barrymore, open to a universal chorus of boo bird movie critics who ravaged his film for its style and content. It suffered miserably at the box office as well.

But with the advent of television, It’s A Wonderful Life over time became an annual Christmas viewing tradition and achieved a cult status which it still enjoys today.

When Blue Beetle is picked up by some streaming platform, a similar fate could befall this movie, too. On a streaming platform, it could gain the traction it didn’t get in the theaters and become a minor cult classic. With some newfound success, Blue Beetle could result in a sequel, maybe a franchise, and who knows, eventually a Broadway musical based on the DC Comic Mexican-American superhero.

A strong streaming performance could also convince the studio executives at Sony Pictures to rethink their decision to shelve Bad Bunny’s El Muerto and bring it back to life (bad pun intended).

So, let’s not throw out the big bug with the bath water just yet. Blue Beetle has a lot going for it; a great cast, storyline, and cultural diversity, which is so badly lacking in the world of superhero films today.

The post The ‘Blue Beetle’ Showcases a Super Latino Cast first appeared on .

By Roberto Leal

With the recent release of Flamin’ Hot, Eva Longoria, the talented actor, producer,
makes her directorial debut telling us an inspirational Horatio Alger-like story with a
decided Mexican twist of Richard Montañez, the humble janitor working for Frito-Lay
who developed the spicy seasoning for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, America’s favorite snack
chip.

While the nuts-and-bolts facts surrounding the development of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos are
in dispute, Longoria doesn’t go into that aspect of the story but rather brings clear
focus the body and soul of this story which is Richard Montañez’s rags-to-riches, triumph over adversity buoyed by the strength of his Mexican heritage and close-knit family.

Jesse Garcia (The Avengers) gives an honest, sympathetic performance as Richard, a
young Mexican struggling to navigate and overcome the barriers of a troubled upbringing and systemic racism to realize his ambitions and dreams.

Annie Gonzalez (Gentefied, Vida) delivers an excellent performance as Judy, Richard’s wife who bolsters, encourages, scolds, and never loses faith in Richard. In many ways, Judy’s never faltering strength in this story is reminiscent of the tireless determination of the Mexican wives in the  Herbert J. Biberman directed feature The Salt of the Earth (1954) who were the driving force behind the copper miners strike in New Mexico.

Judy’s presence in the film reminds us that Mexican society is not necessarily a male dominated, macho one, but more often a matriarchal hierarchy ruled by: las madres, abuelas, tias, hermanas, and comadres. At least that was the reality in my family.

Longoria’s even-handed directing style is crisp and fast-paced. She allows the story to evolve and reveal itself at its own chosen speed. There are no slow parts in Flamin’ Hot. The story is punctuated and rounded out by the casting of veteran character actors: Dennis Haysbert, Tony Shouloub, and Pepe Serna.

Flamin’ Hot was recently screened at the White House as part of the administration’s advocacy efforts to strengthen DACA and immigration reform. Alicia Menendez, host of MSNBC’s American Voices asked Longoria why she made Flamin’ Hot: “It’s a love letter to the Mexican American community”, said Longoria.

“When I think about tonight’s movie, I think about courage. So many of you, your ancestors left behind all that they knew to start a new life in the United States,” President Biden said as he addressed a crowd of over 900 person there for the outdoor screening of the film for community, White House staff and press.

Flamin’ Hot is indeed a love letter to our community. But it is also a message to Hollywood we need to see more positive representations of Latinos in film, TV and theater and we have exceptionally talented storytellers, like Eva Longoria, to bring those “love letters” to American audiences and beyond.

Richard Montañez disrupted the food industry in the ‘90s by channeling his Mexican American heritage to help turn Flamin’ Hot Cheetos into a multibillion-dollar brand today and a cultural phenomenon,” Longoria said. “We are telling a story that celebrates the American entrepreneurial dream without sidestepping the fact that the dream isn’t available in the same way for everyone.”

Flamin’ Hot starring Jesse Garcia and Annie Gonzalez is currently streaming on Hulu and
Disney+.

