When was the last time you turned on the TV or went to the movies and saw a Latine person on the screen in a prominent role? 

For me, it was DC’s “Blue Beetle” (2023), a film I loved, but it performed worse at the box office than any other film in DC’s Extended Universe. The film was beautiful. It portrayed the main character Jaime (Xolo Maridueña) as any comic book movie might portray a main character — an average person who accidentally becomes a superhero. However, Jaime is not white nor a billionaire; he’s a 20-something Latino fresh out of college trying to help his family make ends meet. His story doesn’t feel far off from mine or many of my friends’ — except for his superhuman abilities, of course.

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So why did “Blue Beetle” perform so poorly? I attribute it to poor marketing. I mean, none of my non-Latine friends were even aware the movie was being released. It is so difficult to get media with positive representation of Latines made, and when it happens, it is poorly marketed. 

Two of my favorite shows on Netflix are the 2017 reboots of “One Day at a Time” and “Gentefied.” These shows are not terribly different from other shows that follow family life; they follow much of the same formula as shows that follow white families. What makes them different is that they follow Latine families and are willing to tackle the issues that affect them most. Sadly, they both got canceled after only a couple of seasons on the platform, something that never would have happened to a show like “Fuller House,” which followed the white family made famous in “Full House.”

Following the cancellation of “One Day at a Time,” Netflix’s vice president, Cindy Holland, stated that, “The basic calculation is, how much viewing are we getting for what it costs? We also look at, ‘Is it reaching different audiences?’ ‘Is it gaining critical acclaim?’ ‘Is it doing something for us as a business that we like?’” she said. “We wouldn’t have renewed that show on a viewing-to-cost basis.” 

What this argument forgoes is the sheer fact that the show was not marketed well. While it had a small dedicated fanbase, including myself, Netflix never gave it time to shine nor the marketing budget to make this possible. Perhaps if they promoted it the way they promote every Noah Centineo heartthrob movie, it would have done the numbers Netflix wanted.

Instead, studios are happy to greenlight shows and movies that have no Latine representation or with Latine characters that are thinly veiled caricatures of what a Latine person is. Networks often like to portray Latine people as eccentric and with heavy accents. They also tend to be portrayed as overly sexual and exotic. 

Rita Moreno, the Puerto Rican actress best known for her role as Anita in “West Side Story” (1961), has been stuck in this role, in one way or another, for her entire career. As Anita, she was portrayed as a woman with a thick accent, despite not having an accent in real life. Even in “One Day at a Time” — as much as I love that show — she played an abuela with a heavy accent and eccentric personality.

Take Sofia Vergara’s Gloria in “Modern Family” as another example. This show won Emmy after Emmy, with Vergara receiving four nominations in a row for her portrayal of Gloria. The problem with this, though, is that the show depicts Gloria as an oversexualized stereotype. About this, Vergara asked, “What’s wrong with being a stereotype?” I do not blame Vergara one bit for having this mindset; she was showered in awards and money for this role, and it allowed her to rise to even greater prominence than she had before the show.

The real problem lies in the writers’ room. How can we expect to be properly represented if Latine people are locked out of the room? One of the most controversial episodes of “Modern Family” was “Fulgencio,” an episode that introduced many of the members of Gloria’s family, each with a personality equally as exuberant as Gloria’s. Who wrote the episode, you ask? Three white men.

When there are Latine creatives like comedian and writer Cristela Alonzo; Gloria Calderón Kellett, writer and creator of Latine-centered shows like “One Day at a Time” and “With Love”; and actress, producer and USC alum America Ferrera — why are we allowing white men to tell our stories and decide what we look and talk like?