‘On My Block’ is a recent Netflix original that was released on March 16, 2018. This is a coming-of-age television series created by Lauren Lungerich, Eddie Gonzalez and Jeremy Haft. The show circles around the lives of four teenagers.
Recently, this show and its casting has sparked outrage from the audience and media. One of the characters, Olivia, is a Latina girl whose parents were deported in the show. This character was played by Ronni Hawk, a white woman who is a Trump supporter. Naturally, this misrepresentation made people angry. Hawk has received a lot of hate for her role. One of Hawk’s ex-colleagues threw some shade at her as well. Jenna Ortega and Ronni Hawk worked together on the Disney Channel comedy series ‘Stuck in the Middle’. Hawk once again played a Mexican character, Rachel Diaz.
Another debacle that brings this problem to light is the one of Lesly Kahn. This acting teacher told one of her non-Latina students to pose as a Latina, which would broaden her opportunities. This is of course horrible advice and shows the level of ignorance in Hollywood. A video recording of the class was leaked. Kahn said to her student, “Go to the headshot shop and tell them you’re Latin. Wear something f*cking red. Wear some f*cking sparkly earrings. Change your goddamned name, and let’s just do an experiment.” The stereotyping on Kahn’s part just made things worse.
The misrepresentation in Hollywood isn’t just about On My Block and Hawk. Out of the top 100 films released in 2016, 70.8% of characters were white. A study done by researchers of the University Of Southern California revealed the inequality of representation in Hollywood. The study found that just one-third of the speaking characters were female (33.5%), despite the fact the women represent over half the population. Just 28.3% of the characters were from non-white racial/ethnic groups, though these groups cover about 40% of the US population. Just 3.4 percent of film directors were female, and only 7% of films had a balanced cast whose race and ethnicity reflected the country’s diversity. In broadcast TV, 17 % of directors were women and 19% of programs were ethnically balanced (link to source).GLAAD (a non-profit organization rallying for LGBT+ rights) has found that in the year 2017–2018, there were 329 characters in broadcast, cable and streaming programs, only 17 (5%) were transgender characters. It is far time that Hollywood learnt to represent characters accurately and display the diversity that truly exists in our country.