The post Eva Longoria’s Movie ‘Flamin’ Hot’ is a Sizzlin’ Hit first appeared on .

Written by Roberto Leal

“The problem with Marilyn playing dumb blonde roles is she’s not dumb or a blonde” —Arthur Miller, Playwright

Ana de Armas has clearly and undeniably nailed down the coveted pole position for the for Oscar race for Best Actress. The talented, beautiful, Cuban-born de Armas delivers a stunning portrayal of Marilyn Monroe that is at once harrowing, compassionate, heart-breaking, nuanced, at times painful to watch and emotionally courageous. Ana de Armas has laid the foundation for this ground-breaking and controversial performance with critically acclaimed roles in her previous films, Knives Out, in which she plays a humble caregiver, the latest Bond girl in No Time to Die and a tough, kickass CIA agent in The Gray Man. But in Blonde, de Armas not only carries the film on her slender shoulders, she elevates the entire film to award-winning heights which in turn required her to extend her emotional acting range to newer, deeper and darker regions.

The Film Auteur’s Vision

The great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, who gave us classic films like Persona, The 7^th Seal, and Wild Strawberries, observed that sitting in a darkened theater and watching the mesmerizing flickering images dance on a movie screen is the closest thing to the dream state. Andrew Dominik, the director of Blonde and noted for his avant-garde film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Bob Ford, masterfully applies his auteurship skills to his vision of Blonde, which is based on the highly fictionalized, 1999 novel of Marilyn’s life by the author, Joyce Carol Oates.

In Blonde Dominik has created a surreal journey through the catacombs of Marilyn Monroe’s tortured inner psyche, as Norma Jean Baker struggles with the manufactured Hollywood identity of Marilyn Monroe that inhabits her body, mind and soul. In de Armas, Dominik has found the perfect vessel to bring his vision to life on the screen.

Dominik uses dark, muted light and shadows to convey an ethereal, dream-like tone that pervades the film often blending and mixing reality and nightmarish sequences with delusional fantasies.

Netflix, in a rare move, gave Dominik carte blanche to realize his vision of the material which contains some strong sexual content that resulted in Netflix getting its first NC-17 rating. But while the sexual content is disturbing, it is not especially graphic and as experienced through the vulnerable eyes of de Armas as Marilyn, it comes across more like pathos than porn. Ana de Armas uses her eyes, face, and inner dialogs between Norma Jean and Marilyn to paint a very textured portrait of the legendary Blonde Bombshell as a complicated, conflicted and misunderstood human being who became a Hollywood myth.

A Fine Supporting Cast

Blonde features an excellent supporting cast, all of whom turn in notable acting performances. However, Lily Fisher (Station 19, Life & Death)) as young Norma Jean and Julianne Nicholson (August: Osage County, Black Mass) as Gladys Baker, Marilyn’s mentally unstable, delusional and often abusive mother, deserve a special shout-out for their fine work in the opening scenes of Blonde that depict, with often unsettling detail, the genesis of Norma Jean /Marilyn Monroe’s journey.

Fisher has a very unforgettable and poignant scene when she is shuffled off to an orphanage and protests in a quiet, haunting, plaintive voice: “But I’m not n orphan.”  Nicholson’s riveting performance of Gladys’s descent into utter and complete madness is a disquieting and viscerally frightening experience to behold.

A Cinematic Triumph for Ana de Armas

But in the final analysis, Blonde is all Ana de Armas. Her performance is like a great concert pianist playing George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  She commands the attention of the camera. You can’t take your eyes off of her. She draws you into the story and demands you watch, listen and try to understand her pain. The camera loves de Armas in much the same way it loved Marilyn Monroe, who was beyond a doubt the most photogenic Hollywood movie star of all time. 

Ana de Armas’s physical resemblance to Monroe is obvious. She worked diligently with an accent coach to diffuse her lovely Cuban accent and recreate Marilyn’s speaking voice. Her Cuban accent slightly betrays her only once or twice on certain words and did not detract from her performance at all.

