Maids To Order?: Eva Longoria Defends Her New Show

April 10th, 2012 by Arturo

Ontiveros — who has a bachelor’s degree in social work and has played a maid 300 times on screen — also said: “I long to play a judge. I long to play a lesbian woman. I long to play a councilman, someone with some chutzpah.”

The problem is, very rarely are these kind of parts open to women with Latina backgrounds. Even Jennifer Lopez played a maid. And think of Teresa Yenque, who has been on seven different episodes of Law & Order: SVU, and played “Cleaning Lady,” “Housekeeper,” and “Housekeeper/Nanny.”

Finally, there’s the issue of Maids’ source material; the series is based on Ellas son … la alegría del hogar,(The Disorderly Maids Of The Neighborhood in English), a 2009 Mexican telenovela that lives up to Villalobos’ description, as the scenes below with Danny Perea (she’s the younger woman with long hair) show us:

A look at a trailer for alegría strains Longoria’s sentiment further:

Courtesy Latinheat.com

For the non-Spanish speakers, here’s the skinny: our heroines work in the same neighborhood, navigating their personal and professional lives, until somebody disappears, a mysterious case of money appears, and it falls upon the ladies to crack the case. Oh, and there’s also a Nazi and a mute groundskeeper played by Alegría’s executive producer, Eugenio Derbez, most recently seen on Rob!

That sounds a bit like Desperate Housewives, doesn’t it? And while one can hope that Longoria will help Maids show us more nuanced portrayals of domestic workers and hire a diverse group of writers and directors, it’s also too early for her to be declaring this adaptation a source of pride.

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Posted in celebrities, diversity, latin@, race & representations, stereotypes, tv | 23 comments

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  • Anonymous

    What’s also worth bringing up is that the romantic interests of the women may very well be primarily white men. The reason this is worth bringing up is because, in the context of Hollywood and its pigeonholing, nonwhite women (as long as they are not “too black” it seems) are almost always positioned as romantic interests for Anglo men. Notice that in comparison nonwhite males are rarely main romantic interests much less for white women and even less so as leads in a mainstream TV shows and movies.

    Just the name alone raises suspicious (“Devious Maids”) as it doesn’t sound that different from the names of pornos that feature the “Hispanic maid” stereotype as a fetish for Anglo men.

  • Anonymous

    What’s also worth bringing up is that the romantic interests of the women may very well be primarily white men. The reason this is worth bringing up is because, in the context of Hollywood and its pigeonholing, nonwhite women (as long as they are not “too black” it seems) are almost always positioned as romantic interests for Anglo men. Notice that in comparison nonwhite males are rarely main romantic interests much less for white women and even less so as leads in a mainstream TV shows and movies.

    Just the name alone raises suspicious (“Devious Maids”) as it doesn’t sound that different from the names of pornos that feature the “Hispanic maid” stereotype as a fetish for Anglo men.

  • Anonymous

    What’s also worth bringing up is that the romantic interests of the women may very well be primarily white men. The reason this is worth bringing up is because, in the context of Hollywood and its pigeonholing, nonwhite women (as long as they are not “too black” it seems) are almost always positioned as romantic interests for Anglo men. Notice that in comparison nonwhite males are rarely main romantic interests much less for white women and even less so as leads in a mainstream TV shows and movies.

    Just the name alone raises suspicious (“Devious Maids”) as it doesn’t sound that different from the names of pornos that feature the “Hispanic maid” stereotype as a fetish for Anglo men.

  • Anonymous

    What’s also worth bringing up is that the romantic interests of the women may very well be primarily white men. The reason this is worth bringing up is because, in the context of Hollywood and its pigeonholing, nonwhite women (as long as they are not “too black” it seems) are almost always positioned as romantic interests for Anglo men. Notice that in comparison nonwhite males are rarely main romantic interests much less for white women and even less so as leads in a mainstream TV shows and movies.

    Just the name alone raises suspicious (“Devious Maids”) as it doesn’t sound that different from the names of pornos that feature the “Hispanic maid” stereotype as a fetish for Anglo men.

  • Anonymous

    What’s also worth bringing up is that the romantic interests of the women may very well be primarily white men. The reason this is worth bringing up is because, in the context of Hollywood and its pigeonholing, nonwhite women (as long as they are not “too black” it seems) are almost always positioned as romantic interests for Anglo men. Notice that in comparison nonwhite males are rarely main romantic interests much less for white women and even less so as leads in a mainstream TV shows and movies.

    Just the name alone raises suspicious (“Devious Maids”) as it doesn’t sound that different from the names of pornos that feature the “Hispanic maid” stereotype as a fetish for Anglo men.

  • http://commentarybyvalentina.wordpress.com/ Val

     My concern about this show is how or if the respective ethnic backgrounds of each of these women will be dealt with. Will they just be generic Hispanic women? Or generic Latinas? Dania Ramírez and Judy Reyes are both Dominican, Ana Ortiz is Puerto Rican and Irish and Roselyn Sanchez is Puerto Rican.

