2012 84 minutes (full version) 61 minutes (abridged) 1-932869-57-3 This film has subtitles English & Spanish

Latinos Beyond Reel

Challenging a Media Stereotype

or

Synopsis

Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, and among the most diverse -- accounting for one-sixth of all Americans and tracing their origins to more than 20 countries. They are also a rising force in American politics. Yet across the American media landscape, from the broadcast airwaves to cable television and Hollywood film, the reality and richness of the Latino experience are virtually nowhere to be found.

In Latinos Beyond Reel, filmmakers Miguel Picker and Chyng Sun examine how US news and entertainment media portray -- and do not portray -- Latinos. Drawing on the insights of Latino scholars, journalists, community leaders, actors, directors, and producers, they uncover a pattern of gross misrepresentation and gross under-representation -- a world in which Latinos tend to appear, if at all, as gangsters and Mexican bandits, harlots and prostitutes, drug dealers and welfare-leeching illegals.

The film challenges viewers to think critically about the wide-ranging effects of these media stereotypes, and to envision alternative representations and models of production more capable of capturing the humanity and diversity of real Latinos. Features commentary from Charles Berg, Otto Santa Ana, Angharad Valdivia, Federico Subervi, Mari Castaneda, Chon Noriega, Isabel Molina, Alex Nogales, Juan Gonzalez, Moctesuma Esparza, Josefina Lopez, Alex Rivera, Luis Ramos, Lisa Vidal, and others.

Introduction | Invisible and Vilified | Who Tells Our Stories? | Justifying History | Stereotypes Never Die? | Images Matter

Release Date:2012
Duration:84 minutes (full version) 61 minutes (abridged)
ISBN:1-932869-57-3
Subtitles:English & Spanish

Trailers

Watch the trailer

Filmmaker Credits

Produced & Directed by
Miguel Picker and Chyng Sun
Co-producers
Edwin Pagan and Lorena Manriquez
Edited by
Miguel Picker
Written by
Chyng Sun
Directors of Photography
Edwin Pagan and Miguel Picker
Narrator
Hector Herrera
Original Music
Miguel Picker
Graphics
Miguel Picker
Associate Producer and Crowd-Fund Manager
Ronelle Rodriguez Torres
Assistant Producers
Quantrell Jackson and Galia Bogolasky
Production Coordinator
Rhon Flatts
Re-recording Mixer, Sound Designer & Additional Music
Francisco Monroy
Senior Consultant
Patti DeRosa
Story Editor
Jeremy Earp
Script Consultant
Sut Jhally

Filmmaker Biographies

Miguel Picker View Miguel Picker's Filmmaker Page
Producer & Director
Miguel Picker, a New York-based Chilean American filmmaker, is an award-winning editor, director, and music composer. He edited and composed music for Borinqueneers (2007), broadcast nationally on PBS in 2007 and the winner of the Audience Award at the Orlando Hispanic Film Festival, 2009, and Insight Award of Excellence by the National Association of Film and Digital Media Artists, 2008. He is currently working on two documentaries: Ulises' Odyssey, and Siqueiros: Walls of Passion. With Chyng Sun, he directed and edited Mickey Mouse Monopoly (2001), Beyond Good and Evil (2003), The Price of Pleasure (2008), and Latinos Beyond Reel (2012). Before moving to New York, Picker worked as an editor at WGBH-TV in Boston and produced numerous programs.
Chyng Sun View Chyng Sun's Filmmaker Page
Producer & Director
Chyng Sun, Ph.D., is a Clinical Associate Professor of Media Studies at McGhee Division, School of Continuing and Professional Studies at New York University. Her teaching and research interests are centered on media representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and their cultural and social impacts. In recent years, her research focus has been on pornography, and she is currently conducting global research on pornography use. In collaboration with Miguel Picker, Sun has produced, directed, and written four documentary films (see Picker's bio above).