In fact, it was a bit of unintentional irony that de armas, a Latina, was cast to play Marilyn Monroe. In real life, Monroe kept her Mexican birth heritage (her mother, Gladys, was born in Mexico) a professional secret because of pressure from the Hollywood studio executives who did not want their valuable All-American “product” to be tainted with a Hispanic background. So, in a karmic twist of fate, de Armas is in reality the perfect actress to portray Marilyn Monroe.

Ana de Armas’s star power keeps intensifying with each new challenging role. After her brilliant star turn in Blonde the only question remaining for de Armas is what designer dress this gorgeous and talented Latina will be wearing during her red-carpet interviews on her way to receiving her many well-earned and richly deserved acting awards for her role in this film.

BLONDE

Director: Andrew Dominik

Stars: Ana de Armas, Lily fisher, Julianne Nicholson

Distributor: Netflix

Blonde is currently streaming on Netflix.

The post Ana de Armas Gives an Oscar Worthy Performance in Netflix´s ‘Blonde’ first appeared on .

Written by Roberto Leal

“A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit”—Cecil B. DeMille, Sunset Boulevard

Of the countless books and films about Marilyn Monroe almost all without exception have dealt with the well-known established Hollywood datapoints of her life and career: Her phenomenal rise to stardom, her two failed marriages, her miscarriages, her affairs with JFK and Bobby Kennedy, her addictions and the controversy surrounding her suicide in 1962 at the age of 36. But the facts about Marilyn’s Hispanic heritage were also well-documented and well-known but kept secret from the public when Hollywood transformed Norma Jean Mortensen into Marilyn Monroe.

A Mexican by Any Other Name

Hollywood put Marilyn’s ancestral family roots in the Great White American Midwest.  That was partly true, but they left out the fact that Marilyn’s maternal grandparents left the Midwest in the 1890s for Mexico due to financial hardships. They relocated in what is now Piedras Negras just across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. they quickly assimilated in the norteño ranching and farming lifestyle and became completely “Mexicanized.” 

Marilyn’s mother, Gladys Pearl, was born in Mexico in 1902, therefore by birthright, Marilyn Monroe was a Latina. Unlike some famous celebrities of that time, like Hall of Fame slugger, Ted Williams, whose mother was a Mexican and who denied his Latino heritage all his life, Marilyn never disavowed her Mexican origins. But due to the pressures and demands put on her by Hollywood to maintain an All-American girl image, she kept them to herself to sustain her career.

Marilyn Reclaims Her Mexican Connection

At the height of her fabulous movie career, Marilyn formed her own production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP) and at this point no longer felt constrained by Hollywood to hide her Latina pride.

She spent a lot of time in Mexico; Ciudad Juarez, Mexico City, Acapulco and Baja California. There to the horror of Hollywood press agents and publicists Marilyn could be openly and publicly seen being serenaded by mariachi bands, eating tacos, climbing to the top of ancient Mayan pyramids, speaking Spanish in public and even becoming romantically involved with Mexican writer/producer, José Bolaños.

Marilyn bought and decorated her house with Mexican mahogany furniture. She even had her picture taken wearing a China Poblana traditional Mexican outfit  She was also fond of Mexican sweaters. One of the last photos of Marilyn is of her walking on the beach wearing her Mexican sweater. That sweater was found draped over her Mexican furniture the day of her death.

Her Safe Harbor?

There is no question the camera adored Marilyn Monroe. She was uniquely photogenic, sensual, vulnerable, fragile and beautiful. It was those qualities Hollywood packaged and branded into a myth; a product, a persona called Marilyn Monroe they could market to a White majority movie audience. The demands and expectations put on her to maintain this public façade proved painful to her already damaged psyche resulting from a troubled childhood and going from one foster home to another. Clinging to and embracing her Mexican heritage must have been like a safe harbor for Marilyn Monroe. It was a place where she could be a free spirit Latina and bask in the warmth and comfort of her Mexican culture and birthright.

