2013: Year in HOLA

The year 2013 has been quite an eventful year for Latinos in the arts and for the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA) in particular. Take a look at some of the things that occurred in 2013. 

HOLA initiatives, events and workshops/seminars
have bullets marked in red.

Advocacy efforts have bullets marked in blue.

Union affairs have bullets marked in green. 

Notable news items have bullets marked in purple.
Guest blogs have bullets marked in aqua.
 

JANUARY

• A blog from December 2012 ("Erasing The Brown: Whitewashing of Latino Characters in Film") is reprinted in industry publication Latin Heat. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Hispanics are a coveted demographic at the box office, says industry insiders, according to an article in The Hollywood Reporter. (Click HERE for more information.)

• U.S. Census to possibly make "Hispanic" a race, according to NBC Latino. (Click HERE for more information.)

•  Guest blog by Marco Antonio Rodríguez– "Do You Hear What I Hear: Latinos Misrepresenting Themselves in Film And Television". (Click HERE for more information.)

• The controversy regarding the casting of the movie Argo (directed by and starring Ben Affleck) continues into 2013 amid its seven Oscar nominations. Plus another Latino character excised from the film (another spy, one with the code name Julio) comes to light. And Ben Affleck might actually speak better Spanish than the person he portrayed in Argo, Tony Méndez (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)
• "When Truly Universal Becomes Lo Imposible" highlighted how the film The Impossible, produced and directed by Spaniards and telling the true story of a Spaniard family was recast (including a changing of the family's surname) using English and Australian actors for a "more universal story". (Click HERE for more information.) 

• For the first time in history, Spanish was featured at a presidential inauguration (Barack H. Obama's second inauguration). It was spoken by Rev. Luis León at the benediction of the event. (Click HERE for more information.)

• The success of the film Mama, produced by Guillermo Del Toro, exceeded expectations and was fueled by predominately Latino theatergoers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. (Click HERE for more information.)

FEBRUARY

• The Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC) opposed the use of "brownface" in the Broadway production of The Making of Edwin Drood (Roundabout Theatre Company). This leads to an examination of major U.S. theaters and their belief in colorblind casting (in theory though not necessarily in practice). (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)

• Prime Latino Media Salon– Workshop on Business Fundamentals 101: Winning Strategies to Succeed. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)

• Ethno-racial representation in the arts stays in the news. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Hispanics are rare in Hollywood despite census numbers, according to Sky News. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)

• Report on Latinos in the 85th Annual Academy Awards (Oscars). Argo wins Best Picture. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)
• The blogosphere asks where are the Latino journalists on U.S. English-Language news networks after Soledad O'Brien and CNN part ways. (Click HERE for more information.)

MARCH

• Robert Rodríguez's upcoming El Rey television network signs six-series deal with Georgeville Television. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Was the controversy over the feature film Argo "much ado about nada"? (Click HERE for more information.)
• Industry publication Latin Heat asks, "Who Will Be Our Latino Tyler Perry?" (Click HERE for more information.)
• Prime Latino Media Salon– Webisodes: The Future of Content is Now. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)
• Census figures shows that the U.S. is rapidly heading toward a "majority-minority" status. (Click HERE for more information.)
• The film Olympus Has Fallen garners controversy over the casting of the role of Vice-President Charlie Rodríguez. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)

• World Baseball Classic (WBC) Championship Game (between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic) had the highest ratings of any baseball game on ESPN Deportes. An earlier meetup between the two teams simulcast the Spanish-language coverage for the game, becoming the first time in history a major sporting event was covered in a language other than English by a major U.S. network. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Global box office surges in 2012 as Hispanic attendance grows in the U.S. (Click HERE for more information.)
• The Vatican's Pope Francis becomes the first "Latino pope", being born in Argentina. However, the fact that the pontiff's parents were émigrés from Italy make some question whether he should be called as such. (Click HERE for more information.)
• HOLA gets on the airwaves. (Click HERE for more information.)

