At Latina Media Co, we pull apart the media we consume, demand better representation, and celebrate stories that center Latinas on our own terms. This time, cultural critics Denise Zubizarreta and Stephanie Belk Prats take on Hollywood’s latest obsession: a Scarface remake. Together, we ask the hard question – do we really need the “biggest Latino gangster of all time” resurrected in 2025, at a moment when our communities are already under political and cultural attack?

Say hello to our little headache. Word just dropped that actor Danny Ramirez and producer Tom Culliver are independently developing a Scarface remake based on Armitage Trail’s 1929 novel – the same story that inspired both the 1932 and 1983 films. On the surface, it might sound like an exciting opportunity: a Latino lead stepping into one of Hollywood’s most iconic anti-hero roles. But let’s be real: Scarface could not be returning at a worse time.

Yes, we’re glad a Latino is playing the lead. Representation matters, and seeing a rising star like Ramirez at the center of a major cultural property could be a win. However, a film that seeks to resuscitate the pernicious trope of a “Latino gangster” is not moving the needle towards a more inclusive Hollywood. Because rest assured, this remake’s timing comes at a uniquely dangerous moment for Latinos.

With the current administration ramping up deportations, detainments, and anti-immigrant fear-mongering – do we really want to reinforce the exact stereotypes being weaponized against us? Especially now, in light of the Supreme Court’s September 2025 ruling that allows immigration agents to resume roving patrols in the Los Angeles area, based on race, language, job, or location, with no explanation and via an emergency “shadow docket” decision. This effectively green-lights profiling against Latino communities, undermines constitutional safeguards, and compounds the very fear and division it claims to combat.

Scarface’s 1983 debut coincided with a wave of anti-immigrant hysteria tied to Cuban migration and the Mariel boatlift. Back then, the media sensationalized the event, slamming Cuban refugees as dangerous freeloaders, violent criminals, and existential threats to “American life.” The De Palma film, with Al Pacino’s over-the-top Tony Montana, didn’t invent those prejudices – but it certainly cemented them into popular culture. Decades later, Miami still lives with the cultural scars of those portrayals, and Cuban Americans still feel the lingering stereotype of being permanently suspect.

Now, in 2025, we’re experiencing a cultural flashback. The rhetoric is familiar, only the targets shift: all Latinos are cast as criminals, drug dealers, or “illegals” who deserve to be locked up and shipped out. The detention centers are overflowing, ICE raids are ramping up, and the narrative of Latino criminality is being shouted from the highest office in the U.S.. Against that backdrop, reviving Scarface feels less like reclaiming representation and more like adding gasoline to a three-alarm fire.

Ramirez and Culliver promise something “fresh,” a new story, a new take. “I think importantly on the IP thing, we’re not going to engage on something if we don’t have a totally unique, fresh way into it,” Culliver told Deadline. “You don’t want to do stuff where you’re just remaking stuff for remakes’ sake. We’re not going to do this cravenly; we have something to say with the material.”

But what fresh angle could possibly justify reinforcing one of the most vicious stereotypes we face? If anything, the story we need is one that depicts Latino integrity and character. Because depicting us as morally weak is not only damaging, it’s factually inaccurate. We need a story that captures how Latino communities survive, resist, and thrive.

Picture this, Joaquin Phoenix plays white-passing Latino, Marco Rubio, standing on the Oval Office balcony. He sneers, “The world is mine,” as he bulldozes democracy into dust, an emperor of assimilation gone full tyrant. That would feel relevant. That would feel dangerous in the right way.

Art can change people’s minds – it’s why authoritarian governments censor political films, suppress dissenting voices online, and channel a pyromaniac’s kink for book burning. With few exceptions, Hollywood depicts Latinos as uneducated, impoverished, and vice-ridden, which sets the stage for politicians to convince the movie-watching masses to see us as liabilities. This should come as no surprise, considering there aren’t many of us in the decision room. Latinos make up 19% of the US population, but only account for a depressing 4% of screenwriters. Our visibility is low, too. Latinos account for less than 5% of speaking roles in film. Only 2% of those are leading roles.

This isn’t about Danny’s right to reboot a classic. It’s about Hollywood’s longstanding legacy of lining their pockets with Latino stories and not even getting them right. This is a rigged game where the deck has always been stacked against us. Scarface belongs in the cultural archive – not in today’s political climate where its tropes can and will be weaponized again.

We’ve been trying to kill this destructive narrative for years by telling our own stories. Through art, music, film, and media, we have shared our rich worlds so others can look past our accents or skin color to see us as wholly, beautifully human. We have made our most meaningful contributions to American culture by allowing others into our communities, not the other way around.

So, Danny Ramirez, we see you, and we respect your ambitions. But this project? It’s a uniquely dangerous idea. A Scarface remake sets us back, and a Scarface remake with a Latino lead actually just makes it worse.The question we should all be asking isn’t “how do we modernize Scarface?” It’s “how do we build stories that free us from its shadow?” Until Hollywood can answer that, remember – the hail of gunfire didn’t just end Tony Montana, it delivered the only ending he ever earned and deserved.