Will Hollywood ever speak Hispanic audiences' language?

Cinemimi [Wednesday, March 14, 2012]

Hispanic-Americans are among the US's keenest film-goers, but Hollywood offers them little more than stereotypes
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Lost in translation ... Will Ferrell in Casa de Mi Padre. Photograph: John Estes/Lionsgate/AP

It's not obvious what language Will Ferrell's new film, Casa de Mi Padre, is speaking. Everyone's favourite cross-eyed man-child had last-minute cramming sessions in order to be able to drawl the Spanish-language dialogue for the comedy – a sendup of cheesy rural-Mexico telenovelas. But just as Ferrell admits he still can't really hold a conversation in Spanish, Casa looks like it could have communication issues, too. Is it a deft in-joke for the US's movie-mad Hispanic audience? Or does Ferrell's presence just crank up the irony factor for the urban-hipster crowd to indulge yet another cultural fetish?

Movie executives would, if they had to choose, plump for the former. As well as the largest ethnic minority, Hispanic-Americans are perhaps the US's keenest, most youthful and fast-growing film demographic. Forty-three million Hispanics bought 351m tickets in 2010 (out of a total 1.34bn) – up from 37m buying 300m the year before. People of that ethnicity in the key 18-34 group are 44% more likely to see a film on its opening weekend than non-Hispanics. No wonder that's beginning to get some serious attention: Casa de Mi Padre is being distributed by Pantelion Films, a partnership between Lionsgate and Mexican media giant Televisa that is hoping to make around 10 films a year, in both English and Spanish, for Latino audiences.

In the last few years, Hollywood has struggled to push its Hispanic-flavoured projects on from the volcanic-tempered Mexican bandits of old, or gangbanging cholos in socks up to their kneecaps. When the highlights of the last decade are 2004's Adam Sandler vehicle Spanglish, the cumbersome Nacho Libre, and the nuanced study of the Mexican national character that is the oeuvre of Robert Rodriguez, it's safe to say that there's work to do.

There's been no shortage of dynamic cinema to fill the arthouse bracket from Latin American countries themselves, but mainstream Hollywood work is still stuttering the lingo. The Fast and the Furious series has bragged about its "Latin sensibility", but that's not exactly going to bag it Unesco special status. At least there are some prominent Latin stars now, interestingly mostly female: Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, Michelle Rodriguez, Eva Mendes, Jessica Alba and the voluptuous Luis Guzmán.

Part of the problem is that the Latino market is difficult to pin down. The US's South and Central American immigrants come from over 20 countries, with different subcultures, tastes and dialects. The second, third and fourth generations don't necessarily have the same attitude to the mother countries (which is why Casa de Mi Padre risks splitting its audience) – or even agree on where the mother country is. One generalisation that might stand is that they don't like being patronised: even stereotypes of a more contemporary kind don't go over well. Fox's 2003 comedy Chasing Papi, about a three-timing lothario businessman, is one often-cited pothole in Hollywood's early Latino efforts. This seems to be in contrast with the African-American market where extremely broad comedy, like the Wayans brothers' offerings, Eddie Murphy's adventures in prosthetics and Tyler Perry's Madea films, is often the order of the day.

Tone will be all-important if Casa de Mi Padre isn't going to condescend to Latino viewers (though the presence of Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna in the cast is reassuring). Pantelion could do with a big hit: its first film, From Prada to Nada – an attempt to do a Hispanic Clueless by transposing Jane Austen to east LA – limped to $3m at the US box-office. Screen Daily called it out as "a rare mainstream film made or and by Latinos, which is perhaps why it's all the more disappointing that it's so threadbare".

But, with its tale of two sisters forced to relocate to sketchy Boyle Heights, it fingers what could be the blueprint for these movies: mirroring the aspirations and increasing affluence of US Hispanics, picking at the terrain between the raw Latin American culture and the gateway of assimilation. It stands there a bit tentatively, uncertain of exactly how close to get to facile stereotypes. Casa de Mi Padre, meanwhile, can only proceed under a veil of irony. Early reviews, like the Hollywood Reporter's verdict that it lacks "falldown outrageousness", suggest that the results are a bit bland. Not an issue you would have thought the Latino film would have to face.

You could question the need to target Hispanics with their own movies at all, though. Perhaps these ethnically driven slates are heavy-handed, and the best way for Latino-orientated films to appear is when the right script arises. Given that those audiences are booming regardless, there's no problem here. In fact, when I think of Jack Black's lucha-libre monk and Ferrell's ranchero, it looks like everyone else wants to be Mexican, too, these days.

• Casa de Mi Padre is out in the US on Friday; later this year in the UK.