It wasn’t until last year that I really started to question why Hollywood lacked diversity when we live in a country that has so many minorities. In many television shows that I would watch growing up, it was always hard for me to spot many African Americans. I would always see one person that looked like me, but other than that, the majority of the cast would be Caucasian. It’s not that I did not enjoy watching these shows and movies, I just wanted to see more minorities presented with opportunities to appear in great movie roles.
As time moved on, it was clear that African Americans were receiving more opportunities and roles in movies, so for a while, I thought that Hollywood was finally making significant progress. However, after reading an article written by Brooks Barnes about the lack of Hispanic roles in Hollywood, once again, I see that Hollywood still has a lot of issues when it comes to diversity.
Although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should definitely receive a lot of the blame for the lack of Hispanic movies and roles in movies, I also want to blame the media for this. Honestly, if I had not read this article, I do not think that I would’ve even thought about this topic at all. There needs to be more articles written about the unfair treatment of Hispanics in Hollywood. This is the best way to bring about change. For instance, when Denzel Washington played Malcolm X and he did not win the Oscar, the Academy received a lot of backlash. When David Oyelowo wasn’t nominated for the Oscar when he played Martin Luther King Jr. the Academy again received backlash. Actors like Will Smith, Reese Witherspoon, and George Clooney boycotted the Oscars, director Spike Lee boycotted too, and former President Barack Obama even spoke out about the lack of diversity in Hollywood. These celebrities were able to draw a lot of attention from the media regarding this issue, and this in turn caused Hollywood to try and do a better job of fixing the issue.
If we really want Hollywood to fix its diversity issue for Hispanic people, the media has to cover this topic more than it does now. As I said before, I would not have even thought about this diversity issue if I did not read this article about Hispanics and Hollywood. There needs to be more media coverage of this issue and one of the best ways to get the media involved is for celebrities to speak out. This issue is definitely understated and I’m sure that if more people were informed about this topic, it would become a bigger issue in America. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen a great movie with a Hispanic actor and then I do not see them again. For example, one of my favorite movies is called Freedom Writers and there was an actress in the film named April Lee Hernández. She was phenomenal in this movie and I just knew that I would see her in many other roles after this, but sadly I was wrong. It’s possible that maybe she decided to do other things and she probably had other good roles, but I was expecting to see her on the big screen like I see Jennifer Lawrence or Scarlett Johansson. I do not understand why her career did not take off after this movie and the only possible explanation that I can think of has to do with the lack of diversity in Hollywood.
I think that the article that I talked about earlier, does a great job of analyzing the diversity problem. For instance, the article stated that the last Hispanic actor to win an Oscar was Penélope Cruz and that was nine years ago, and the last Hispanic man to win an Oscar was in 1951. This is baffling to me.The media needs to write more news articles like this, so that people who are uninformed about the diversity issue in Hollywood will learn about these problems. I do not understand why I am just now reading about this topic and it is 2018. The media should’ve been covering this situation much earlier. Journalists are supposed to seek the truth and report it, and sadly, the truth about Hollywood has not been reported as much as it should be.
Even though I am slightly irritated by the lack of media coverage regarding this matter, at least it is receiving some more coverage now. Better late than never I guess.
