Netflix’s “Wednesday” is not the typical Latina representation we’re used to seeing. Assistant professor of Media Studies at the University of South Florida’s Department of Communication Diana Leon-Boys, PhD, says we’ve become accustomed to the “can-do Latina” girl. From shows like “The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia” to Marvel’s “Runaways,” this Latina can do anything she sets her mind to thanks to her positive attitude. She’s a plucky go-getter, a pleaser, and if she faces any systemic barriers, they are not described and certainly not ascribed to sexism or racism.
“She can do it all and she can lift herself up by her bootstraps, which can become harmful and problematic,” Dr. Leon-Boys, who wrote “Elena, Princesa of the Periphery: Disney’s Flexible Latina Girl,” says of the can-do Latina archetype. She’s grateful to see this new type emerge in the last decade or so, crediting the more empowered approach to portraying Latina girls. But she’s still not satisfied, telling POPSUGAR, “It’s still very repetitive, it’s still very similar, it’s still very much part of this economic risk-averse strategy that media conglomerates use because they know it’s safe.”
Dr. Leon-Boys recounts an exercise she does with her students in which she asks them to name Latinx shows that don’t mention a quinceañera. “I have never gotten anyone to mention more than two,” she says. And usually, they’ve forgotten a detail like the quince flashback in “Jane the Virgin.” There is no quinceañera in Tim Burton’s “Wednesday.” And our protagonist, played by Mexican and Puerto Rican actress Jenna Ortega, would hate it anyway. She’s not one for poofy dresses or celebrating birthdays in general. Wednesday is much more interested in death. Dr. Leon-Boys sees this as a positive thing.
“I don’t want to say I’m a dark person, but I would align more with, I don’t want to say ‘pessimistic,’ but more realistic points of views and mentalities and thoughts and ideas and conversations about death. That I don’t think you really see a lot through the figure of a girl on television, particularly through a Latina girl,” she says.
