(Mario Lopez: One on One has still yet to upload recent videos, so to expand my research I have chosen yet another show to find new Latino stories.)

For my next blog post, I will discuss the television show, Fight Factory. Fight Factory is a show that follows the lives of men fighting for the title of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).  The AKA gym that is considered the "home" of these men is run by Latino, Javier Mendez - a very credible trainer for UFC.

Mendez is a former world champion in kickboxing and now works at his personal gym in San Jose, California.  He trains men of all races and is working heavily with his current heavy weight champion, Cain Velasquez.

Watching the show, the audience is immersed in world of fighting. This brutal sport shows the harsh effects on the bodies of these athletes and the pressure they have to endure to stay in the sport.  The show features a handful of Latino men training to become fighters and showing that it is a sport only meant for few.

UFC has become an incredible popular sport in the last several years and many minorities tune in every week to see these spectacular fights. It is a sport that proves who is the toughest and gives hope to many underdog stories.  The depth of these fighters gives chance to the audience that if they could work hard at anything they could achieve their goals. The drama that ensues past the fighting proves more to the audience then the actual fight could.

Latino 101- The Latina (Female)

The Latina female has been equally as stereotyped as the Latino male.  In brief, she has been stereotyped as follows:

• Female clown: the female clown may be portrayed as attractive, but she does not cross the line to sexy.  Her crazy antics play down her attractiveness to allow her to be a figure of ridicule more so than a figure of desire.
• examples: Carmen Miranda
• The harlot: The harlot is oversexed, hot-tempered and untrustworthy.  She may be a love interest, but only temporarily.
• Dark lady: Portrayed as mysterious, sultry and often irresistible.  However, she is more virginal than the harlot.  Additionally, similar to the harlot, she may be a love interest, but will never get and keep the guy.  
• examples: Dolores del Rio

The above stereotypes are not directly addressed in Latino 101, however, there is a lot of emphasis on the female body.  In general, Latinas are PROUD of their curves and men LOVE their curves.  This is seen almost unanimously among the speakers.  Comedian Joey Vega stated that "Latin and Black women are the only women who get happy when their a**es get huge.  When a Latina's a** gets big, they're thrilled.  You tell a white woman her a** is big, you go 'honey, you a** is quite large' you go 'NO STOP IT!'  They go all crazy, they go 'Give me a pilates tape, hurry up!'  You tell a Latina her a** is big, you go 'Honey, mira pa'lla esas nalgas, DAMN!'  'It's big, right?  It's big, you know it's big.'"  Contemporary Latinas are also described as "hot, fiery, sexy and spicy", which does allude to a combination of the three stereotypes.  Latina women are described as still wanting to have their own careers, but also want the more chivalrous Latino who opens doors and pays.

Interesting points are brought up in Latino 101 pertaining to different cultures.  For example, one comedian stated that when a Latina becomes pregnant, she becomes a statistic, but when a white girl gets pregnant, she becomes a movie named Juno and society gives her an Oscar.  

Latinas in Latino 101 seem to agree that though they can end up subject to more traditional gender roles from an early age, there is a sense of power that they can rule the world.  However, there are definitely allusions throughout the show that does indicate some machismo left, though it is split between joking about it, and the women reasserting that the woman always holds the power.

 The final episode that I watched of Pastport on NUVO TV was with actress Tatyana Ali, best known for playing  Ashley Banks on the TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Tatyana is a first generation American who's father is from Trinidad and mother is from Panama. She visited Panama once but was too young to remember the trip. In this episode the young actress returns to Panama with her sister to meet her uncle and extended family and to learn about her Panamanian heritage. While there, she also was able to perform and record with a famous reggaeton group. As always, it was very moving to see this young successful American actress explore one side of her ethnic heritage and meet family members and have a life changing experience.
 Now that I have seen four episodes ( Cuba, Colombia, Argentina, and Panama) I can conclude that the show is consciously breaking with American stereotypes about Latinas/Latinos, educating the viewer of the diversity of Latino culture. It is not the "Imagined Latinidad" that has long been the tradition in American media. The male hosts are not depicted as "Latin-lovers", or "banditos", and the female hosts are not exploited as exotic sex symbols nor are they portrayed as spicy "spitfires". This is a reality show about real Latino-Americans, each with very different, and complicated family histories.The show does battle with the Hollywood notion of the generic-Latino and includes American entertainers whose audiences may not even be aware of their Latino heritage. Tatyana, for example, is famous for playing an African-American character on sitcom with an all African-American cast, which included Will Smith as the show's star. As an Afro-Caribbean-Latino she breaks the mold of what Hollywood says Latinas should look like. In picking these entertainers the producers are showing that all Latinas do not look like Selma Hayek or Jenifer Lopez, some look African, some look European etc.
Also I believe it is safe to say that the intended audience is young Latino-Americans that speak mostly English, but may understand some Spanish. I say this because the hosts are mostly young and they engage in youth culture in some way(music groups, young actors, hip fashion). Secondly, hosts speak English when addressing the audience during their intervews where the speak directly to the camera, and all the spanish that is spoken on the show is subtitled in English. Also, they are all entertainers that appear in English language media. Lastly, the fast tempo music and rapid cuts in the editing seems to indicate that the producers are shooting for a hip audience.
Over all, I found Nuvo's Pastport to be an entertaining show which provides much needed visibility for Latinas/Latinos in the media, and represented in a very thoughtful and positive manner.

