Oversexualized Latinas vs. All Other Latinas

Melissa Lopez  

Blog # 2

October 6, 2016

Bodies in American Culture

Oversexualized Latinas vs. All Other Latinas

The Latina representation among media has given its viewers a broad representation of what most Latinas look like. Among the media, Latinas are represented by oversexualized women. For example, Jennifer Lopez, Sofia Vergara, Salma Hayek, and Adrienne Bailon to name a few. We associate these Latina women through their physical characteristics. The booty, breast, body, and their caramel skin tones are the most common physical attributes that are attached to Latina characteristics. In the reading “Brain, Brow, and Booty” by Molina and Valdivia, they argue that U.S. mainstream culture has hypersexualized and hyper commodified women like Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, and Frida Kahlo. Articles like these help us understand the meaning behind the representations that media attaches to these women. U.S. mainstream media viewers attach these attributes to all Latinas and have one image/idea of what all Latinas should look like.

Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek and Adrienne Bailon are all women with oversexualized physical characteristics. They all have bodies that have big booty’s and big breast, not only that but have caramel skin tones. With this examples of these women, I would like to argue that U.S. mainstream ignores all other physical and emotional attributes that other Latinas embody. I argue that U.S. mainstream forgets about the other type of Latinas, those women who embody the physical attributes that are not portrayed in mainstream media. The family-orientated, conservative women are never portrayed in U.S mainstream media. As viewers we often forget about the other Latinas. We forget about the Latinas that are hardworking, stay at home moms, and those who do not embody oversexualized bodies.

For instance, McFarland and Under the Same Moon are two films that I found that have Latina women playing the family-orientated and conservative mother who will sacrifice anything for their children and willing to work to provide for their well-being of their family. In Under the Same Moon, Kate Del Castillo plays the role of the immigrant mother who leaves her family behind in hopes of finding better opportunities in the U.S. for her son and mother back in Mexico. Del Castillo is dark skinned, brown eyes, black hair, and is short in height. She works as a maid and babysitter in an all-white neighborhood. Her cloths cover her breast, and she is not dressed in tight form fitting clothing. On the other hand, we have Diana Maria Riva in McFarland who plays the role of the protective and hard-working mother. With her curly black hair, average weight, and baggy clothes she plays the role of the mother who cooks, cleans, and works. Her main work requires to be bent all day, she is part of the obreros; (crop-picking job). Both Del Castillo and Riva portray the physical and representations that attribute to the other Latinas.

The portrayals that these two women play in the films are left out of the U.S. mainstream media and ignore all other Latinas because U.S mainstream media consistently focuses on Latinas with curvy bodies who tend to be tall, thin with voluminous booty’s and breast. All other Latinas are dismissed and play the role of maid in small parts in films and shows. With roles such as ones that Sofia Vergara, Salma Hayek and Jennifer Lopez, Latinas are constantly bombarded by the media with the image of what they are supposed to look and be life. Therefore, these stereotypes are leaving the other Latinas who do not fit these stereotypes feeling left out and misrepresented. And even though they seemed to be represented in films like McFarland and Under the Same Moon, Latinas are very much misrepresented by mainstream media culture. Shows like Modern Family, in which Sofia Vergara embodies the loud, sexy yet a stay home mom with a luxury home that has a hard time to pronounce words and other have to correct her, but instead of promoting and celebrating the success of the Latinas, media seems to be suppressing them by giving out negative stereotypes of the Latina women. This is something that needs to be changed, the Latina women have to move away from the stereotypical roles in U.S. mainstream media and show their real identity and culture. The Latina women need to embody their own representations without having to focus of what mainstream media culture has to say about their bodies or how they should portray themselves around the world. As the matter of fact, Latina women need to represent their culture and identities so that U.S. mainstream culture does not miss-represent their culture and identities.

As a Latina women attending a college with majority students who are non-colored, we should take pride and joy to be representing our culture and identity. Being Latina is Beautiful and women shouldn’t feel oppressed by the fact that not many Latina women attend college. We need to be strong and show U.S. mainstream media culture that not all Latinas are personas with oversexualized bodies with no brains!