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Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
Maid In Lebanon

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lavenderstain
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
this reminds me of Maz Jobrani, a Persian Actor who always used to get terrorist roles.

he said of the experience: I stopped doing it because it made me feel dirty. I woke up feeling like I was betraying my self and my parents.

he has since stopped taking the terrorist roles Hollywood offered him, and has his own comedy show and comedy tour.

sometimes, you succeed the most when YOU give Hollywood the rejection finger.
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MerryLilly
04/13/09

@lavenderstain: This is another stereotype that makes me go UGH! Good for him he decided to against the flow and is doing great now :)
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
04/13/09

@lavenderstain: Where might he be playing next? Just based on this I feel like I'd like to go see him immediately.

(Because I also bet he's hilarious. Just a hunch.)
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MerryLilly
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
To make it even sadder: If only this were just a Hollywood stereotype...

PS. Sorry, my period just hit. Lame excuse, I know. But still..
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MerryLilly
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
A thousand UGH for this stereotype:

Woman + Hispanic + Accent = Maid.

Again.. UGH!
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MerryLilly
04/13/09

@MerryLilly: PS. Nothing bad with being a maid, but really, stop with this nonsense of stereotype, thanks
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BrutallyHonestBabes (aka Mrs. Sarah.of.a.Lesser.Hobbit)
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
"I long to play a judge. I long to play a lesbian woman. I long to play a councilman, someone with some chutzpah."

So she wants to be a man? Sounds about right. This actress has often wanted to be a man.
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dj_chick
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
She's done other things, too... like playing that chick who killed Selena in the movie. She did a really good job, too, because to me, she'll forever be Yolanda Saldivar.
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TexasCrude
04/13/09

@dj_chick: Oh no way! That's her?

Man! SELENA 4EVER!
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rosasparks
04/13/09

@TexasCrude: Yep and she's GREAT in that movie.
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EKane
04/13/09

@dj_chick:Whenever I see her in other movies/shows I still think of Yolanda and how creepy she was...er how well Lupe played her.
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ImDatNinja (loves her Red Sox)
04/13/09

@dj_chick: I cant say Yolanda Saldivar w/o saying it in a raspy voice.
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Evie Havok
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
Oh, Lupe, I wish you could play those characters, too. Unfortunately, people of color are not mainstream material as characters of substance. We have to be pushed into stereotypical roles or else we'll hurt the mainstream consumers brains.
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rosasparks
04/13/09

@afiunderground: Meh, it's a combination of those who MAKE the shite and those who CONSUME it.

I mean, the end result is the same, as these version of maids, mammies, and so on continue to pervade our mainstream media, but damn if people in charge were remotely sensitive and intelligent, they wouldn't feel the need to make such trash.
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kelsium
04/13/09

@rosasparks looks like a Fraggle: It's not even about sensitivity or intelligence: it's willful ignorance. They are intelligent in that they do it because they know they can get away with it, their purposeful ignorance to the damage they are doing is what allows them to sleep at night.
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Mary McCarthyite
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
OK: Very Sad. Stupid Hollywood. Bright side? Playing a made is different from working as a maid...or is it?
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tomboygirl
04/13/09

@Mary McCarthyite: Well, working as made you'd get 150 performances in just 6 months.
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Mary McCarthyite
04/13/09

@Mary McCarthyite: MAID. Dammit. Effing Mondays.
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kickingthecrap
04/13/09

@Mary McCarthyite: I see you're working on the Hattie McDaniel (most famous for winning an Oscar for playing Mammy in Gone with the Wind), who famously claimed she'd rather play a maid for big bucks than be one for peanuts, theory. Hurray progress! ...oh, wait.
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Mary McCarthyite
04/13/09

@tomboygirl: Yeah, but no one to do your make-up and hair. And there'd never be the relief of taking off a costume when finished with the job.
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Mary McCarthyite
04/13/09

@kickingthecrap: Exactly.
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tomboygirl
04/13/09

@Mary McCarthyite: Oh, I'm with you. I meant it as a negative, as in: you'd never get a break!
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Mary McCarthyite
04/13/09

@tomboygirl: I got you. It was just more sarcastic exchange.
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vulcanized
04/13/09

@kickingthecrap: Well, if Lupe Ontiveros ever gets an Oscar nod, at least she'll be able to go to the parties through the front door. Better than nothing, but still not much consolation.
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Hamsterpants
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
I saw her in a (ahem) "Murder She Wrote" the other night. She was an angry wife married to a philandering Mexican businessdude. She was pretty good.

