Musings & Movies » Happy Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic, Latin, and the Mexican-American vivencia is having a great moment in film and television!

According to Kevin Anzzolin, “Ariana DeBose was only the second Latina to win an Oscar for her supporting role in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (2021), Disney’s Colombian-themed Encanto (2021) won the award for Best Animated Film. Seasoned Spanish actor Javier Bardem was nominated as best actor for his role in Being the Ricardos (2021), and celebrated Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro garnered four nominations with his Nightmare Alley (2021).” The mainstream realized that we needed more than just one or two films every other year. The success of Coco (2017) and Iñárritu’s Oscar winning movies may have helped earned us a seat at the table.

Now, Netflix produced two seasons of “Gentified”, the first season earned a 92% on rotten tomatoes from the critics, the second season earned a 100% for now. Netflix is producing films and shows in Spain with what appears to be a core group of actors who starred in ‘Casa de Papel’ and ‘Elite’. The former has a 94% while the latter has 97% each for their first seasons. Now, we have shows that go off the rails and crash far into the melodramatic soap opera territory with Quien Mato a Sara? and Promised Land. On the other hand, we have fun soapy progressive shows like La Casa de las Flores.

Lin Manuel Miranda is our current patron saint of Hispanic/Latin art with the musicals Hamilton (2015) and In the Heights (2021), and the animated film Encanto (2021) and Vivo (2021). His blend of diet hip-hop appears to have helped bring more focus to our culture and experiences. There are those who argue maybe this was achieved with more light skinned and white hispanics and that there is more work to be done with bringing representation to Afro Latinos and non-white Hispanics.

We’ve made it a long way from having signs in cowboy movies treating us like dogs. However, Narcos and Narcos Mexico still need to wrestle with the material they glamorize and gloss over.

Now, there are several family friendly options unlike the 90’s and aughts that included more nefarious gang stereotypes like American Me, Blood in Blood Out, Sin Nombre, Maria Full of Grace, Stand and Deliver, El Mariachi, Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Machete, Machete Kills. Fortunately, Robert Rodriguez used his action flicks popularity to make his original franchise Spy Kids.

What are your favorite Hispanic/Latin films or shows of today?