Hollywood’s continued issues with diversity, equity, and inclusion have long been a pain point, especially considering how the resistance to it has proven to leave money on the table. But with respect to the Latino community in particular, which itself is an umbrella for various racial identities, there has been a noticeable uptick in the science fiction and fantasy genres.
Currently airing blockbuster series like “The Last of Us” and “Andor” have multiple Latino leads front and center, with shows like “Wednesday” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” also bringing representation forward in spaces where Latinos were once excluded.
Above, IndieWire hosts an exclusive panel organized by the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), and its President & CEO Brenda Victoria Castillo, discussing what more representation in the science fiction and fantasy genres has meant for the Latino community, featuring actors Aimee Garcia, Eman Esfandi, Lindsey Morgan, and Summer Bishil, who have played beloved characters that have contributed to the change.
One highlight is Morgan, who is best known to fans of the genre for playing Raven Reyes in all seven seasons of “The 100” on the CW, reflecting on how the creators of the show did not have any specifications on Raven’s ethnicity, or even her last name, when she went in to audition for the part. “I really liked how the writers wanted the actor to inform the character and inform how she looked and where she was from. And also this idea that in the future, race isn’t everything, isn’t the first thing we think about or the first thing we see when we see someone really see someone’s character. And it was just this really hopeful ideal,” she said. “One of the big things I love about sci-fi is [it] let us talk about social constructs in an approachable way so that now in the future, we’re not bound by the limitations we face right now as a society.”
To that end, Bishil, who played Margo Hanson on the SyFy series “The Magicians,” was vulnerable about the “whiplash” she felt being in a similar situation, where after years of feeling typecast into specific roles that leaned more toward the Arab side of her ancestry, she was presented the option to have her character be more representative of her entire background. “Yes, I am Mexican, and Margo was too, because I am, but I almost felt like I didn’t have the permission … overall in my career to sort of play the nuances of my background as well,” she said.
Esfandi, who is both Ecuadorian and Persian, also had instances where he felt like casting directors were resistant toward considering him for roles that reflected his actual background. “The Inspection” star even cites a time where his character in the A24 film experiences an extreme instance of Islamophobia, with a drill instructor pointing a gun at him. “That very severely affected me. I realized having all the guns, even though they’re fake guns, pointed at me, was very destructive and reminiscent of growing up in that [post-9/11] era,” he said.
However, when playing the beloved character Ezra Bridgers from the “Star Wars” universe on “Ahsoka,” Esfandi had a moment that turned that negative experience on its head. “The first scene I shoot for ‘Star Wars,’ I’m wearing a Stormtrooper outfit … And I’ve got the helmet on and I’m walking off a ship and my pseudo mother, the commander of the rebellion, has her gun pointed at me. Everyone has their guns pointed at me, but then when I take off the helmet and they see me, all their guns go down because I represent the hero that saved Lothal,” he said. “So even though I’m wearing the enemy’s uniform this time, when they see my actual face, which includes my skin, which includes my beard and my hair and my eyes and my nose— it includes everything that makes me who I am based on my races—they realize that’s the hero. And that’s the beauty of sci-fi and fantasy.”
And while it is a success for a broader range of identities to get to play the protagonists with all sorts of powers and abilities, Garcia, who starred as Ella Lopez on the Netflix series “Lucifer,” has had just as pleasant experience playing one of the more grounded characters on the show.
“I didn’t have superpowers or the ability to fly or any extraordinary gifts like everyone else on my show. They could fly, they could go down and up from heaven to hell. They were super cool and I was definitely not the cool kid on the show,” she said. “But when I would go to these comic cons all over the world from Brazil to Bahrain, Australia, New Zealand, London, Mexico, a lot of young women especially would say, ‘Oh, I’m majoring in biology because of Ella Lopez’ … I’m just so moved by the fact that every gender, every sexual orientation, every nationality, every religion just identified with this brown scientist who wanted to hug everyone all the time. And so I was really moved by just the influence that a brown woman in science could have on such a global level.”
Mirroring the reverence her fellow actors have for their roles on genre series, Garcia later added, “Sci-Fi genre is the one of the most inclusive genres because it translates sometimes comedy doesn’t translate from this side of the world to that side, but action and genre is so fantastical that I think we continue doing what we’re doing as actors.”
