Awards season in Hollywood is an exciting time to see our favorite TV shows and movies earn recognition for their artistry and their ability to create visibility. Hollywood and the media in general have, for the majority of their history, excluded artists of color. While many of these artists have broken through boundaries to create spaces where none existed, they have often been excluded from a system uninterested and unwilling to give them a seat at the table.
Film has been a slow moving vehicle for inclusion and more so for recognition of the work of artists of color. Although, this past Oscars season made strides in recognizing the work of black artists, nominating incredible films like Fences, Hidden Figures and Moonlight. It even made history in Moonlight’s best picture win, becoming the first LGBT film with an all black cast (including Afro-Latino characters and actors I might add) to win the prestigious award. Despite this year of incredible diversity, the Oscars have not always been so diverse in their recognition of outstanding film.
This is why so many artists of color begun looking to television to tell their stories and share their art. Television has become the medium through which nonwhite artists have been able to see themselves represented, where they have been able to show how beautifully complex their stories are and that they are worth being shared. In years where films by and about people of color have failed to gain mainstream recognition, TV shows have carried the torch for that representation. Shows like Orange is the New Black, Empire, Fresh off the Boat, and pretty much anything Shonda Rhimes have been successful in declaring that yes, our stories are capable of mainstream attention.
This year’s Emmy Awards has been applauded as the most diverse, to date. The awards this past Sunday night included many firsts. Lena Waithe became the first black woman to win a comedy writing Emmy, Donald Glover became the first black man to win the Emmy for directing a comedy series, Riz Ahmed became the first man of Asian and Muslim descent to win an Emmy for acting. While these are all deserved and incredibly important wins for people of color, there was one group that got little to practically no recognition at the “most diverse” award show this year.
The Latinx community in the United States has been growing exponentially, becoming the largest minority group in the country. Latino is already a broad and oversimplified label for such a complex group of people and histories, yet those artists and those stories are seldom given the chance to shine. Take for instance the OscarsSoWhite narrative that unfolded during the 2015 Academy Awards, where all the acting nominees and most of the other categories of nominees were white artists. While this was a problem that certainly needed to be addressed, the fact that a major winner for his producing, directing and writing on Birdman was the Mexican born director Alejandro Iñarritu was completely dismissed in the conversation for inclusion.
The fact remains that while the 2017 Emmys were a step in the right direction for the inclusion of stories about communities of color, the Latinx community continues to get excluded from that marker. The only major acting win for the Latin community was Alexis Bledel’s guest work on The Handmaid’s Tale (the first Latina to win the award since Rita Moreno’s win in 1978), while Risa Garcia’s costume work on Big Little Lies and Carmen Cuba’s brilliant casting work for Stranger Things showcased behind-the-scenes talent. While shows like Modern Family, which most can agree include problematic portrayals of Latin women, continue to get nominated year after year, other great artists and projects get completely ignored in the process of diversifying the media landscape. Jane the Virgin, America Ferrera’s work on Superstore, the digital work Mas Mejor is doing for Latinx creators, and Netflix’s reboot of One Day at a Time created by and starring a majority Latin cast are a few examples.
The point is not that the work of other communities of color doesn’t deserve recognition; it is that this community deserves it too. Inclusion and opportunity needs to be available to all groups of people who have felt marginalized. Latinx people are making beautiful art reflective of their collective and individual experiences and they should not go unnoticed in a country that has always been their home. In the words of John Leguizamo, “We have a lot to offer the world… and I’ve come to feel sorry for those who have yet to know it.”
Cover Photo: http://remezcla.com