Jennifer Lopez. Salma Hayek. Frida Kahlo. These celebrities names are all synonymous with representation of Latin culture in American media, but in the most homogenized form, a former editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian said.
Isabel Molina, who graduated Penn State in 1992 with a degree in communications, held a talk titled "Consuming Latina Bodies through the Global Media" on Monday night at Foster Auditorium in Pattee Library as part of the Robert M. Pockrass Memorial Lecture series. Molina is currently the director of the Latina/Latino Studies, Media & Cinema Studies and Gender & Women's Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Molina said she was very excited to be back on campus as a Penn State alum. She started her talk by using Hayek as an example as a Latina woman who is overly sexualized in the media. She related Hayek with Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor with the words "fire" and "passion" -- stereotypical words frequently used to describe women of Latina descent.
Ali Juliano (senior-advertising) said she thought it was interesting how Molina tried to engage the audience with media clips everyone is familiar with.
In her studies, Molina has aimed to map the media discourse and tension that lies between Latino demands for visibility and the unhappiness that comes from existing media representation.
"The media influences and mirrors our ideological values about minorities," Molina said. "It confirms our long-held beliefs and anxieties about groups we know little about."
She then related Latina artist Frida Kahlo's painted self-portrait with a fashion shoot Vogue magazine did. The magazine attempted to imitate the painting in a high fashion, marketable way. Vogues' shoot re-articulated in a global context of Latinidad, or Latino culture, Molina said.
Mia Briceño (graduate-communication arts and sciences) thought it was interesting that Molina focused specifically on the United States context, noting that in Latin America, those who Americans perceive as "brown" actually fit the "whiter" standard.
In popular media, even Latino producers cannot avoid homogenizing their culture to appeal to a broader market, Molina said. She thinks the only way to avoid stereotypical reporting and media coverage is to educate oneself on different minorities to become global citizens.
Chris Toutain (graduate-communication arts and sciences) thinks the answer to stereotypical representations in the media is better media, not more media.
"Just because you don't need a producer to put something up on YouTube," he said, "doesn't guarantee improvement."
