A few weeks ago my I was watching the opening episode of "Entourage" Season 4 when I spotted a woman onscreen who looked familiar. "Is that Sofia Vergara?" I wondered. It sure looked like her, but the actress was so subdued and soft spoken I couldn't be sure. A quick search on the Internet revealed that Vergara had indeed appeared on the HBO show. But the character she played on the program was so different from the Sofia Vergara who's now a household name that I felt incredulous. Where was the loud, over-the-top, heavily accented woman of "Modern Family" fame?
Of course, Vergara is an actress and it's her job to play a wide range of personalities. However, some Hispanics say that on and off the screen Vergara plays just one character, a flamboyant, stereotypical Latina. A recent poll on the Huffington Post LatinoVoices website asked readers if Vergara had taken the Latina stereotype too far. While nearly 43 percent answered no because the actress is Colombian, about 29 percent agreed that Vergara does behave too stereotypically and another 29 percent said that maybe she does but they couldn't care less because she's fun to watch. On the other hand, Viviana Hurtado of the Wise Latina Club website is fed up with Vergara. She remarked Wednesday on the NPR show "Tell Me More":
"Sofia Vergara is constantly in character, and her accent is part of the character, as is the way she dresses--voluptuous, and I think truthfully I have a really big problem with her and I've written on her a lot because I think she does more to damage any views that the mainstream has about Latina women by playing up--and very lucratively I may add because she's got contracts with KMART, with Cover Girl, with Pepsi, to name a few--and she's cashing to the bank with these stereotypes."
What prompted Hurtado to make such an assessment of Vergara? The actress appears in a new Cover Girl commercial with Ellen Degeneres in which the two entertainers not only tout makeup but also have a worrisome ethnic exchange. It starts when Degeneres steals one of Vergara's lines. Vergara objects and Degeneres responds, "Well, no one can understand you," as if Vergara's Colombian accent makes her English indecipherable. Degeneres also mocks Vergara's English by speaking gibberish after Vergara rather intentionally blurs her words together.
I get that these lines were supposed to be funny and know some of you will write me off as being too PC, but even setting my PCness aside, I just don't find Degeneres' quips amusing. To me, it's such old hat. I mean, how many times did Lucille Ball make accent jokes at Desi Arnaz's expense in "I Love Lucy?" The whole thing is so 60 years ago. I'm over it, as are many Latinos. Sofia Vergara isn't one of them, though.
She remarked during a Daily Beast interview, "I don't see anything bad about being stereotyped as a Latin woman. We are yellers, we're pretty, we're sexy, and we're scandalous. I am not scared of the stereotypes."
Comments
Well, I see something bad–in fact, I see LOTS of things bad–with stereotyping Latinas and all Latinos in general. At a time when the majority of this country is treating us as worse than second-class citizens, we don’t need any more stereotypical, demeaning images of us splashed across our TV and movie screens. Sofia Vergara isn’t making it any better.
so i guess we are to dismiss the fact that a man of your kind killed a child. For crying out Veronica shut up! and in your world stop thinking your race and accept the fact that a kid was killed. And yes he is a kid because he was only 17 and that bastard was 28 SHAME ON HIM FOR BEING A GROWN ASS BULLY! if that was your child or your brother or your sistercrying for thie life but failed, the last thing you should be thinking is race you want that murderer of what planet dead! I am so tired of people like you talking the way you are i guess because he is mexican and so are you we should dismiss the fact that this boy was killed. so tell me veronica, what sort of justice does Trayvon deserve since the blogger is making it worse for you! Look I have a kid and if this was to happen to him I dont care where that idiot is from, I will not eat or sleep until that idiot is thrown in jail and let the jail birds there do him in. That fool is not in jail because he knows he will be executed by those inmates
WHOA. Veronica has nothing to do with George Zimmerman. You can’t dismiss the fact that Latinos are discriminated against every day, just as Blacks are. Trying to link all Latinos to the actions of Zimmerman is disgusting.
To ME (whoever you are): No, I will NOT SHUT UP!! As long as people like you keep demonizing us, I will keep speaking out until you see the error of your ways and your thinking, which, judging from the looks of it, doesn’t appear to be happening anytime in the next year or even the next three centuries.
I am so tired of Latinos complaining about their lot in this country!
why are latinos always complaining?
I understand why African Americans complain — they were enslaved!!
This group deserves reparations and a national apology. but latinos — no way- stop complaining. you refuse to assimilate. insist on maintaining your mother tongue. refuse to fill out a census. you never want to pay your fair share — you all act like America owes you some thing. you want everything for free – welfare, schools & medical — and you get it!
U have too learn that sofia vergara is Colombian not Mexican. All colombianan woman are annoying, arrogant, loud, and uneducated. Not all Latin counteries are loud. She not stereotypeing, she acting the way a Colombian woman acts. She also stated that Gloria the caracter is Colombian.
Repeat that, honey? Oh, if you want to say ALL Colombian womEn are uneducated first check your English, and stop generalizing, each person is different. How many times have you been living in Colombia? Let me see… hmm… the Carnival week? HA! This is absurd and pathetic. Woah, “She not stereotypeing, she acting the way a Colombian woman acts.” YOU are stereotyping, my dear, and failing miserably at making a coherent comment.