    As an African American I am concerned that this country is trying to do to people whose ancestry is in countries where Spanish is spoken what it has done to African Americans. One hundred years from now will so-called Hispanics not know where they come from as well?

    There is a huge difference in the cultures of Dominican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Guatemalan- Americans, etc. Network TV and media in general seems to be moving toward not acknowledging the specific ethnic heritage of so-called Hispanics. And that to me is very problematic.

  • http://commentarybyvalentina.wordpress.com/ Val

     ”in the context of Hollywood and its pigeonholing, nonwhite women (as
    long as they are not “too black” it seems) are almost always positioned
    as romantic interests for Anglo men”

    I agree.

  • brandi

    Is she really using The Help for her argument?

  • Anonymous

    Not explicitly. But the language she used in the interview sure seems to point in the direction of selling Maids as an “uplifting” story, which doesn’t quite sound consistent with the source material.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Javan-Nelums/696759111 Javan Nelums

      Roselyn Sanchez is to good to be a stereotype. (She should of been a starship captian or a someone that young people can look up to)

  • Lunanoire

    Hopefully Lupe Ontiveros will one day have the opportunity to play not just any judge, but a Supreme Court justice. Once again, the question arises: Is [insert artist] trying to make this project based on stereotypes because they think it’s required to be palatable to wider audiences, or does [the artist] really buy into this way of thinking or not care that it reinforces stereotypes? So often, the reasons may differ but it all looks the same on the outside.

  • Jacob

    Isn’t positioning non-white women with white men a recent development? How long ago was it that Sanna  Latham starred in “Something New”?  I agree that there should be more balance but for far too long a non-white woman and white man were verboten. 

  • Jacob

    Isn’t positioning non-white women with white men a recent development? How long ago was it that Sanna  Latham starred in “Something New”?  I agree that there should be more balance but for far too long a non-white woman and white man were verboten. 

  • Jacob

    I’m looking forward to this show.  To say that soap operas are just for entertainment and not education runs counter to the history of soap operas around the world, especially American daytime soaps where topics from race, the Vietnam war, sexuality, and AIDS have been explored to educate the public.    

    Frankly, I’m looking forward to the show skewering stereotypes and upending power relationships.Also, I like the casting of two Afro-Latinas alongside two lighter-skinned white/mestiza Latinas.  I hope that the show actually explores the differences between race and ethnicity.   

  • Jacob

    I’m looking forward to this show.  To say that soap operas are just for entertainment and not education runs counter to the history of soap operas around the world, especially American daytime soaps where topics from race, the Vietnam war, sexuality, and AIDS have been explored to educate the public.    

    Frankly, I’m looking forward to the show skewering stereotypes and upending power relationships.Also, I like the casting of two Afro-Latinas alongside two lighter-skinned white/mestiza Latinas.  I hope that the show actually explores the differences between race and ethnicity.   

  • Anonymous

    Interesting point about the diversity of states/countries the actresses come from … think this will be a big opportunity will be to celebrate that diversity of national origin, ethnicity, accent, etc., as well as the diversity in terms of color of the actresses since Judy Reyes has self-identified as Afro-Latina (see http://youtu.be/tT7_oQzDYMw)

  • Mickey

    The positioning of non-white women opposite white men is far from recent. On television, at least, one was to see a non-white woman/white man coupling much more so than the other way around. Remember Tom & Helen Willis from “The Jeffersons”? Soap operas were also known to show such couples.

    It has always seemed to me that if IR relationships were to be showcased, it was either one type or the other, never an even balance.

  • Anonymous

     Unfortunately, in this day and age,  not enough people would actually watch a show like that to keep it on the air.  Particularly if the main characters aren’t white.  And if the main characters aren’t white, the last thing anyone’s interested in is skewering stereotypes.  

  • Anonymous

     Unfortunately, in this day and age,  not enough people would actually watch a show like that to keep it on the air.  Particularly if the main characters aren’t white.  And if the main characters aren’t white, the last thing anyone’s interested in is skewering stereotypes.  

  • Keith

     Also:
    21 jump street
    taxi
    blossom
    boy meets world
    Sanford and son
    Girlfriends
    Golden girls
    felicity

    With other women of color white men make up the majority of the relationships. In away making couples interracial a standard on prime time television takes away from normalizing POC as being part of American culture collective. The so called melting pot that I keep hearing about.

  • Keith

     Also:
    21 jump street
    taxi
    blossom
    boy meets world
    Sanford and son
    Girlfriends
    Golden girls
    felicity

    With other women of color white men make up the majority of the relationships. In away making couples interracial a standard on prime time television takes away from normalizing POC as being part of American culture collective. The so called melting pot that I keep hearing about.

  • Anonymous

    I agree. I will give it my 3 episode chance.

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