Representation of Latinos in Hollywood: Masculinity in Iñárritu’s Films

This paper studies the image of Latinos in the United States of America
through the Hollywood films production by the well-known Mexican director,Alejandro
Gonz?lez I??rritu. Using content analysis of the Latinos characters in the three
films directed by him and in collaboration with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, the
present paper examines the masculinity frame to see whether the Latinos are
portrayed positively or negatively in Hollywood movies. Semiotics in films and the
Character theory are used as the theoretical framework. The reason for choosing
this director is to control the research for the racializationthat might exist if we pick
a non-Latino director. The hypothesis is that the portrayal of the main characters is
a violent masculinity and a negative one. Regardless of the intentional or
unintentional reasons behind it, the effect of such portrayal on the overall picture
of Latinos is a negative one in the sense that according to the representation
theory, using Goffman Character and Christian Metz’s Semiotics theories, people
tend to accept something that is repeated enough for them as the reality and
therefore act upon it.