Recently, I was scrolling on Instagram when I saw a video that upset me so much that I had to lie down after watching it. In the video, captioned “when your Latina wife teaches you how to shake your 🍑😂” a woman (Talia Scott) dances to El Alfa’s Gogo Dance, while her husband (Roger Scott, who is white) attempts to mimic her in the background. The video is by “The Scott Family,” a couple who documents their life on TikTok (and YouTube, and Instagram, and SnapChat and Twitter). From what I’ve gathered from their accounts, the couple posts dance and lifestyle videos; a large part being that, while Roger is white, yes, Talia Scott is Latina, which for some reason, she adds the “💃🏻” emoji next to in her Instagram bio.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love dancing! And I love El Alfa, too. I also fully support a Latine creator creating their own brand. But the reductionary nature of The Scott Family’s content is dangerous for Latine representation. A lot of it seems to focus on the stereotypes of being Latine — being loud, passionate and dancing. Talia Scott’s persona isn’t too different from what a Latina character in an early 2000s TV show would be like — except, wait, there are barely any, and when they are, they are harmful (Gloria from “Modern Family” comes to mind). The caption of the video is the exact issue. Here — and in Talia Scott’s Instagram — Latine people are equated with dancers; and although I’ve only seen a few other of their videos, there doesn’t seem to be much room for any of the complex psyche of being Latine. There’s just the “passion” and “lust for life” cliches: as if Roger Scott is saying, “Get yourself a Latina wife! She’ll teach you how to dance!” It’s a reification and commodification of an entire people.
This is a common problem for many instances of Latine representation in popular media. There are only two Latine people in the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (at least we got a headline superhero in the failing DCEU!) and two Disney protagonists (Mirabel Madrigal from “Encanto” and Miguel from “Coco”). Even Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In The Heights” falls flat from these same issues — it’s about the “passion” of Latine people singing and dancing — and itself was the source of lack of representation. I can’t think of a single piece of media that focuses on and portrays Latine people in dynamic, accurate and genuine ways; and the problem is so deeply rooted that the cliches even appear in a young Latina’s TikTok.
Again, dancing is integral to the Latine experience. But it is not the only thing that defines, and there is a responsibility for the media and creators of media to create the full Latine experience. The “dancer” represents a historically and culturally rich figure in our kaleidoscopic identities, but by refusing to see beyond this one aspect of our culture, it becomes a cage.
Recently, my father was hired to help curate a Latin Grammy exhibit at the Grammy Museum. It was a huge moment for my father, as it opened a whole new career opportunity for him in museum curation. I was excited for him for this opportunity, and was doubly excited for the fact that it was going to be an exhibit on a Latine artist. “So what artist is it, Dad?” Celia Cruz, perhaps, I mused. Or, oh, hopefully Héctor Lavoe — el cantante! Hey, maybe it’ll be Bad Bunny (stream “Otro Atardecer”!).
“Shakira.”
Hmm…
Don’t get me wrong. I love Shakira! I had the lyrics to “La Tortura” memorized when I was 6 and would watch (and rewatch) Shakira’s live performances (we had the DVD) with my sister as if they were God’s greatest gift to humankind. That being said, I don’t necessarily go to Shakira’s music for depth, and was surprised to see an entire museum exhibit about her, and was expecting a more holistic exhibit that hinges on the complicated and interconnected Latine identity. (And I know some would argue that I was hoping Bad Bunny would be there instead and he isn’t very deep either, but I believe he reaches an emotional depth Shakira couldn’t, especially in “Un Verano Sin Ti.”) But she is extremely well known for her dancing. Once again, the “dancer” figure haunts the Latine experience. Even the title of the exhibit — “Shakira, Shakira!” — is a Wyclef Jean ad lib for when Shakira starts dancing in the music video of her song “Hips Don’t Lie” (“Shakira, Shakira!” / “I never really knew that she could dance like this”).
On the opening night of the exhibit, I packed in the car with my family as my father drove us to the museum on Olympic Boulevard — the entire time talking about not the exhibit, but the “incredible” fish taco truck right next to the museum he’d discovered while working on the project. Everyone was a little nervous, I think, especially as my mother, who never drinks, didn’t object when I got a (free) drink at the open bar, and rather, asked for one herself. The museum was full of influencers taking videos of the exhibit or themselves at the exhibit. It was necessary to Instagram, after all. But I was stunned when, suddenly, four influencers broke into a choreographed dance in the middle of the crowded exhibit. While they danced — and everyone watched — my mother gasped and said beneath her breath, “Of course! They didn’t want us to leave the exhibit thinking, they wanted us to leave it dancing.”
This places me — an aspiring Latine writer — in an opportunistic place. “I’ll do it right,” I tell myself as I write outlines of novels or poetry about being Latine. But rather than patting myself on the back, it’s worrisome that even now there is no recognition — something so sacred in media — for Latine people. How many kids — like me — are growing up with no one like them in media? How much history has been buried? And for how long will we be (just) dancers? At least we have Peso Pluma. <3
Contact Sebastian Lechner at slechner@oxy.edu
