What We’re Watching

This Latina Equal Pay Day, we can’t help but think that the size of Latinas’ paystubs is tied to how invisible we are. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Over the years, I’ve noticed television shows being the place where female friendship has flourished on screen. There has been a liberation of new topics and taboos that weren’t ever shown before, giving us more room for representation, and new role models to aspire and relate to.

Netflix’s On My Block is a coming-of-age story; a dramady about a group of friends growing up in South L.A. Navigating their daily struggles for survival, this show blends culture and race with laughs and tears. The final season finds us two years later after our compas have gone their separate ways. It’s senior year, and if you know anything about this show, it’s far from normal.

Let’s celebrate Latina-authored books that are getting adapted for the screen – because these seven are all major wins for Latinas in Hollywood!

Shang-Chi is an absolutely stunning and captivating movie, and it fills my heart with hope for more culturally-encompassing films. But how they portray the character of Xialing, Shang-Chi’s sister reveals there is more work to be done to represent women of color.

To call Brooklyn 99 a “good” cop show isn’t as simple as it seems. After the murder of George Floyd, cops and the shows that portrayed them faced a lot of well-earned scrutiny. Brooklyn 99 was just one of many series to experience an identity crisis during its latest (and for B99, its last) season.

If I made a list of this year’s most underrated films, Summertime (2021) would fill the top three spots. Directed by Mexican-American filmmaker Carlos López Estrada (also the director of Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon) and executive produced by Kelly Marie Tran, the film interweaves the stories of 25 extraordinary people over the course of one summer day in Los Angeles.

Maybe not the show to watch con Mamá, Netflix ‘Sky Rojo’ is sex and violence, conflict after obstacle after holy-shit moment. It’s also a must binge.

For most of my life, I’ve been Luca, the one trying to keep it cool, constantly having to say: Silenzio, Bruno. Which got me thinking… Why was Luca the way he was? Why did all that anxiety seem so familiar?

The thing that differentiates ‘Never Have I Ever’ from other series for me is Fabiola Torres, the shy, nerdy, robotics-loving, polo shirt-wearing wearing Afro-Latina lesbian I’ve been waiting for.