Tag Archives: latina

The Soapbox: On Disney’s First Latina Princess

Veronica ArreolaOctober 29, 2012 //
America On Racism
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Disney Princess Sofia

“Disney is releasing a Latina princess soon, mija,” I declared to my daughter as we drove away from her school and on our way to pick up her dad. “Good!” she said firmly. But of course, I rarely let that be the end of any conversation. “Why good?” I probed.

What followed was a discussion of how we both recognized that Latinas deserve a princess that looks like them — this is despite the fact that my husband and I worked hard to minimize “the princess effect” in our home. Princesses were far from banned. Rather we opted for a different approach: we emphasize strong princesses like Leia, Wonder Woman and Xena (not a real princess, but warrior princesses counted). I also would bring up real-life princesses who did good in the world whenever I could. Oh, the way I used to bring up Princess Diana and Queen Noor! Goodness. We also discussed the strong traits of the Disney princess kingdom: Ariel was adventurous, Belle loved to read and Rapunzel knew how to wield a cast-iron skillet. As you can see, we aren’t anti-Princess, but we are anti-”I’m a pretty-princess waiting for a prince to save me.” Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: Summer’s Eve Pulls Their Racist Douche Ads Offline

Jessica WakemanJuly 27, 2011 //
  • Summer’s Eve pulled two of their racist douche commercials offline after an outpouring of complaints over their depictions of black and Latina women. Summer’s Eve’s PR defended their ads — like the sassy black vagina spoke with an “urban” accent and talked about how much money she spends on her hair — as “empowering” women and even said they had “in-house multi-cultural experts” who OKed the commercials. Actual women who don’t believe we need vaginal cleaning products thought otherwise. [Twitter.com/FleetSummersEve]
  • A Planned Parenthood clinic in McKinney, Texas, was attacked last night with a Molotov cocktail (a homemade bomb made from diesel fuel inside a glass bottle). Fortunately the inside of the clinic was not harmed and there were no injuries. This is called domestic terrorism, people. [McKinney Courier-Gazette]

Keep reading »

Douching Is All About “Empowerment,” Says Summer’s Eve PR

Jessica WakemanJuly 19, 2011 //

Yesterday, thanks to Summer’s Eve douching products, I learned that my vagina is “the most powerful thing on Earth and that samauri warriors and medieval jousting was all about fighting over a good, clean vagina. It turns out there are more douche-y douche commercials where that came from. Keep reading »

“The Dirty Girls Social Club” Author Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez Alleges Racist TV Adaptation Of Her Book

Jessica WakemanDecember 23, 2010 //

Most authors would die to see their book made into a movie or TV show. But not Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez — not anymore. The author of The Dirty Girls Social Club got ahold of a script based on her book and was shocked to see that: 1) all the black characters were removed and changed to be of other races, and 2) all the Latina characters are sexually promiscuous, even described as “sizzling.” Seeing The Dirty Girls Social Club adapted on TV, she said, now “holds zero appeal for me.”

“The Dirty Girls Social Club,” in development with NBC, will be written by Luisa Leschin for Ann Lopez’s Encanto Productions (also known as Ann Serrano, as she is splitting from comedian George Lopez). Over a year ago, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez optioned the rights for her book to Lopez, who, with Alisa’s help, got a development deal with NBC. But the script adaptation she covertly saw when a “no one” within the company leaked it to her was so racist, sexist and overall offensive that Alisa wrote on her blog today, “I’d rather no show get made than to have my name attached to Luisa’s bastardizations.” Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: Colorado Gets Its First Lesbian Supreme Court Judge

Jessica WakemanDecember 15, 2010 //
  • Meet Monica Marquez, 41, the first lesbian and Latina Supreme Court justice in Colorado. Monica and her dad, a retired senior judge who was the state’s first Latino to serve on the appeals court. Both cried with joy as he read to her the Colorado Supreme Court oath. She’s a graduate of Stanford and Yale and a former deputy state attorney general. [Denver Post]
  • The women of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra have new outfits and this is news. [Yahoo]
  • Someone at WashingtonPost.com is letting the authors of The Frisky’s fave book ever, The Man Whisperer, do an online chat today. Anyone up for a double dose of learning why women don’t need equality with men? [TBD.com]

Keep reading »

Is It Odd Jennifer Lopez Has Red-Headed Babies In “The Back-up Plan”?

