Lupe Ontiveros (born September 17, 1942) is an American film and television actress. Ontiveros has acted in numerous films and television shows, most often playing a maid; she estimates she has played a maid between 150 and 300 times on screen, including on the sitcom Reba and in the films As Good As It Gets, Charlie's Angels and Who's The Boss? During a NPR interview in 2009, Lupe said "You've got maids and you've got maids. You got maids that have longevity beyond what you ever conceived of in your wildest dreams.”
Taking on roles with names like Rosalita, Camilla and Margarita, her audition always wants her to have an accent, and the thicker and more waddly it is, the more they like it. “This is what I’m against, really, truly,” she says. She has mixed feelings about playing characters that reinforce the Latina stereotype. She gets so many immigrant parts because of her indigenous looks, but she doesn’t want to sacrifice her identity to become a star. She thinks that the younger generation of Latina actresses, like Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek have different choices than she did.
An article called "Worst Latino Stereotype On television: Will Rob Schncider And Marin Break The Cycle from Huffington post mentions that "Time and time again, Latino characters on television have been marginalized in stereotypical roles such as drug dealers, feisty Latinas, maids, so-called Latin lovers, and, probably the most controversial, the lazy Mexican. " This phenomenon also proved by studies from National Association of Hispanic Journalists have found that roughly 80 percent of the Latino characters in television are related to negatives roles.
Television programming is produced by commercial industries and represent the investors' interest, as the majority of viewers are not people of color, adding "racism" element into the TV program content can make their "product" become more favorable for the majority viewers. Another reason can be found from the programming "decision maker" level, although slightly more diversity can be found in TV programming staffs, but few top news executives in media -- real decision makers -- are people of color. This lack of diversity has consequences in terms of content, for example, latino characters are often portrayed under white people's view which represents as the mainstream value .
Television programming is produced by commercial industries and represent the investors' interest, as the majority of viewers are not people of color, adding "racism" element into the TV program content can make their "product" become more favorable for the majority viewers. Another reason can be found from the programming "decision maker" level, although slightly more diversity can be found in TV programming staffs, but few top news executives in media -- real decision makers -- are people of color. This lack of diversity has consequences in terms of content, for example, latino characters are often portrayed under white people's view which represents as the mainstream value .
Reference:
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2. Jeff , Cohen. "Racism and Mainstream Media." Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. (1999): n. page. Web. 11 Feb. 2012. <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2527>.
3."Worst Latino Stereotypes On Television: Will Rob Schneider And Cheech Marin Break The Cycle? ."huffingtonpost. (2012): n. page. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/06/worst-latino-stereotypes-on television_n_1190276.html>.
It is true when she says that younger Hispanic women have better opportunities in being able to play different roles in movies today not like in her times. Like Selma Hayek in the movie "Grown Ups" she plays a good role, of a highly talented, rich fashionista. However, today most young Hispanic women don't really take their background into considerations as much. It's like they adapt to the American culture. For example Christina Aguilera, her father is from Ecuador but when you see her you think of her as more American then anything else. But then there are those that are proud of where they're from like Jennifer Lopez.
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