APRIL

• SAG-AFTRA leadership speak out on challenges facing the merged union. (Click HERE for more information.)
• The National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) and HOLA present a special screening of the documentary Latinos Beyond Reel: Challenging a Media Stereotype (directed by Miguel Picker and Chyng Sun) at the Museum of the Moving Image. (Click HERE, HERE and HERE for more information.)
• Disney/ABC and Univision team up to create new network, Fusion, aimed at U.S. Latinos. (Click HERE, HERE and HERE for more information).
• Univision at 50. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Prime Latino Media Salon– Latino Distribution: Alternatives & Channels for English- and Spanish-Language Multimedia. (Click HERE, HERE and HERE for more information.)

MAY
• Latinos nominated for the Drama Desk Awards. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Latinos nominated for the Drama League Awards. (Click HERE for more information.)

• HOLA creates a Regional Membership rate for those living outside the New York metropolitan area. (Click HERE for more information.)

• HOLA makes a historic trip to Los Angeles, where HOLA staff take meetings with network heads and other industry insiders and produce two events (see below).
• HOLAtalks with Marlene Forté (in Los Angeles) plus after-event networking party. (Click HERE, HERE, HERE  and HERE for more information.)

• Guest Blog by Oliver Mayer– "Write It Yourself!" (Click HERE for more information.)

• The blogosphere wonders if the new Marc Cherry television series "Devious Maids", featuring five Latina actresses playing maids and in advance of its premiere, would perpetuate stereotypes. (Click HERE for more information.)

• HOLA is mentioned in SAG-AFTRA magazine. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Spanish-Language Voiceover Workshop with Manuel Herrera. (Click HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE for more information.)
• The Fast And The Furious: Film Franchise with Most Latino Actors. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Actor Charlie Sheen is billed for the first time by his birth name, Carlos Estévez, for the upcoming Robert Rodríguez film Machete Kills. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Latino actors don't often get a fair shake in Hollywood, says Voxxi. The blog was later re-blogged by Huffington Post/HuffPost Latino Voices. (Click HERE for more information.)

• The success of the film Fast and the Furious 6 is directly attributed to Latino theatergoers. (Click HERE for more information.)

• HOLA Membership Meeting. (Click HERE for more information.)

JUNE
• Prime Latino Media Salon– NALIP Annual Conference Kickoff. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)

• HOLA member plays detective and solves cold case murder of her own father. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Film Acting Course with Charles Carroll and Tony Plana. (Click HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE for more information.)

• Prime Latino Media Salon– Latino Documentary Filmmakers. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)

• Roundtable discussion on whether the television series "Devious Maids" misrepresent Latinas. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Guest Blogs by Julio Ricardo Varela and Vanessa Verduga on the debate over "Devious Maids". (Click HERE for more information.)

JULY

• HOLA creates the Believe in HOLA fundraising campaign and membership drive between April and June, making just shy of 96% of its goal in that period of time. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Louis C.K. breaks his own Emmy record by nabbing a mind-blowing nine nominations for the 2013 Emmy Awards. Also, Bobby Cannavale scores a pair of 2013 Emmy noms. Plus other Latino Emmy nominees. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Rita Moreno receives SAG Award for Life Achievement from SAG-AFTRA. (Click HERE for more information.)

AUGUST
• End of an Era: Curtain Closes on TeatroStageFest/Latino International Theater Festival of New York. (Click HERE for more information.)
• 2013 HOLA Awards Honorees and Recipients Announced. (Click HERE, HERE and HERE for more information.)
• NBC's "Today" profiles the rising trend of filmmakers abandoning Hollywood for other locations due to tax incentives. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Zoë Saldaña and her sister Cisely Saldaña, in collaboration with Lionsgate Studios create the Saldaña Production Company, a venture that will create Latino-centric content. (Click HERE for more information.)

SEPTEMBER
• Instructions Not Included/No se aceptan devoluciones stuns the U.S. box office, hitting number 5 in its first weekend of release (taking in $10 million) despite only screening in 347 theaters nationwide (and hitting number 3 the following weekend with an increase in screens), becoming the biggest Spanish-language release in U.S. box office history. (Click HERE for more information.)

• HOLA officially inaugurates its new hashtag phrase, #SupportLatinoWork, in order to highlight Latino projects. (Click HERE for more information.)

• End of an Era: New York International Latino Film Festival (NYILFF) Fades To Black. (Click HERE for more information.