Film Festivals

Resources: Downloads and Related Links

Downloads:

Praise

“Illuminates the historical and contemporary invisibility and misrepresentation of Latinos in news and entertainment media and helps viewers understand how and why this distorted picture has come about. Particularly given that 1 in 4 American children is now Latino, this is a vitally important educational documentary.”
- Mary Beltrán, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication at the University of Texas, Austin
Author of Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film
“A timely and important film that should galvanize all about the need to hire more Latinos at the top levels of media, where they can bring about real and lasting change as producers, gatekeepers, writers, actors and more.”
– Arlene Davila, Ph.D.
Professor of Anthropology & American Studies at New York University
Author of Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race
“Latinos Beyond Reel: Challenging a Media Stereotype is a comprehensive and powerful exploration of stereotypes of Latinos and Latinas in American media. Whether one dimensional representations are in film, cartoons, television shows, or in news the documentary makes clear that the effects are powerful, not only on Latinos but also on other populations’ perceptions of Latinos. By examining both historical and contemporary representations, animated or actual, the film shows how stereotypes go beyond the symbolic realm and can harm the minds and bodies of Latinos, particularly children.”
– Debra Merskin, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication at the University of Oregon
Author of Media, Minorities, and Meaning: A Critical Introduction
“An engaged, dynamic and accessible overview of the historically problematic portrayal of Latinos in U.S. news and entertainment media. The high quality of the production, the well-researched and riveting script and the invaluable concurrence of views, experiences and opinions by some of the most prominent Latino scholars, journalists, producers, actors and community leaders in the country offer a critical and comprehensive insight on the media representation of Latinos for students and media professionals alike.”
– Jose-Carlos Lozano
Professor of Communication at Texas A&M International University
“Latinos Beyond Reel: Challenging a Media Stereotype tells the important story of Latino portrayals in U.S. mainstream media and its potential impact on the culture, society, and individuals. The film provides demographic and historical context for the invisibility and stereotypical depictions that have permeated U.S. media. This context provides the viewer with a complex and more nuanced understanding of how and why these images have been created and how they impact us.”
– Rocio Rivadeneyra, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology at Illinois State University
“Latinos Beyond Reel convincingly illustrates the gaps between our national rhetoric of a diverse and multiethnic democracy and the paucity of diverse ethnic media representations. The strong empirical basis for the program demonstrates that despite the exponential growth of media channels, Latinos are still struggling to be seen as equal members of the polity.”
– Vicki Mayer, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication at Tulane University
Author of Producing Dreams, Consuming Youth: Mexican Americans and Mass Media
Editor of Television and New Media
“Latinos Beyond Reel is a must-see documentary. It highlights how Latinos are, on the one hand, stereotyped by the media (film as well as news), and on the other hand, ignored and minimized. As a black Puerto Rican sociologist who suffers 'en carne propia' many of the things highlighted in this documentary, endorse it wholeheartedly and will use it in my classes.”
– Eduardo Bonilla Silva, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology at Duke University
“Beyond a mere review of media stereotypes, Latinos Beyond Reel exposes the historical roots and political uses of the pervasive and narrow representations of Latinidad in the U.S. The film will become an indispensable resource for scholars and students of mediated Latino identities.”
– Guillermo Avila-Saavedra, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Communications at Salem State University
“Latinos Beyond Reel is a hard-hitting and engaging examination of Latinos in media. This timely documentary, focusing on Latinos on and behind the screen, is interestingly structured through the commentary of Latino children. Through their eyes, viewers experience the devastating impact of Latino invisibility and the proliferation of negative images in news and entertainment media. Major players in the field including directors, actors, media scholars, journalists and activists discuss historical and contemporary stereotypes. They contextualize the historical exclusion of Latinos in the media, critique the lack of diversity in prevailing images of Latinos, and highlight critical challenges to this deplorable reality. The film features many provocative discussions including poignant interviews with actors about the limited roles they are offered, the economic pressures they face to accept such roles and the emotional costs of playing stereotyped characters. This film is a welcome addition to Latino studies, media studies, and ethnic studies. Highly recommended!”
