Jon M. Chu’s long-awaited film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights” should have debuted to critical acclaim. From the dynamic musical numbers to the film’s stars, which include “Hamilton” standout Anthony Ramos, “Orange Is The New Black” star Dasha Polanco, and “Straight Outta Compton” breakout Corey Hawkins, all the signs pointed to another progressive hit on par with Chu’s “Crazy Rich Asians.”
Instead, in a film that was supposed to immortalize present-day Washington Heights — in a community called the Little Dominican Republic — the lack of Black and brown faces on screen was glaring. After all, 90 percent of Dominicans are of African descent. Unfortunately, as it is with “In the Heights,” colorism is pervasive in Latinidad. As a result, exhausting conversations about skin color, an entire market for skin lightening creams, and generation-long skin color preferences within families persist. All of this stems from rampant racism, colonialism, and anti-Blackness.
The pushback against “In the Heights” began during the press run for the film when Felice León, a video producer for The Root who identifies as Afro-Latinx, asked Chu point-blank about the void of darker skin actors in the movie — especially in lead roles. “As a Black woman of Cuban descent specifically from New York City,” she told him, “it would be remiss of me to not acknowledge the fact that most of your principal actors were light-skinned or white-passing Latinx people.” Chu seemed taken aback and responded that he and the creative team aimed to “get the people who were best for those roles.”
While there is no doubt that the entire cast of “In the Heights” is talented (the film is garnering rave reviews despite the backlash), there is a large pool of Afro-Latinx actors in Hollywood who could have been called upon to appear in the film in various roles. In the ’90s, Tatyana Ali, whose parents are Indo-Trinidadian and Afro-Panamanian, dazzled as Ashley Banks on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
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