• PBS documentary series "Latino Americans" premieres. (Click HERE for more information.)

• A blog takes the highly popular television series "Breaking Bad" (AMC) to task for its odd and questionable portrayals of Latino characters. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Film and television star Luis Antonio Ramos speaks exclusively to El Blog de HOLA about his career and his upcoming film, A Miracle in Spanish Harlem. (Click HERE for more information.)

OCTOBER

• Prime Latino Media Salon– Latino Narrative Filmmakers. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)

• Univision debuts Flama, its first online-only network. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Latin Hollywood Films, NALIP and HOLA present a New York screening of Kiki Meléndez's mockumentary The Journey of A Female Comic/Trayectoria de una comediante. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)

• The 2013 HOLA Awards Gala and Benefit. Bobby Cannavale, Nadine Velázquez and Vanessa Verduga honored, along with outstanding work in New York Latino theater over the previous season. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Univision 41 WXTV New York's leading news anchor, Rafael Pineda, retires after 42 years on the air. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Two New York Latino theaters, Pregones Theater and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, announce plans to merge. (Click HERE for more information.)

NOVEMBER

• The Huffington Post finds that Latinos attend movies more than any other group yet are the least represented on screen. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Academy Award nominee Edward James Olmos declares that "we have a long way to go" with regards to Latinos in the media. (Click HERE for more information.)
• The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) begins recognizing Spanish-language television in the U.S. (Click HERE for more information.)

• Robert Rodríguez's El Rey Network and flagship television series (based on the film From Dusk To Dawn) to premiere at the end of 2013. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Spanish-Language Voiceover Workshop with Manuel Herrera. (Click HERE, HERE, and HERE for more information.)
• Of Latinas and the Word "Spitfire". (Click HERE for more information.)
• NBC announces that it will shut down NBC Latino. (Click HERE for more information.)

DECEMBER

• HOLA announces A December to Remember. (Click HERE for more information.)

• The ABCs of A One-Person Show workshop with Ruthy Otero. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)
• Prime Latino Media Salon– Holiday Fiesta. (Click HERE and HERE for more information.)

• Film Acting Course with Charles Carroll and Tony Plana. (Click HERE, HERE and HERE for more information.)

• HOLA presents the 2013 HOLAfestival, highlighting the work of HOLA member-writers. (Click HERE, HERE and HERE for more information.)
• Martina Arroyo and Carlos Santana receive Kennedy Center Honors, becoming the third and fourth Latinos so honored in the Kennedy Center's 35-year history. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Daniel Brühl, Louis C.K., Michael Peña and Sofía Vergara are among the Latino nominees for the 20th annual SAG Awards, along with Rita Moreno's special SAG Award for Life Achievement. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Pope Francis becomes the first Latino to receive the TIME Person of the Year honor from the U.S. newsmagazine. (Click HERE for more information.)
• Oscar Isaac, Daniel Brühl, Alfonso Cuarón and Robert López are among the Latinos nominated for the 71st annual Golden Globe Awards for film work. Latinos nominated for their work in television include Louis C.K., Helena Bonham Carter and Sofía Vergara. (Click HERE for more information.)
• SAG-AFTRA takes its first steps in merging the health plans of the former respective unions. (Click HERE for more information.)



HOLA members have been very busy this year as well. And some of their gigs have been due to them being HOLA members. Whether HOLA members received work from a casting announcement we send to them via e-mail, a direct referral or through a casting director finding the actor’s information on our online directory, it makes us proud to see our members working. Some of the jobs that HOLA members received as a result of their membership are listed below.

Film, Television and New Media (including webseries)
Bohemian Lights
Disney/ABC Diversity Showcase Workshop
"Exorcista"

Honeymoon

"House of Aragón"

La viuda negra

Leonard Peres

"Minuto para ganar" 

Oasis

"Sesame Street"

Times Square Neverland
"Valores de la familia hispana"

Theater
 (* An asterisk indicates a production that is outside of New York City.)
Alysha [The Director's Company]
Black Latina [BLM/Caicedo Productions]
Born Liars [ItalyTheater/Renzo Arbore]
La fuerza al costumbre [Repertorio Español]
Much Ado About Nothing [Shakespeare Theatre Company]*
The Record [The Public Theater/Under The Radar Festival]
Saint Kristie [The Wild Project/Fresh Fruit Festival]
Si nos dejan/If They Let Us [The Working Theatre]
Vida de perro [Lehman Stages]

Commercials/Industrial/Voiceover/Print
Cory Booker for U.S. Senate"Habla Women"
MetroPlus
"Project Success"
Yale University

[The above only indicates the jobs that HOLA members have informed us they received through HOLA and may not represent all the jobs received by HOLA members through HOLA membership.]

