Gina Rodriguez on how we can change the perception of Latina/os on screen
It is no secret that Gina Rodriguez is an avid proponent of diversity on screen, especially as it relates to the representation of Latina/os on film and television. With her production company I Can and I Will signing a deal with CBS Television Studios earlier this year, she plans to promote Latina/os both in front of and behind the camera.
While doing research for my graduate thesis on Jane the Virgin, I learned about what Rodriguez is doing to change the status quo for Latina/os in Hollywood, and what we can do as consumers to help.
The following is an excerpt from my thesis — Why Not Both: Latina Intersectionality and Bilingualism in Jane the Virgin.
In a SXSW panel entitled “Hacking the Script: Disrupt Diversity in Hollywood” in March 2017, Gina Rodriguez spoke about diverse images on screen along with fellow panelists Yara Shahidi (from ABC’s Black-ish), producer Jon Spaihts, and screenwriter Wendy Calhoun.
At the end of the panel I had the opportunity to ask Rodriguez directly why she has turned down certain roles that she thinks do not advance Latina/o representation and how she determines what is good and bad representation.

“I wanted to play every other role besides the role that we’ve seen 7,000 times, not to mention there is nothing wrong with being a maid,” she responded. “I was a maid. I’ve cleaned houses. I was a nanny. There is nothing wrong with working for a living. It’s just that when you only see one view over and over and over again, you start to think: ‘That’s the only place I exist.’ And that’s just not true, at all. So I just want to choose roles that I know that I am contributing to a new conversation and I’m playing roles that will allow us to see Latinos in a different light.”
Rodriguez wisely believes the roles that she chooses to play and the images that Hollywood chooses to perpetuate or change will ultimately affect the viewers the most. She is specifically concerned about young Latinas, who much like her when she was a girl, may still not feel represented on screen.
As an actor with several prestigious awards under her belt, Rodriguez has the privilege to be able to choose which roles she wants to play, and she actively uses her voice to promote more diverse images of Latina/os. Her work on Jane the Virgin has drawn the attention of critics and viewers alike in its authenticity and faithfulness to real bicultural bilinguals.
Following the success of bicultural shows like Jane the Virgin, it is possible that its bilingual writing style will be the model for ethnocentric television shows in the future. In my examination of controversial topics presented in Jane the Virgin, I prove that the show humanizes Latino/a immigrants and thus challenges stereotypes about that ethnic group. Furthermore, the narrative of Jane the Virgin provides different generational and cultural perspectives in its characterization of the Villanueva women, which helps viewers to understand multigenerational families and how their sociocultural positions affect their family dynamics.
So, what’s next? We must create and support media that provides diverse and inclusive images of Latina/os and women. We must write our own stories, and encourage others that have created authentic stories.
One of Rodriguez’s main points during the SXSW panel I attended is that the power of the consumer is greater than we realize. “We don’t understand that we have that power and I think that that’s what’s missing, the knowledge that we do control the content by deciding whether or not we go and watch these movies that lack representation — that lack representation of women, the representation of women of color,” she said as a call to action to the audience. Perhaps her view is optimistic but we cannot afford to discount it — instead we should actively try to change the perception of Latina/os on screen, even faster and more effectively than before.