Um, what does the caption "Their Final Reward" mean? She looks like she's brandishing raw fish at someone.
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megnificent
04/13/09

@Hamsterpants: It's a still from The Goonies. I think there are jewels in the pouch.
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Hamsterpants
04/13/09

@megnificent: Ah. I was hoping it was a Latino soap opera with one of those great bruja subplots that always culminate in a chase scene on four-by-fours through a rainforest and end up on the beach with the ingenue tied to a stake about to be sacrificed to an obscure Mayan god by the witcy one.
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Hana Maru
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
more than 150 times? Talk about a stereotype. For shame, Hollywood writers/casting directors.
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Mary McCarthyite
04/13/09

@HanaMaru: Let's cross our fingers that she's in the actor's union and makes a decent amount of money doing this.
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HitOrMs will never get a gold star because she doesn't hate on sex workers
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
NO FIRME, NO FIRME!!!!!!

To be fair, her scene where Corey Feldman gave her the tour of the Walsh house was probably the funniest moment in the movie for me.

But then I read this and get the sads that she's boxed in like that. And yes, I am Latina.
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WaltzingMatilda
04/13/09

@HitOrMs: Yes! And thanks to that scene, I was always afraid of a closet full of cockroaches or an attic where Mr. Walsh kept his sexual torture devices.
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tomboygirl
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
The maid on Will & Grace had chutzpah.
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misspell
04/13/09

@tomboygirl: I noticed when I watched Troop Beverly Hills the other day for the first time in about 15 years that she played the maid in that, too. It was discouraging.
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birminghamdrunk
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
ay dios mio.
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kelsium
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
Sad sad sad. Hollywood FAIL. This is seriously pathetic... 150 times?

Some actors have one type--I have no problem watching Jason Statham play the same damn part over and over because a) he's good at it, and b) I have no problem watching Jason Statham do anything. However, the is no friggin' way that Lupe Ontiveros can ONLY play "MAID". That is bullshit bullshit bullshit.
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kelsium
04/13/09

@kelsium: "there is no"

PREVIEW BUTTON! Why hath thou forsaken me??
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Ailatan
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
The sad thing is that you have to be darker to play maid. You can't be a latina and look like Alexis Bledel? She is 1/2 Argentine 1/2 Mexican, her first language is Spanish.
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cellophane
04/13/09

@Ailatan: A few years ago I was in Las Vegas and asked an employee in a casino for directions. My first language is Spanish and the employee was Mexican so I really saw no reason to ask in English.

At this point an American family walks by and I hear the woman comment "My, that's the whitest Mexican I've ever seen."

So no, Alexis Bledel can't be a Latina in America.
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Angelinos_do_it_better
04/13/09

@Ailatan: @cellophane:

Ugh stupid American racism. Somehow some Americans got into their heads that all Latinos are mestizos or Native Americans of the Latin varity and it has stuck. Though, I've seen the same thing with Black Latinos where no one believes they are Latin. Hello U.S. Latinos like Americans come in all shapes and colors. Thanks!
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Ailatan
04/13/09

@cellophane: Gawd! This is annoying as hell, we are from all over the world, we are a multicultural society, before that term existed. Native American Indians, Criollos, Immigrants and from all that we come from, Latin America is full of amazing mixtures.
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counterclockwise's using her promoting-power for good
04/13/09

@cellophane: Of course! If Latin people are white, how do you distinguish them from them white people? I mean the REALLY white people, you know, with white parents. So confusing...
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Evie Havok
04/13/09

@Ailatan: I can't feel too bad for her because she's at the top of the color hierarchy which comes with certain privileges (i.e. white privilege). At least she gets work and isn't typecasted as a maid. Let's not pretend that Latin America and South America aren't plagued with issues of racism, classism, and colorism. If she'd been in mexico or argentina doing novelas she would have gotten top pick from any role. Lupe Ontiveros, on the other hand, would have played the maid, again, because she's a brown mestizo.
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Molly Crabapple
04/13/09

@Ailatan: I'm half Puerto-Rican, half Jewish, and I've been repeatedly told that I'm too white to be a Latina, or that I don't act like a Latina (a Latina presumably being someone who doesn't like to read,listens to salsa, sits on stoops, wears too tight jeans and can't pronounce English correctly).