Que en Paz Descansen / Rest in Peace
Dolores Prida

Sara Montiel

Bebo Valdés

Álvarez Guedes

Olga Agostini

Eydie Gormé

Vanessa Libertad García

Mario Montez

Frank Fouce

Carmen Rosario

Tato Laviera

Abniel Marat

Karla Álvarez

Esteban Siller

Mónica Boyar

Lázaro Pérez

Ricardo Fort
Abelardo Estorino

Mauricio Leyton

Edward James Olmos on Latinos in the media: "We have a long way to go."

We [Latinos] have contributed so much and yet our stories aren’t being told, and when they are told they do what they did in Argo. Nobody even knew that Tony Méndez was a Mexican-American from El Paso, it was so subtly played that there was no cultural dynamic in the character whatsoever. And you might say, "Well, I studied Tony, there was no flag waving, there was no taco eating, there was none of that kind of stuff, he’s totally All-American", and I said, "Yeah, but you look at him, you look at that man and he looks 1,000% like a Mexican-American. He looks very, very Latino, he looks more Latino than I do". At the same time you say, "Well, Ben Affleck had to play the role because he wouldn’t have made the movie without playing that role", and I said, "Okay, that’s great, well then Ben Affleck has a responsibility to play a Latino. So play a Latino, Ben Affleck.

"You know? Get with it, get with the program. Stop being Ben Affleck playing Ben Affleck, the Tony Méndez character of this great story. Be an actor, really get yourself together and move forward on that level. And that movie won Best Picture of the year so look what happens. It’s ridiculous. We have a long way to go."

Read what else Academy Award-nominated actor, director and producer Edward James Olmos, shown at right, had to say about the images of Latinos in the media and the new movie, Go For Sisters (written and directed by John Sayles and starring Olmos, LisaGay Hamilton, Yolonda Ross and Harold Perrineau), by reading the Carolina Moreno blog in The Huffington Post by clicking here.

ARGO Controversy: Much Ado About Nada?

Academy Award winner Ben Affleck,
at right, directing Academy Award
winner Alan Arkin, center, during
the filming of the movie Argo.

Conversation continues… did Argo casting whitewash?  There are Latinos who disagree.

Check out this article by Luis Reyes in Latin Heat in which he describes the recent Argo/Ben Affleck controversy as "much ado about nada", as well as the future of Latinos in American films by clicking here.

ARGO's Missing Latino and Affleck's Spanish

Did you know that Tony Mendez (the character Ben Affleck plays in Argo) had a Latino partner by the code name of Julio?

No?

That's because he wasn't mentioned in the film.

Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez in Argo

"Casting a white actor to play the role of one of our country’s most revered Latino CIA agents invalidates Mendez’s experiences as a person of mixed ethnicity, and invalidates Mendez’s ability to pass as someone of many ethnicities and races as part of his CIA work due to the fact that he did not look like a “conventional” white American. Mendez himself noted in a 1999 interview that his mixed Chicano heritage was part of what made him so effective as a CIA exfiltrator: 'My (appearance) is such that I can be in India and look Muslim or do the same thing in Russia and Latin America.'
Tony Mendez mentions in his book about the Argo heist that he has the abilty to “pass” for someone who is white (an arbitrary racial category to begin with)....

"For the Argo mission, Mendez took on the alias of “Kevin Costa Harkins,” and formulated a back story for his alias that explain his looks: “Costa Harkins” is a “black Irish” person with Mediterranean heritage. He completed the disguise by assuming an Irish accent and dressing in tweedy clothes. So yes, both Affleck and Mendez could pass themselves off as a dark-featured Irish person– but Affleck would likely be less successful in other places Mendez has worked such as in India and Latin America.