In what must be an unintentional ironic twist of fate, the upcoming NC-17 rated Netflix biopic of Monroe entitled, Blonde, has rising Latina superstar, Ana de Armas (Knives Out, No Time to Die) in the lead role as the legendary Blonde Bombshell. The movie is based on the highly fictionalized and sensationalized account of Marilyn’s life in a novel by Joyce Carol Oates.

Could it be the producers of Blonde are sending a subliminal message to the audience of Marilyn’s Hispanic heritage by casting Armas, in the role of Marilyn Monroe? Or could it possibly be a guilt-driven casting Freudian slip in an attempt to subconsciously atone for suppressing the Mexican side of Marilyn she always honored but was not allowed to celebrate by the Hollywood establishment?

Regardless, somewhere in her eternal safe harbor, Norma Jean Mortensen must be flashing that million-dollar smile knowing at long last a Latina star is giving life to the truth of “La Mexicana”, Marilyn Monroe.

Blonde is written and directed by Andrew Dominik. The cast is led by Armas and features Bobby Cannavale, Adrien Brody, Julianne Nicholson, Xavier Samuel and Evan Williams.

Blonde, starring Ana de Armas, premieres on Netflix on September 23^rd.  

The post Marilyn Monroe Kept her Mexican Heritage a Secret In Hollywood first appeared on .

William Frey’s seminal work on the changing future demographics of the United States, The Browning of America has it all right, except for the title. The book should be titled, The Re-Browning of America. 

How soon we forget. The pre-Columbian Americas from Canada down to Patagonia were flush with brown people long before the first seasick pasty white Pilgrim set foot on Plymouth Rock.

Frey predicts by 2030 most of the West Coast, the Southwest, the Deep South, and some East Coast states will become minority-majority states with Latinos of all fifty shades of brown, accents, music and food making up a huge percentage of the population in those areas.

California is already a minority-majority state. So we can assume that Los Angeles with its massive Chicano community and the home of Latino Hollywood is the place where diversity and inclusivity are a slam dunk in film and TV, right? Well not so fast Speedy (insert your favorite Spanish surname).

Fear and Loathing in LA

“They’re singing songs of diversity, but not for me” is a tune many in Latino Hollywood find themselves singing these days. And in the face of so many reported gains in diversity and inclusion for women and other minorities for opportunities in front of and behind the camera, the question has to be asked why Latinos haven’t benefitted from these improvements?

An article about the recent WarnerMedia Discovery merger in a Latin Heat article, cited the public criticism by several Latino advocacy groups for inviting minority groups to their corporate board table. Rather the message to the Latino entertainment community was not to bother attending, but that they were more than welcome to come and bus the tables.

A similar UCLA study showed that even though Latinos make up almost 19 percent of the US population, they only have a 7 percent representation in film and TV.  Why such a wide gap in the disparity of representation in comparison to women and other minorities? Could it be fear?

The City of Los Angeles and the Latino community have had a troubled relationship ever since the city became part of the United States. The Anglo incursion into the city resulted in Latinos moving into barrios where they increasingly became objects of scorn and suspicion.  The Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 only underscored the image of the Latino as a criminal to be feared.

The Chicano Movement of the ‘60’s was a wake-up call to the “establishment” that we were unified by an identity of pride and were now a force to be reckoned with. And now there is enough star power in the Latino entertainment galaxy with countless brilliantly talented producers, directors, writers, actors, musicians, cinematographers and craft technicians to light up a whole city. A city like LA. Could it be there are leftover vestiges of that old Latino dread that still linger in the big studio boardrooms and they feel threatened of losing their power in the oncoming, unstoppable cultural tsunami of The Browning of Hollywood?

What Do We Need?

In 2020, over 270 Latino writers and showrunners wrote the “Dear Hollywood” open letter demanding action on inclusivity. The letter’s signatories included such luminaries as Gloria Calderón-Kellett (One Day at a Time), Lin-Manuel Miranda (Encanto) Steven Canals (Pose), Tanaya Saracho (Vida), and John Leguizamo.  In the letter, the group lays out a list of five points of action they deem necessary for change: 

• Hire Latino writers to tell Latino stories
• Greenlight more projects from Latino creators
• Represent all aspects of Latino life and culture
• Do away with writers repeating low-level positions
• Hire Latino writers for projects about other groups.

