The new film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway show relegated its Black Latinx community to the background and sparked a debate about colorism.
Despite an *early onslaught* <https://www.metacritic.com/movie/in-the-heights> of critical praise, the highly anticipated film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway musical *In the Heights* <https://www.vox.com/culture/22516150/in-the-heights-backstory-explained-lin-manuel-miranda-jon-m-chu-anthony-ramos-movie-musical> failed to *draw crowds* <https://variety.com/2021/film/box-office/in-the-heights-box-office-hbo-max-1234995410/> to movie theaters over its premiere weekend. Instead, a wave of backlash surfaced over the film’s lack of visibly dark-skinned Afro Latinx characters — the very community the film purports to represent. The Tony-winning hit musical that made Lin-Manuel Miranda a Broadway name half a decade before *Hamilton* debuted depicts a struggling but vibrant neighborhood on Manhattan’s upper Upper West Side. But while the new film is a celebration of Washington Heights, it’s very easy to come away from it thinking that the community is entirely made up of mostly light-skinned Latinx migrants and immigrants. Though a large portion of the neighborhood’s real-life population is *Black Latinx* <https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/01/afro-latino-a-deeply-rooted-identity-among-u-s-hispanics/>, in the movie, all but one of the main cast members are light-skinned — and many viewers immediately noticed what seemed to be the erasure of the Black Latinx community. “Everyone talks about the need to have ‘difficult conversations’ about race, systemic racism, racial and cultural representation, and then as soon as it feels slightly difficult, folks who have the option to opt out, opt out,” Rebecca Carroll told me. A culture critic and author of *Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir*, Carroll says she felt the casting for *In the Heights* couldn’t have been entirely unconscious. “How can it be, given what’s going on in the national dialogue?” https://www.vox.com/culture/22535040/in-the-heights-casting-backlash-colorism-representation -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#9429): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/9429 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/83784764/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