People from Latin America are mixed race. Some of us have pale skin. Some of us have dark skin and kinky hair. America has a real problem with people who don't fit into easy boxes
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katie.scarlett.o'hara
04/13/09

@cellophane: You would not believe all the shit my dad hears. He's Cuban American, with light skin and (gasp! shock!) blue eyes. People are confounded.
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ragincajun67
04/13/09

@Ailatan: I have always been fascinated by the Bledel Paradox. I once read that she did not learn English until she started school, so I was mightily impressed that she excelled in one of the wordiest American shows ever made (GG scripts were usually 85 pages long versus 40 pages for the average 1-hour show.) I've studied French since kindergarten and am in no way ready for the Comedie Francaise. After the show was over, the creator talked about how hard it always was to cast small parts since the pace of the language was such a challenge.
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vulcanized
04/13/09

@Molly Crabapple: You need to be able to be described by the adjectives "spicy" or "firey". Also, you need lipliner. Lots of it. The more, the better. Now, please conform to my racial expectiations. Chip chop chip!

@Angelinos_do_it_better: Is it really just Americans? Because from what I can tell, there are racist fucks all over this globe.
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Evie Havok
04/13/09

@all: How did this become a issue about white latinos/hispanics? From what I've seen they actually get roles. The latinos that look like Lupe are the ones that get the stereotypical roles or no roles at all.
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Mafalda para Presidente
04/13/09

@ragincajun67: So you didn't think it was possible for a child to learn English well? Because I learned it until I was around 11 and I have no accent at this time.

I get a bit irked when people assume that because it's not my first language, I should have an accent.
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SevenNationArmy has truth tourettes
04/13/09

@Angelinos_do_it_better: People are always surprised to find out that I'm latina. They think I'm either Jewish or Italian. One thing that pisses me off is that if you speak spanish you are automatically either 1. Puerto Rican 2. Mexican or 3. Dominican. Because those are the only places that speak spanish.
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Mafalda para Presidente
04/13/09

@SevenNationArmy has made a huge mistake: I'm kind of ambiguous...dark hair, but slightly olive eyes and very fair skin. I've been asked if I'm Italian, Jewish, Lebanese, and a bunch of other things. Most other Hispanics usually know I'm Hispanic, though. It's the built-in radar.
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Ailatan
04/13/09

@Mafalda para Presidente: Most people think I'm British, since I have fair skin, red hair and freckles. And I get the "Where did you learn such good English?" Sometimes I answer "Thankfully not near where you learnt your Spanish! ha ha ha!"
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Ailatan
04/13/09

@afiunderground: I'm not pretending that it's not. But what I'm saying is "couldn't we challenge these perceptions a bit?"
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Mafalda para Presidente
04/13/09

Also, let me clarify that mestizos can also look white as well as brown. Mixed doesn't automatically equal "a shade of brown."

In fact, I'd be surprised if there were any pure white Hispanics in Latin America that weren't VERY recent immigrants. As in, one generation ago. I have a feeling mostly everyone is mixed in some way.
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RobertaFisk
04/13/09

@Mafalda para Presidente: I think there's a cut-off age (around 12?) before which kids who learn a second language don't have an accent, but if you're older than that, you will likely have an accent. I learned English at 9 and have no accent, but my cousins and friends who came here at 12+ all still have accents.
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Evie Havok
04/13/09

@Mafalda para Presidente: I don't know. The upper classes, especially in Mexico, tend not to mix so maybe all of the spaniard/french/italian/etc. blood didn't manage to be diluted with native blood.
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Mafalda para Presidente
04/13/09

@afiunderground: I'd say that's a big assumption and a bit outdated by now.
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rosasparks
04/13/09

In reply to Before Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek & America Ferrera
Ugh.

I can't take it anymore today.

I'm going to have a snack and try not to punch someone in the neck.

I long for those things for her, as well.
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