"Then, there’s 'Julio'— a character no one is mentioning because he was erased from the film all together.

"While the film makes it look like Affleck exfiltrated the diplomats on his own, in real life, Mendez had a partner, who he describes using the alias 'Julio.' Together, Mendez and Julio worked together as part of a team to extract the diplomats. Julio was a translator fluent in English, German, French, Spanish, and Farsi. Like Mendez, he was the kind of person who could blend in unobtrusively. While Mendez used an Irish alias, Julio used a South American alias, pretending to be a financial backer of Mendez’s fictional movie.

"There had to have been room for a Latino actor in a significant role in this film, somewhere. Even if Affleck wanted to play Mendez, he could have thrown in 'Julio.'"

READ more of Marissa Lee's well-researched blog in the Racebending blog by clicking HERE.

Also mentioned are quotes from the blogs below. Click on the writer's name to read the respective blog from whence it came (all boldface above and below added by this blog's editor).

“Not only did a Latino actor not play Tony, who clearly in real life looks like a Chicano, but his ethnicity is stolen from the Latino community at a time when Latinos have been demonized. Our real Latino national heroes, if acknowledged, would dramatize our patriotism and contribution to the United States. The film actually goes out of its way to obscure Tony Mendez’s ethnicity. His name is mentioned only once and the character says he is from New York (Tony was born in Nevada from a mining family with six generations in Nevada and raised in Colorado). Nowhere in the movie does the viewer get that the hero is Mexican-American….”

–MOCTEZUMA ESPARZA

Award-winning producer, entertainment executive, entrepreneur and community activist

“Sure, Argo will get is slew of honors and rave reviews, but for us it will always be known as 'The Really Strong Movie That Should Have Had a Latino Play the Lead Character, Who Is Latino in Real Life.'”

–LATINO REBELS

“Films and television are the most common ways than many non-Latinos see the roles that Latinos are playing or have played within American society. When those roles are played by non-Latinos, major opportunities are lost forever.”

–KIRK WHISLER

President of Latino Print Network and board member of the
National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP)

“It’s well-established that the overrepresentation of white dudes in film directing means more movies about white dudes that reflect the values and interests of white dudes…In rare cases, these directors have used their power to highlight alternate perspectives…and sometimes, these directors are actually correcting imbalances in Hollywood storytelling....

“But you know who there really aren’t enough good roles for? Non-white, non-dude actors. Male actors are still valued higher than female ones.... They get better roles and draw higher salaries. Historically, moving behind the camera has been easier for men than women. Meanwhile, black and Latino audiences buy movie tickets at a higher rate than white viewers, but appear less frequently on screen and are rarely stationed behind the camera. And characters of color are still routinely whitewashed, from Argo to the Hunger Games… white dudes like Affleck might consider not always putting themselves at the center of the frame—not because it would make them better people, but because it will make for more compelling films.”

–AMANDA HESS

Slate

“Leaving out even half of Mr. Mendez’s lineage and not casting an actor who best reflected that lineage of Mr. Mendez is shortsighted in the extreme. It cheats the viewer of the richness of that heritage and his love for this country. It steals the hopes and dreams of young people of a heritage they belong to and identify with and teaches them what they can accomplish…what is possible.”

–SALVADOR GÓMEZ

And in a fascinating bit of trivia, Ben Affleck spent a year living in Mexico while he was a teenager and still speaks Spanish (with a Mexican accent).

When Truly Universal Becomes "Lo Imposible"

Spaniard director Juan Antonio (J.A.) Bayona, most well known for directing the horror film El orfanato (The Orphanage), decided to direct a film based on the real-life story of Henry and María Belón, a Spaniard couple who were on vacation in Thailand with their children when the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and accompanying tsunami destroyed much of that part of the world. Written by Sergio G. Sánchez and produced by the Spaniard film companies Apaches Entertainment and Telecinco Cinema (Álvaro Agustín, Belén Atienza and Enrique López Lavigne), it marked director Bayona's English-language debut.

