WHITE ALLIGATOR
Follow us!
  • TRAILER
  • ABOUT
  • PRESS
  • MOVEMENT
    • MISSION
    • BLOG
    • CARTOONS
    • SUPPORT
  • TEAM
  • CONTACT

The Hat issue

12/9/2011

0 Comments

 
I had a happy little accident a few days ago.  I had been writing a blog post about the recent hullabaloo regarding white actors cast in a Hartford production of Stephen Adly Guirgis' "The Motherf*cker in the Hat":

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/playwright-criticizes-casting-for-production-of-the-____________-with-the-hat/ 

And lo and behold, it was totally erased by my faulty computer after three hours of editing it.   I cursed my own existence, and gave up for the day, vowing to revisit at a later time when I was more calm.  That time came today when I happened upon a fellow actor's blog regarding the issue:

http://peacockchronicles.com/

I found that the talented Carmen Pelaez summed up my experiences exactly, so I didn't have to write anything!

After you've perused these articles, I will leave you with this: I completely support Guirgis' views regarding the production and understand his anger at not giving Latino actors the opportunity to audition for this production.  However, I found myself grimacing while reading about the issue, simply because of the manner in which Puerto Ricans were swept under an enormous umbrella of a certain urban type.  In fact, I expected more care to be taken in using labels for a certain ethnicity from a publication as prestigious as the New York Times.  Dare to dream.

It did make me realize the absolute NEED for a wider range of Hispanic characters in our media outlets.  The reason the term "urban" was not used to describe the characters instead of "Puerto Rican" is because there have been no true successes on a wide scale from Puerto Rican artists to make known the wide range of walks of life that Puerto Rican society enjoys.  It (obviously) is as big as any other society, as big as what they call the "white" society.  There are white Puerto Ricans/Americans, there are black Puerto Ricans/Americans, there are poor Puerto Rican/Americans, there are white Puerto Rican/Americans.  There are even rich-then-stock-market-crashed-and-now-poor-with-a-dark-skinned-son-but-from-light-skinned-parents Puerto Rican-Americans.  I think you get the point.  How odd then, that only the poor and black Hispanic population is portrayed in our movies and media outlets.  How very odd.

I wonder why that is?
0 Comments

    Viviana Leo

    Viviana Leo is the writer and star of White Alligator.

    RSS Feed

    Follow this blog

    Archives

    December 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    August 2011

    Categories

    All
    Actor
    Actors
    Albany
    America
    American Dream
    American Latino Media Arts Award
    Antioxidants
    Artist
    Ava Duvernay
    Berlin
    Beta-carotene
    Blackface
    Business School
    Calcium
    Cannes
    Carmen Pelaez
    Castro
    Chick-fil-a
    Cholesterol
    Civil Rights
    Classics
    Colorado
    Comic Books
    Commercials
    Community
    Day Job
    Disney
    Dowry
    Emma Stone
    En Mi Viejo San Juan
    Erich Von Stroheim
    Ethnically Ambiguous
    Film
    Filmmaker Magazine
    First Latina Princess
    Fitting In
    Francesco Quinn
    French
    Gay Rights
    German Vogue
    Greed
    Hartford
    Harvard
    Hispanic
    Hollywood
    Humphrey Bogart
    Hypochondria
    Immigration
    Irena's Vow
    Jane White
    Jonathan Larson
    Jose Antonio Vargas
    Juanita Perez
    Kickstarter
    Klimt
    Ku Klux Klan
    L.A.
    La Patria
    Latino
    Maitely Weismann
    Manhattan Project
    Marriage
    Melissa Mayer
    Metro Ny
    Miami
    Middle Of Nowhere
    Minority
    Naacp
    Naho Iguchi
    Nerds
    Neue Gallerie
    New York
    New York Lotto
    Nightwing
    Nytimes
    Open Letter
    Passing
    Pbs
    Physicians
    Piano
    Poverty
    Power Of Now
    Princess
    Princess Sofia
    Print Ads
    Protein
    Puerto Rican
    Puerto Rico
    Quinoa
    Race Blind Casting
    Rent
    Robert Townsend
    Role Model
    Salma Hayek
    San Juan
    Sat
    Schindler's List
    Science
    Scrabble
    Seattle
    Ski
    Sofia Vergara
    South Korea
    Spanish
    Stephen Adly Guirgis
    Stereotypes
    Stetson Kennedy
    Subway
    Superheroes
    Sweet Potatoes
    Swiss Chard
    Tarantula
    T. Colin Campbell
    The American Way
    The Best Years Of Our Lives
    The China Study
    The Help
    The Motherf*cker In The Hat
    Tj Maxx
    Tobey Maguire
    Toby Dawson
    Tokyo
    Twitter
    Type A
    Vail Daily
    Vegan
    Ventanarosa
    Viola Davis
    Walter White
    White
    White Alligator
    White House
    Woman
    Wrapped
    Yahoo!
    Zoe Saldana