That was two years ago and from all indications as the song says: “The beat goes on.” So, what do we need to make things change? When will Othello be played by Edward James Olmos rather than James Earl Jones? When will the next reboot of Cheaper by the Dozen be about a blended Mexican-American family of 12. Mom is a retired Air force helicopter pilot who is now running for political office. Dad is a doctor who runs a free clinic in their small Texas border town. The kids divide their time volunteering for Mom and helping out Dad at the clinic.

Who’s going to greenlight these projects from Latino creators?

Bel Hernandez, publisher of the influential trade journal, Latin Heat Entertainment, has been tracking Latino Hollywood since 1992. They don’t call Bel the Godmother of Latino Hollywood for nothing.  “In my opinion having Latino showrunners is essential,” she said. “But what we also need is studios and networks executives to greenlight our projects.” Adding, “And just as important, we need Latinos with deep pockets to invest in our stories like the African American community has done in theirs.”

Impatiently Waiting at the Railway Station

Latino Hollywood has been sitting in the railway station holding a ticket for its inevitable inclusive destination long enough.  That diversity train should have already arrived a long time ago. Well, the damn trains never run-on time, do they? But it won’t be long before we hear the roaring down the tracks of a fast-approaching train.

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The upcoming 94th Annual Academy Awards Ceremony scheduled to air on ABCon March 27 could be a Starry, Starry Night for Latino Hollywood. This year saw an amazing array of Latino talent become strong contenders in several different competitive categories plus the emergence of one exceptionally bright star in the Latino Hollywood night sky. Here’s a look at the nominees, their categories, and their chances of taking home the coveted gold-plated statue.

Best Animated Feature

Two good to be true?  There are two excellent Disney Studio animated feature films up for Best Animated Feature with Latino talent: 

Encanto the Latino-themed story about the Columbian family, the Madrigals. Directed by Byron Howard  and Jared Bush who also shares the screenplay credit with Charise Castro Smith.  Yvette Merino is one of the producers and the music is by Germaine Franco.  

Raya and the Last Dragon is directed by Mexico City-born Carlos López Estrada along with Don Hall both nominated for Best Director.

There is frequently the possibility two Disney Studio nominees will cancel each other out. But these are two very different animated features with radically different approaches to animation.  Encanto uses a more traditional narrative animation style that is the hallmark of Disney animation. It’s nice to see the characters in Encanto are unmistakably and decidedly Latino. There are also several marvelous songs and musical segments in Encanto.

Raya and the Last Dragon, on the other hand, is strictly a fantasy narrative. The animation of the human characters in Raya and the Last Dragon is so life-like and realistic in their facial expressions you feel as though they could jump off the screen, sit next to you on the couch and enjoy the story with you. The so-called “last dragon”, voiced by that crazy, rich, funny Asian comic actress, Awkwafina, is an impish feathered serpent who appears to be half Big Bird and half Quetzalcoatl.

What Encanto and Raya and the Last Dragon have in common are two strong female lead characters and stories with underlying messages of hope, detterminationand the triumph of the human spirit.

Best Song

Is there anything this guy can’t do? The multi-talented Lin-Manuel Miranda gets a richly deserved Oscar nomination for the Encanto song “Dos Oruguitas”. It boggles the mind to ponder what this actor, producer and musical theater genius would have produced had he been at MGM during the Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals.

Best Supporting Actress

It’s like deja vu all over again. Ariana DeBose is well-positioned to accomplish an acting awards hat fete by taking the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in West Side Story. As the fiery Anita, DeBose overshadows the two leads in the film and overpowers the screen with her explosive, show-stopping performance of America.

Sound familiar? It should because it is the exact same thing Rita Moreno did sixty years ago when she won the Best Supporting Actress award for her dynamic dominating portrayal of Anita in the 1961 version of West side Story. DeBose has already won the Golden Globe and SAG awards and is the odds on favorite to win the Oscar. The super talented DeBose will hopefully follow in Moreno’s footsteps and become a member of the exclusive EGOT Club, winner of an Emmy, Golden Globe, Oscar and Tony. It will be like deja vu all over again…again.

