Does anyone find it interesting that Eva and several other Latina actresses started their careers working in videos, tel
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Eva Mendes
bellaalma — 12 years ago(March 23, 2014 10:32 PM)
Does anyone find it interesting that Eva and several other Latina actresses started their careers working in videos, television shows, and films with predominantly black casts until they get their "big breaks" in films with white casts? After that they don't seem to work with blacks any more.
Sofia Vegara, Roselyn Sanchez, Rosario Dawson, Zoe Saldana, Jennifer Lopez, and Salma Hayek all seem to have followed this model. They were in music videos with black male artists like Tyrese (Roselyn Sanchez) and in films like Soul Plane and Meet the Browns (Sofia Vegara) or worked primarily with blacks (JLo with Puffy, on In Living Color, in Money Train, etc.) Several of them also starred opposite black actors in romantic roles on multiple occasions (Eva Mendes in All About the Benjamins, Exit Wounds, Hitch, Out of Time, Training Day). However, once their careers became more "mainstream" they no longer worked with blacks in this capacity.
The other interesting part of this is that most of them have almost never starred opposite a Latino actor. Now, they are almost exclusively paired with white men.
This has happened so often that I wonder if this is an unspoken model for building these women's careers in Hollywood. -
bizzniss — 12 years ago(March 25, 2014 04:51 PM)
It's racism, for sure. But mainstream is always directed to the white majority. That's just the way it is. It generates the most money. It betters their chances of winning prestigious awards and being invited to special events, parties, etc. Some Black, Asian and other ethnic actors do the same thing. Welcome to America. Everyone knows this already (even if they like to act oblivious to it). But they all do this until they screw up and white america doesn't like them anymore, Then they remember who they are and where they come from.
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activista — 11 years ago(April 23, 2014 12:20 AM)
To be fair, Mendes did play one half of an interracial couple in last year's critically acclaimed indie drama THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINESher character was raising kids with a brother. The ironic thing about Eva's early work is that she was frequently case alongside black actors because Hollywood didn't want to cast a white actress as a love interest with either Will or Denzel in a drama or a comedy. Nothing she really had any control over while starting out in the biz,thoughat least she got her nameand her career out there. I kind of like her because she has a down-to-earth girl-next-door neighbor vibe going for her, and dosen't seem to do the real flashy roles,plus she had a nice role as the good girl in HITCH ( which was a really good film,BTWand worth seeing,lol.)
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Raysand — 11 years ago(April 29, 2014 07:11 PM)
"The ironic thing about Eva's early work is that she was frequently case alongside black actors because Hollywood didn't want to cast a white actress as a love interest with either Will or Denzel in a drama or a comedy. "
The white actress that you are referring to that Hollywood didn't want to cast opposite Will Smith, so they decided to cast Eva Mendes, is another Cuban American actress [just like Eva], Cameron Diaz. -
heartyburgundy — 11 years ago(August 28, 2014 08:25 PM)
No, you happen to be wrong. You can be a white Hispanic, black Hispanic, or mixed Hispanic. There are many different racial backgrounds that are cultivated within Hispanic cultures. There's a reason our US Census classifies being "Hispanic" and its derivatives an ethnicity. I, for example, am a white Cuban. We come from a line of white Spaniards and Irish people who migrated to Cuba. Many individuals' lineages (especially of Caribbean origin) have a lot of this. Biologically, as we study in my science classes at university, Hispanic humans are defined as white.
I think you're getting a little angsty about the dominating white American culture in the United States and assuming that if you're part of being called "white", you must be anti-black? I don't understand.