Something odd happened between the draft of the script being completed (the first draft was in Spanish and titled Lo imposible) and the final, finished film, called The Impossible. The Belón family from Spain became British (with the new surname Bennett). María became blonde and was portrayed by Australian actress Naomi Watts and her husband Henry was portrayed by Scottish actor Ewan McGregor.

The Belon family

So why the change in nationalities? According to the director, "It was the family who didn’t allow us to talk about nationalities. From the very beginning they wanted the family [in the film] to be kind of universal. They didn’t want to talk about nationalities because the water took that away. After the water arrived there were no more nationalities or class… The truth is that there is a comment about that at the end of the film because they felt privileged to survive, but they felt a lot of suffering that they had survived and I thought that was very interesting. It was not a disaster movie with a two-dimensional answer – they live or they die – it is more complex than that, there is a lot of suffering to survive, it is not a victory. I thought that was very interesting because it told the reality of the emotion."

To read more of what the director said about the movie, click here.

Actress Naomi Watts
and María Belon

According to María Belón herself, "I am fed up with this question all the time. This movie is not about nationalities, not about races, not about colors. It's about human beings. One of the conditions we put is that there should be no nationality for the family. I don't care if they would be black, brown or green skin. I wouldn't care about anything."

Belón said she was involved in the making of The Impossible for several years and that she did have a say in the film's casting. When Bayona asked Belón who her favorite actress was, she replied Naomi Watts because of her performance in 21 Grams [directed by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu].

Read more of what she said about the movie in Ben Kenber's blog on Yahoo! by clicking here.

Director Juan Antonio
(J.A.) Bayona

Elia Esparza of Latin Heat wrote, "Currently there is an uproar over Ben Affleck casting himself in Argo for the role of Tony Méndez. But do Spanish people consider themselves Latino versus European? Also, the director is Latino… it is his film to cast as he wants. But does this not also hold true for Affleck? María Belón is from Spain and not America, does that make it OK for Hollywood to cast Latino roles with non-Latinos?"

Read more of this blog by clicking here.

On the movie, the Clearing Customs brings up a different point, noting, "My first thought when I saw the movie trailer was, Why must we tell non-Western stories through the eyes of Westerners? Surely there were stories about Indonesians, Sri Lankans, Indians, Thais, and others in Southeast Asia worth telling. Belón [in an appearance on the U.S. television show "The View" addressed this by saying], "It needed to be told just as an excuse to tell everybody else’s stories. That’s the only reason why we wanted our story to be told is because nothing happened to us. . . . I will tell that thousands of times. Nothing happened to us, but from so many people were so painful, so difficult, that that was the only reason why we wanted to tell this story, just an excuse to tell everybody else’s stories. . . . Only for them. Only for them."

To read more about this blog, click here.

For her performance as María, Naomi Watts earned Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. Also interesting to note that while the family in the film had an undisclosed nationality (even though speaking with British accents), principal photography occurred in Alicante, Spain (and later Thailand).


Most good storytellers tell stories with universal themes in which all of us can relate.The question then is "What is universal?" or "What makes a story universal?" Does it mean people of European heritage in the lead roles? A story that deals with non-Caucasian characters but tells the story from a Caucasian character's point of view? British accents? (Confer films of the science fiction/fantasy genre, such as the Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises.)

Would a couple of Spaniard actors playing María and Henry in The Impossible make the film's story less universal?

Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto
in Slumdog Millionaire

Do the films City of God (Cidade de Deus), Y tú mamá también and Slumdog Millionaire tell stories that explore universal themes? All three were nominated for Academy Awards. City of God (Cidade de Deus) received four nods including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director. Y tú mamá también received a nod for Best Original Screenplay. And Slumdog Millionaire received ten Academy Award nominations and winning eight, including awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and the biggest award of the evening– Best Picture. And all three films were box office hits, domestically and internationally.

Suraj Sharma (and tiger) in Life of Pi

Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild

What about films that were released in 2012? Life of Pi? Beasts of the Southern Wild? Both told their stories without making the lead roles fit into what some would think would be "universal". And they both are nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. (Another Best Picture nominee this year, Argo– well, that's a different story.)

Perhaps when Hollywood takes a good, truthful look at the world and who populates it, maybe then it won't be so skittish about telling stories that are truly universal.