 

Curvy Girls: Ep. 3

Three episodes into the Curvy Girls, it is becoming clear that these Latino women have to work very hard to work in the modeling industry.  Because their bodies do not fit the "norm" for modeling, they have to seek out modeling agencies that will accept them, and want to showcase their looks.  It seems like there is still a demand for plus size models though and so these women continue to compete to get the work.  It's worth mentioning that because these women are Latina they bring a stereotypical idea of Latina women to the forefront.  It is a well known stereotype for Latina women to have voluptuous bodies.  They have been thought of and described as "curvy" in the past, but not always with a positive perspective.  This show helps to promote "curvy" women and promote embracing one's self even if it's not what may be considered normal in mainstream media.  There is one women on the show, Rosie, who goes to the doctor and finds out she is considered obese.  She is a full-figured model, but explains how she understands she must lose weight in order to be healthy.  The women go through many obstacles on this show and provide diverse representations of women, who aren't just Latina, but are full-figured.  It's sad when you see how hard they are working to try and succeed in an industry that primarily wants thin models, and they fall short.  In this episode, it seemed like LornaLitz didn't make it into a modeling agency because was considered not "curvy" enough.  It is important for viewers to see this side of their stories and realize that it isn't easy for them to break into this niche part of the industry just because they are larger than a size 6.

Latino 101- The Latino (Male)

The media is full of stereotypes on every kind of person.  The media and media history is full of stereotypes of the Latino male.

In brief:

• Latin Lover: typically perceived as dark, dangerous and sensual
• examples: Rudolph Valentino (not Latino, but he started the archetype); Antonio Banderas
• Male Buffoon: stupid sidekick, simple-minded, childlike, speaks broken English
• examples: Desi Arn'az, more recently Fez in That 70s Show
• El Bandido: violent, criminal, untrustworthy or promiscuous.  Treacherous, dirty, violent
• examples: Scarface, Machete

Now, how do Latinos portray themselves on Latino 101?

Latinos do poke fun at stereotypes and at themselves.  First, we can look at the men in Latino 101 themselves.  There is every shade and every size of Latino on the show, especially into the second season when they have more people on cast.  Men on Latino 101 are clean shaven, have artfully shaved  beards and not so artfully shaved beards.  

Latinos on Latino 101 and the Latin Lover.  The men on the show do not necessarily promote themselves as dangerous, but joke about Latino numbers in jail.  The men are split when it comes to the loving aspect of Latino lovers.  Some seem to indicate that yes, Latino men are passionate lovers and others call out the stereotype as false, but use it as a ploy with Anglo women who have that belief and that expectation.  

Latinos on the Male Buffoon.  In general, previous media portrayals of the male buffoon implied that the character was silly, unintelligent and spoke poor English.  Latinos on Latino 101 use this stereotype, twist it and use it to their advantage.  If they want to pick up women, they pretend they can't speak English or will use a faked accent. 

Latinos on El Bandido.  This stereotype is not quite as well addressed as the others.  

NuvoTV

http://www.adweek.com/news/television/jennifer-lopez-buys-part-nuvotv-143633

I wanted to share the link above because I feel like it brings up several interesting points that relate to the topics we have covered in class.  It also explains a bit about Jennifer Lopez's new partnership with NuvoTV, which I think in itself is very interesting, especially since she plays a huge role in the representation of the Latina/o culture.  First let me begin by mentioning NuvoTV, (formerly Sí TV), was first established in 1997 and focused on producing English-language content, but for Latina/os.  In my opinion this was and still is a great achievement for the network since, like the article above mentions, "most of the television options for Latinos are in Spanish at the moment".  We have discussed these type of statistics in class along with the fact that many American-Latina/os tune into English-language programs.  There is a greater visibility of Latina/os in media these days, and show's like The Brothers Garía and The George Lopez Show have helped pave the way for better representations of Latina/os on television.  With a network like NuvoTV, that is aiming to increase Latina/o visibility and broaden representations of the culture and it's people, I think things can only get better from here.

NuvoTv changed their name from Sí TV back in 2004, attempting to alleviate confusion with what the name stood for and decided that NuvoTV ("new voice") television would achieve their message with less confusion.  Most recently, the network has teamed up with Jennifer Lopez to help appeal to a more modern and broader group of Latina/os.  She will be airing her own content from Nuyorican Productions as well and I found it interesting that Michael Schwimmer, CEO of NuvoTV, directly expresses that they intend to use Jennifer Lopez as a part of their advertising and marketing plan.  She's a mega superstar and I definitely think it will be beneficial to have her promoting the network, along with her own program, but also weighing in on what kind of content should be aired or produced for the network.  I think it would be great if NuvoTv could reach a point where although they were targeting Latina/os, they were also able to appeal to other ethnicities while doing so.  Jennifer Lopez may be able to help do this and I'm looking forward to seeing what she brings to the network. 

This episode of Pastport is the first that did not center around a Latino-American that was born in Latin America. However, this did not change the basic premise of the show, but it is the first episode with a male host. The Reno 911 actor Carlos Alazraqui was not born in Argentina but his parents were. Carlos is married and has a baby on the way and wants to learn more about the country where his parents grew up so he can pass this cultural heritage down to his child. He would also like to brush up on his Spanish.

Like all the episodes, Pastport is about connecting to ones cultural roots.Because this episode had a male host that was born in the US and feels that he does not speak Spanish fluently, I feel like the show is quite diverse in terms of representing Latinos.I don't see any stereotypes that are being used to market the show, and representation is always very positive, after all these are all successful entertainers in the US. It does seem though their target audience would be young Latino-Americans. The music and type of entertainers would appeal to a younger generation, and it's bi-lingual nature makes it a good fit for a young audience that may speak English as a first language but understands some Spanish.