Jessica WakemanMay 21, 2010 //

I haven’t seen “The Back-up Plan” yet, which is Jennifer Lopez‘s new flick about a woman who conceives via a sperm donor before meeting a guy she falls in love with. I just read this post at Feministing by blogger Miriam Perez, though, which pointed out something kind of odd: Lopez’s character in the film not only has a Caucasian grandmother, but gives birth to blue-eyed, redheaded, light-skinned twin babies. Keep reading »

Quotable: America Ferrera Will Never Have Blonde Hair Or Blue Eyes

Jessica WakemanJanuary 22, 2010 //

America Ferrera: “There was this part in this movie with this director who shall remain nameless. It was a story set in Texas about this family and they weren’t sure who they were going to cast as the male role, so they were holding off on the female role, depending on if the male role was Latino or not. They didn’t want to put two Latinos in the same movie because then it would be ‘a Latino movie.’ So in my delusionary state, I thought if I dyed my hair blonde, I could show them that I could play anything. … So I stripped my hair. I looked f**king crazy. I only took one Polaroid and burned it.

Amber Tamblyn: “You wore whiteface…”

America Ferrera: “I did! I’m not even kidding! I had such resentment. And that was one of those moments where I just thought, ‘Wow.’ I didn’t even get the chance to fail at that part because of the color of my skin. If I didn’t get it because I gave a bad audition, then maybe my talents aren’t up to par. That I can work on. That I can change. That I can get better at. But how do I get better at being a blonde white girl? I can’t, because it’s not who I am. It was just so isolating.”

— America Ferrera and Amber Tamblyn, friends and “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” co-stars, have a chat about obnoxious stuff that happens in Hollywood [Bust Magazine]
Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: Sonia Sotomayor Confirmed To The Supreme Court

Jessica WakemanAugust 6, 2009 //
  • Sonia Sotomayor has been confirmed by the Senate in a 68-31 vote. After she receives the oath of office, Sotomayor will be the first Latina judge and third female judge to join the bench. [New York Times]
  • Chris Brown‘s sentencing for his assault of Rihanna has been delayed until August 27th. The judge on the case said she’d like for Brown to do hard labor as part of his community service. [TMZ] — That punishment’s a little better, but we still think Chris Brown should do some time to make the “don’t beat your girlfriend” message loud and clear.
  • Unfortch, yet another celeb got busted for allegedly beating a woman. Tom Sizemore, who starred in “Black Hawk Down,” was arrested last night for misdemeanor domestic violence against a female companion. In 2003, Sizemore was convicted of hitting his ex, Heidi Fleiss. [FoxNews] — Hitting women: hot in Hollywood right now?

Keep reading »

Breaking: Sonia Sotomayor Can Be Objective, Too

Jessica WakemanJuly 15, 2009 //

Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor is in the middle her confirmation hearings. Each day, we reach new heights of irritation that her impartiality is called into question.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Senate Judiciary Committee summed up the tone the best on “Face The Nation” on Sunday, when he said, “Every judge must be committed every day to not let their personal politics, their ethnic background, their biases, sympathies influence the nature of their decision-making process.” The implicit question-behind-the-questions seem to be, should Sotomayor not be confirmed because she may judge like a Latina and a woman, instead of like white males who comprise the majority of the Supreme Court?

While, obviously, Sessions is correct that judges must be fair and impartial, it seems to us like Sotomayor’s ethnic background is only a big to do right now because it’s something other than white—as if white people don’t have biases, too. Keep reading »