Best (Overlooked) Supporting Actor

Eugenio Derbez was superb as the eccentric but caring and nurturing Mexican music choir teacher, Bernardo Villalobos, in CODA. Derbez puts a nice Latin American spin on his Mr. Holland’s Opus-like character. But the award will likely go to his deaf actor co-star, Tony Kotsur, in a sentimental well-deserved win.

Best Actress

Behold a pale dark horse wearing way too much mascara. The Best Actress race is always a tough one to handicap. There are so many fine actresses working today and this year’s field of Oscar contenders is proof of that.

Penelope Cruz gets her fifth Academy Award nomination for her performance in Parallel Mothers. Cruz won Best Supporting Actress in 2018 for her work in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But the beautiful Spanish actress faces stiff competition from perennial Academy favorite, Nicole Kidman, for her stellar performance as Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos. Kidman won the Best Actress Oscar for The Hours in 2002 for her haunting portrayal of tragic writer Virginia Woolf. Kidman has proven her biopic acting chops.

But I believe the Academy is going to ignore the subtle and the sublime of Parallel Mothers and “Cruz” right past Penelope and go for the quirky and give the Oscar to Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Tammy Faye’s grotesque garish harlequin eye makeup could paralyze a clown dead in his tracks and intimidate some Academy members to vote for her.

Best Actor

Javier Bardem should be a shoo-in to win the Oscar for his performance as Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos. Bardem shows us the complicated layers that made up this often misunderstood and underappreciated man who was the backbone of I Love Lucy, the Desilu Production empire, and an early TV sitcom innovator. Arnaz was much more than a chronic womanizer, conga drum playing Cuban bandleader singing Babaloo and delivering his lines in his signature Cuban accent. He was an astute businessman, tough negotiator and eternally devoted to Lucille Ball. Bardem shows us all those colors brilliantly in Being the Ricardos.

Bardem’s competition comes from two popular Black Hollywood favorites: Will Smith in King Richard and Denzel Washington in The Tragedy of Macbeth. The Academy loves anything from the British Isles and feels it must be good due to that cultured British accent. English actor, Benedict Cumberbatch, whose name alone conjures up fish ‘n chips, is nominated for his role in Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog.

But like Glen Close in Fatal Attraction, Javier Bardem will not and should not be ignored. If he is ignored and doesn’t win the Oscar for Best Actor, the Academy will have a lot of ‘splaining to do!

Best (Overlooked)Director

Mexicans coming across the border and taking away those good paying jobs. Guillermo del Toro’s remake of Nightmare Alley has been nominated for Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best set Design and Best Production Design. Somehow the maestro, the orchestra conductor, the artist who puts all those musical notes, colors into a finished work of art resulting in a Best Picture nomination gets overlooked. Critics praise Guillermo del Toro, an acknowledged film auteur, for remaking Nightmare Alley with a modern film noir flare and a surprise ending.

The past few years have seen Mexican born directors dominate the Best Director category:  Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Roma), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant and del Toro won in 2018 for The Shape of Water.  

There are no directors with Spanish surnames on this year’s list of nominees for Best Director. Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog) is Variety’s best bet to win.  Bueno, asi es la vida.

Best Picture

Deja vu all over again, part three? West Side Story which is nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture could make motion picture history on March 27 and culminate what could be a glittering, success story for Latino Hollywood

Should West Side Story take home the big cinematic enchilada on Oscar night, it will be the first time in the Academy Awards 94-year history a virtual remake of a movie that had previously won Best Picture wins again.

Sixty years ago, Rita Moreno was the vanguard for Latino pride when she won Best Supporting Actress for her work in West Side Story. In a very moving, emotionally charged scene in the new version of West Side Story, Moreno is the voice of Latino hopes and dreams for Oscar night when she sings There’s A Place For Us.

The 94th Annual Academy Awards airs on ABC on March 27 (Sunday) at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT

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