– Lourdes Torres, Ph.D.
Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at DePaul University
Author of Puerto Rican Discourse: A Sociolinguistic Study of a New York Suburb and co-editor Tortilleras: Hispanic and the Latina Lesbian Expression
“Latinos Beyond Reel includes a diversity of voices, from Latino children to university professors, that challenges viewers to consider the harmful consequences of the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of Latinos in U.S. media. This film is a must-see and makes a convincing argument for the critical need for better representation of Latinos in the media.”
– Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Missouri
“Latinos Beyond Reel is more than a compelling documentary: it is a timely indictment of an industry that consistently maligns and misrepresents America’s largest ethnic group. US Latinos buy 1 out of every 5 movie tickets sold in the US, yet Hollywood films deliver a stale repertoire of Latino drug dealers, hookers and maids. Latinos contribute to the U.S. economy to the tune of $1.2 trillion in 2012 alone. But you wouldn’t know it from watching TV news, where Latinos are over-represented as criminals, aliens, and moochers. Culling hundreds of film, television, and news images, Latinos Beyond Reel takes us from early film “greasers” to modern gang bangers and kingpins; from sensational stories about vicious druglords to video feed of criminal 'aliens.' Most importantly, interviews with Latino children remind us why these images matter and why we should care: news and entertainment media influence attitudes and public policy, but as Latinos Beyond Reel makes clear, they also impact the lives of a new generation of Latinos in America."
– Myra Mendible, Ph.D.
Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Florida Gulf Coast University
Editor of From Bananas to Buttocks: The Latina Body in Popular Film and Culture
“This film grabs you from the beginning. It speaks truth to power by asking and answering difficult questions, and leaves you informed, inspired, and conscious about issues related to history, Hollywood, privilege, power, and more! This film makes you want to take action immediately.”
– Eddie Moore, Jr., Ph.D.
Founder/Program Director, The White Privilege Conference
“Effectively explains how a century of U.S. media has shaped perceptions and misperceptions of Latinos, and in turn influenced policies that have affected their lives.”
– Andrea Quijada
Former Executive Director of the Media Literacy Project
“This film is a welcome and valuable tool for both educators and activists. It exposes a subtle form of discrimination against Latinos in today’s most pervasive arena of the public sphere: the media. Juxtaposing early media images of Latinos with contemporary ones, Picker and Sun show how backward are traditional media when it comes to representing Latinos."
– Lucila Vargas, Ph.D.
Author of Latina Teens, Migration, and Popular Culture
Director of Latino Journalism and Media at Carolina
“By providing numerous excerpts from historic and contemporary media representations of Latino/a, this movie could be useful in introducing students to the issue of ethnic stereotypes in the media. The film also briefly touches on some thought provoking questions concerning media industry’s practices that enable and propagate Latino/a stereotypes.”
– Riva Tukachinsky, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication at Chapman University
“Latinos Beyond Reel offers a thought-provoking look at depictions of Latinos across the media landscape. The socio-political origins of many of the most pernicious stereotypes of Latinos are addressed alongside discussions of the effects of exposure to these images and messages. This thoughtful study of the media’s characterization of Latinos will no doubt serve as a valuable resource for educators teaching courses ranging from media effects to stereotyping to film studies. More general audiences will also appreciate the numerous media examples (television, movies, news, etc.) coupled with interviews with prominent actors, producers, and media scholars.”
– Dana Mastro
Professor of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara
“Latinos Beyond Reel is an eye-opening documentary about the portrayal of Latinos in the media. Perfect for library or community programs that examine race and ethnicity, stereotypes, or the media and its portrayals of different groups.”
– Janet Ryan
Head of Programming & Outreach at Jones Library, Amherst, MA

Related Films

You may also be interested in: