La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz for August 19, 2014

que lindo

Not exactly the actors one would expect to find on a marquee about a Latino film…

indie, I have a friend whose family has been in the U.S. for at least 4 generations yet she still identifies as Irish why shouldn’t Lalo be proud of his Mexican heritage? Concerning your “Beandocks” reference: why do you keep insisting that the characters (other than President Obama) are African-American instead of a Latinos with dark complexions (there are plenty if you just look around) and more importantly, why does it possibly matter to you?

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Mr. Alcaraz is of Mexican heritage so he is allowed to call himself a “Mex” just as anyone of Irish heritage can call themselves a “Mick”.

As to Boondocks, you say “rip off” I say homage but I think the final judgement belongs to Aaron McGrder and he seems to be OK with it.

Following your logic of only black authors being able to write about “black issues” is as silly as saying that only women can write about “womens issues” I guess you have a problem with JK Rowling writing about “wizard issues” too?

Why is Lalo so hung up on Latinos in movies? Doesn’t he care about Latinos in science, technology, finance, public office (California has two Jewish Senators!), etc…? I would (and I hope ORMouseworks would see it too).

Indie, indie, indie, your pattern of simply sticking your fingers in your ears and going “lalalalala” when someone (i.e., don57) makes an actually valid point would never be mistaken for adorable. So why do it? Just acknowledge that don57 is right when he says Lalo’s legitimately claiming his ethnic heritage and leave it at that. And as far as “ripping off” McGruder, you are so far off base as to be outside the stadium. The Beandocks is an obvious homage to The Boondocks, and is in line with a comics tradition that goes back decades. Basically, you’re just stretching to try to find anything to smear Alcaraz, so much so that by this point your arm is almost as long as your nose..As far as the point about white folks playing Latinos, if you were actually to stop and think, you’d realize that all those names up there make up a pattern. It’s not simply about an instance here and there. And you don’t have the opposite pattern of Latinos playing big starring white roles..I’d say that all this would probably go in one of your virtual ears and out the other, but it probably wouldn’t make it in there in the first place, what with your fingers lodged so tightly in the canals.

Sorry I wasn’t here for a few hours to defend my statement but I had some real world things to do. Thank you agrestic for jumping in.

Equating my statement about authors writing about cultures (or genders) other than their own with Anglo actors portraying Latinos is a false equivalency and I’m pretty sure you know it; I think you’re arguing for arguments sake. In this day and age when most reasonable people consider it tasteless for white actors to perform in “black-face” or “yellow-face” why isn’t the same courtesy extended to “brown-face”?

Umpteenth + 1

Mr. Alcaraz is not playing other roles because he is not an actor he is an author. If authors are only allowed to write from their own point of view there would be no literature only autobiography.