Our class discussions last week about television portrayals of Latin@s made me think of the character Gloria (played by Actress Sofia Vergara) on ABC's sitcom "Modern Family." As we discussed the stereotypical characteristics that are often attributed to Latin@s, I realized that Gloria possesses many of the more "positive" pop cultural characteristics as well as many of the more "negative" ones generally seen in the media. Namely, Gloria is an immigrant from Columbia with a son from a previous marriage-- a marriage that failed because her husband was a dead-beat and drank too much (hmmm). She is loud, uses extremely colorful language, dresses provocatively, has married a much older, white man, can hold her own in a fight, is beautiful, curvy, and regularly mentions sex and drugs. Her character is funny and definitely lovable but I find it quite sad that one of the few Latin@ mothers portrayed in a sitcom is caricatured to such an extreme.
By the way... I couldn't figure out how to attach a youtube video in case anyone wanted to watch a clip of how Gloria is portrayed. If anyone's interested, just go to you tube, search "coal digger modern family" and watch the first clip that comes up :)
ReplyDeleteHere is a link that tells you how to post to blogspot from youtube. Try it! And thanks for breaking the ice and posting. http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80767
ReplyDeleteI gotta say that Sofia looks down right prim and proper in this picture compared to how she usually appeared in Spanish language media where it was always T&A everywhere!
It's also interesting to think of the show weeds. The Mexican mafia is portrayed in a variety of ways on that show as well with the white woman protagonist caught up in the middle of the chaos. I'll definitely have to watch an episode and put up a more detailed explanation later. :)
ReplyDeleteSofia's character does not seem to exist outside of excess...whenever she is presented, she is seen as being loud, over-the-top, and of course with outfits that show her curves, breasts, and ass...if you actually look a little closer, you can see how the camera adjusts to the dominant male gaze and places in many instances her boobs or ass in the center of the frame...always trying to capture a little jiggling here and there
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