Latina/o stars in U.S. eyes: the making and meanings of film and TV stardom

Abstract

Mary Beltran’s Latina/o Stars in US Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV Stardom is a needed reminder that increased participation on the screen and genuine progress in Latina/o media representation are two different things. This book offers a compelling narrative of the course that Latina/o stardom has followed in the United States, including a contextualized socio-political analysis of the ways in which Latina/o actresses and actors have been received, shaped and promoted in the American star system. Latina/o Stars in US Eyes will be of great appeal to academic audiences concerned with media representation, Latina/o Studies and critical race theory. Moreover, being an engaging and highly readable book, it will surely appeal as well to members of the entertainment industry, media activists and a wider readership of people interested in looking critically at celebrity culture. Latina/o Stars in US Eyes proves the importance of critical analyses of popular culture for struggles of social justice. Political interactions are shaped by the identity and mutual expectations that participants hold, and media is a prominent medium through which Americans receive such notions. Media messages celebrate particular conceptions of race, class, gender and ethnicity and significantly shape self-image and social attitudes towards other groups (5–6). As Beltran shows, the entertainment industry is wary of defying received stereotypes when it comes to the portrayal of Latina/o characters. Access and success in this realm are hard to come by for Latina/os and when they do it can be through the portrayal of stereotypical characters or through the participation in projects that devalue Latina/o culture. In particular, participation without creative control may not result in discourses that celebrate Latina/o ethnicities and culture, but rather incorporate Latina/o performers in the reproduction of devaluing images. This is evident in the lines that Puerto Rican/Nuyorican Rita Moreno sang in her Oscar-worthy West Side Story performance, “Puerto Rico, my heart’s devotion ... let it sink back in the ocean!” (79), and continues in the present. Ironically, the capacity of portraying “White” characters gives Latina/os the opportunity to play parts that are not overtly racialized and tropicalized by a pre-packaged conception of Latinidad. Access to these opportunities is, needless to say, restricted to the restricted group of Latina/os that can look the part. This trend is both indicative and reinforcing of the prevailing

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