Last week millions of viewers tuned in to watch the Golden Globes. Though there were many awards given, two of the biggest winners of the night were actually presenters. While presenting the Best Actor in a TV Drama award, America Ferrera and Eva Longoria addressed Hollywood, and everyone watching that think all non-white actors are the same.
The two performed a skit clarifying who they were NOT. Longoria started off with, “Hi, I’m Eva Longoria, not Eva Mendes.” While Ferrera went on to say she was not Gina Rodriguez. They both finished by saying neither one of them were to be mistaken for Rosario Dawson.
The skit possibly derived from the Golden Globes publishing a series of tweets that confused America Ferrera with Gina Rodriguez when announcing the presenters not once, but twice. The picture mentioned Rodriguez’ twitter handle @HerelsGina. Golden Globes removed the tweets and issued an apology.
Although Ferrera and Longoria were joking about being mistaken for other Latina actresses, this issue isn’t really funny. Why is it that white Hollywood seems to have all these mix-ups among non-white actors?
In 2012 Sherri Shephard sat down with “The View,” and said, while covering the Academy Awards, several celebrities approached her to congratulate her what they thought was her nomination for “The Help.” However it was actress Octavia Spencer who was up for the award. Armoni even confused actor Idris Elba with actress Alfre Woodard on instagram in 2013.
But honestly can we really be surprised? After all, Donald Trump is in the lead to run for the Republican party, and people are up in arms about a racehorse losing to Serena Williams for best sportsperson of the year. Of course, white Hollywood doesn’t know the difference between two Latina actresses. How many times do we actually get to see them represented on screen?
