In Part 1 of Breaking the Stereotype, I talked about two black male characters from CW shows The Flash and Arrow that I felt broke a negative stereotype in some way or another.

Part 2  featured two black female characters from the CW’s The Flash and ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder.

Part 3 featured a Latino male from the CW show, Jane the Virgin.

Part 4 features a Latina character that I think is a positive portrayal.

Once again, I am only doing one character because a lot of shows I watch don’t feature Latina characters. Which I need to fix that ASAP. But anyway. The character is, once again, from a CW show. Honestly at this point, I should become a CW ambassador because almost every single show I watch is on the CW. Anyway the character is, Rogelio de la Vega’s daughter, Jane from Jane the Virgin. 

Jane Villanueva, Jane the Virgin, The CW

Stereotype Broken: Sexpot and the Harlot

Jane Villanueva, played by the amazing Gina Rodriguez, is a young woman who dreams of becoming a writer. She attends grad school in order to achieve this goal. She is a mother to a one-year old son. The show is basically a telenovela but not as crazy as a typical telenovela and because no matter how I try to explain the show, I will do a terrible job so instead watch the extended trailer below. The main gist is that Jane gets artificially inseminated with some dude’s sperm or as it’s called in the trailer, specimen.

Jane breaks the stereotype of the Sexpot and the Harlot because her sexuality isn’t at the forefront of the show. She’s not seen as an over the top sexual object. The fact that she’s never had sex and ends up pregnant is the main story line in the show but the reason why she breaks these stereotypes is because the show never makes her a sex object.

Often times, Latinas are put into three categories. The ugly Latina maid, the sexy Latina maid, and the over the top sexual Latina. Jane is none of these things and that is why her character is, in my opinion, a strong one. With Jane it isn’t about how sexy she is but rather everything else about her. Rafael and Michael, the two guys vying for her love, aren’t solely in love with her for her looks. They love her because of who she is.

I guess the real reason why Jane is a welcome change from the typical way Latinas are portrayed is because there is so much more to her than her looks. She has real substance and isn’t just a diverse character on a show put there so that the network and the show don’t look racist.

Latinas and other minorities need positive portrayals on television. We need to see that there is more to us than the negative stereotypes perpetuated by the media. The CW does a good of getting these positive portrayals out there. They’re not perfect but they are definitely better than what is normally seen on TV.

This is the fourteenth article of the column titled “Living in White America.” Every month there will be new articles discussing how minorities live in America. This column will have articles dealing with anything and everything that concerns the under-represented groups of White America. This could include political and social talks. Some articles may discuss cultures of different groups and interviews with a variety of people including those of the racial majority. Discrimination against everybody but the racial majority has gone on long enough and now it’s time people get a look into the worlds of those they dislike so much. 

The post Living in White America: Breaking the Stereotype Part 4 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

In my last two articles, titled Breaking the Stereotype Part 1 and Part 2, I discussed four characters who I feel do a good job of representing black males and black females in shows that I watch. Now, the characters portrayed aren’t perfect and free of stereotypes but they’re a welcome change of pace from what is usually seen on TV aka negative stereotypes.

For Part 3, I will be discussing a Latino character that I think has positive characteristics. This is another character from the CW. I probably should mention that I don’t endorse The CW, I just watch shows from that network. A lot. Anyway, on to discussing positive portrayals of characters.

Rogelio De La Vega, “Jane the Virgin”, The CW

Stereotype Broken: Latin Lover

Rogelio De La Vega, played by Jamie Camil, is dramatic and generous. He’s a lot more than that but describing him in full detail may take some time. He portrays a telenovela star in the show. Which is great because Jamie Camil is actually a telenovela star.

Anyway, Rogelio had a daughter with Xiomara named Jane. They end up together after years of not seeing each other. Rogelio in his drama and general awesomeness is also very vain, but omg he’s so fab and hilarious.

Anyway, the Latin Lover stereotype consists of a man always being romantic. Which due to Rogelio being “charmingly vain” he’s only really romantic with Xiomara not with every single woman he meets. Another part of the stereotype is that they are usually up to no good. This is the farthest thing about Rogelio. Not only does he give Jane a fake scholarship so that she can go to grad school, but he is always giving Xiomara support to pursue her dreams. There’s a lot more to the Latin Lover stereotype, but that would also take a lot of time to go over, so not going to do that.

The whole reason I’m bringing this up is because Latino men tend to fall into two main categories in television. Either the extremely macho man or the not so manly macho man. Rogelio falls somewhere in between, and that’s a good representation about the Latino male compared to all the negative representations in television.

Okay, so I’m going to be honest. Most of the shows I watch don’t have a lot of Latino men. Unless I head over to Univision and watch some awesome telenovelas like Tres Veces Ana. Some shows that I watch have Latino men but they make them so racially ambiguous that I honestly couldn’t tell you what their race was.

For example, Blake Jenner–not related to those Jenners–is Cuban-American. But in the all the shows I’ve seen him in, (Supergirl and Glee), never once has his Cubanness (is that a word?) shown through. Sure, it doesn’t “need” to, but that’s the problem.

Latinos and other minorities have the blessing or curse, whichever way you want to look at it, of being racially ambiguous. Meaning you honestly couldn’t tell what race we are just by looking at us. Maybe we’re Latino, maybe we’re white, maybe we’re Black, or maybe we’re Asian. Some people may say that’s a good thing. Others may say not so much.

Let’s be real, racism isn’t going away in the next few years, maybe not for centuries, and maybe it will never disappear which is precisely the reason that we need Latino representation on television. And not the typical negative representations. No. We need positive portrayals. Latino boys need to be able to see someone like them on television in a positive light.

In both Part 1 and Part 2, I discussed two characters but when going over the shows that I watch, there are either no Latino men or they are so racially ambiguous that I don’t even know if they are Latino. So, I leave you with Rogelio. I hope to find more positive portrayals of Latino men soon. And when I do, I’ll write an article about them.

This is the thirteenth article of the column titled “Living in White America.” Every month there will be new articles discussing how minorities live in America. This column will have articles dealing with anything and everything that concerns the under-represented groups of White America. This could include political and social talks. Some articles may discuss cultures of different groups and interviews with a variety of people including those of the racial majority. Discrimination against everybody but the racial majority has gone on long enough and now it’s time people get a look into the worlds of those they dislike so much. 

The post Living in White America: Breaking the Stereotype Part 3 appeared first on KRUI Radio.