When a major motion picture featuring an underrepresented group of people is unfairly forced to carry the weight of its community on its shoulders, tensions run high.
DC Studios’ Blue Beetle — the first-ever studio movie to center on a Latino superhero as the lead — is scheduled to premiere worldwide tomorrow, August 18. However, due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes, Xolo Maridueña, Belissa Escobedo, George Lopez, and all of the other cast members will not be walking the red carpet. As a matter of fact, there won’t be a red carpet. Subsequently, the cast and crew have been barred from promoting the movie lest they breach their respective contracts. Press junkets that otherwise would’ve taken place ahead of the premiere have been canceled. Furthermore, promotion for the film was nonexistent up until recently. So, when a falsely-attributed quote tied to The Hollywood Reporter, which may or may not bear a kernel of truth, made its rounds online, it riled up the fandom.
“If ‘Blue Beetle’ flops Latino community might see less representation in Hollywood.”
The above quote, which shows attribution to The Hollywood Reporter, quickly spread like wildfire among those who came across it on Twitter.
“That’s literally BS,” wrote one user in a post that has amassed nearly 16,000 views at the time of this writing. “WBD (Warner Bros. Discovery) be like go watch this movie or no more representations lol.”
“This is basically asking for latinos to pay for their representation, it’s disgusting,” wrote another user.
The quote in question is not actually a quote at all. Its origins appear to be from a recent The Hollywood Reporter article that was published the day before the false quote went live, although there is no trace of the quote from the writer of the article, or any member of the entertainment industry mentioned therein. Instead, the article details the grassroots approach Blue Beetle has taken in promoting the movie and the sense of fear that should it flop at the box office, the finger will be pointed not at the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, but at the people of color who brought it to life.
The quote that was taken out of context appears to be from Michelle Sugihara, the executive director of the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment. In the article, she references all BIPOC-led projects, not just Blue Beetle, but the sentiment alone was enough to nettle people online.
“If the project doesn’t do well, a year from now it’s not going to be like, ‘It was because of the strike.’ It’s going to be, ‘No, it just didn’t do well and it’s because it was BIPOC, so we tried that,’ ”
Irritation from members of the Latino community is warranted, that is without question. Latinos currently make up 19% of the U.S. population, and buy 29% of movie tickets sold in 2020, according to data The Hollywood Reporter’s derived from a Motion Picture Association study. Yet they make up only 5.1% of lead roles, and 4.5% of co-leads in film.
“If Latinos in the United States were an economy, that would be the fifth largest economy in the world and then being almost invisible, it’s almost like gaslighting,” Ana Valdez told The Hollywood Reporter. She is the president and CEO of Latino Donor Collaborative, a nonprofit that researches the Latin community in the U.S. “Somebody’s telling me, a Latina, that I am basically invisible and irrelevant, although I do know that I’m actually contributing 82% with a new work workforce. The upward mobility is incredible.”
In an effort to get the word out about Blue Beetle, Warner Bros. has been offering screenings in densely Latino-populated cities such as Miami, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Austin, Chicago, and New York. When the dual strikes were announced, the movie’s main lead, Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña, also tasked fans with promoting the movie in his absence.
Indeed, every effort has been made by the cast and the fandom to get the word out about this groundbreaking movie. Unfortunately, its importance coincides with one of the most contentious moments in Hollywood history.
Regardless of the financial reception to Blue Beetle, Warner Bros. is not dangling Latino representation like a carrot over its box-office success. Still, when a movie does well, it becomes an eye-opening moment for a studio (or so we hope). There’s no question the stakes are high for this HBO Max exclusive turned major motion picture. The good news is that Blue Bettle is poised to topple Barbie at the box office on its opening weekend.
So, come one, come all — Blue Beetle premieres in theaters tomorrow, August 18.
