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“Stories are more than entertainment,” the letter says. “They are a powerful tool for social change that fuels our collective movement to build a more equitable, just world for those who have been historically underrepresented and marginalized. Actors, writers, and directors are essential to this work….While we’re encouraged by some of the changes we have seen in recent years, we continue to deal with the repercussions from years of being actively erased and invisible on screen.”
Recent data back up the letter’s claims.
Citing a 2022 diversity study by the Latino Donor Collaborative (LDC), the Hollywood Reporter wrote that “Latin representation in television and film has dropped to 2019 levels.” The latest film study from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative also calls out the dearth of representation. Anneberg founder and report co-author Stacy Smith told NPR in a recent interview, “These legacy companies need to reimagine the way that they’re doing business to represent the world around them, and that’s currently not the status quo.”
At this point, to ignore the need for greater diversity in Hollywood is to ignore the market itself.
At this point, to ignore the need for greater diversity in Hollywood is to ignore the market itself.
The 2022 LDC study said Latinos account for 30% of all moviegoers and 27% of all streaming audiences. Even with the Hollywood strikes, there appears to be a new “Latino boom” that is likely to continue to grow. The representation argument is valid by itself, but producing more authentically representative stories will be excellent for business.
More importantly, though, “Blue Beetle” will shine a light on the realities of the nation’s estimated 63.7 million U.S. Latinos, realities that are supported by new data released this week by the Pew Research Center. Just as we are introduced to different generations of Reyes family members in the film, U.S. Latinos in this country are changing. They are younger (median age, 29), more English-dominant (72%, 5 and older) and not first-generation immigrants (32%).
In fact, Pew noted, “About 81% of Hispanics living in the country in 2021 were U.S. citizens, up from 74% in 2010.”
As the U.S. Latino community continues to evolve and become more engrained in the fabric of this country’s next few decades, movies like “Blue Beetle” are part of the foundation, given how much entertainment directly impacts our society.
On a personal level, one of the reasons I am running to see the movie this weekend is because Soto filmed some of the scenes in Puerto Rico, where he and I grew up. It’s not surprising to hear about the anticipation for the movie back on the island. Never before have we had one of us do a movie like this.
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