Latine media, art & cultural happenings to keep your eye on.
Every two weeks, !Ojo! brings you a curated selection of new and notable LGBTQ media curated by GLAAD’s Spanish-Language & Latine Media & Representation team.
Younger latine people are more likely to identify as LGBTQ, and with over 62 million Latines in the US alone, it is crucial to celebrate and amplify inclusive media that represents the wide range of Latine experiences. Here are just a few examples of creative projects doing just that.
If you love a show, film, song, or book, please remember to share about them on social media, so that others can also know about and enjoy great queer Latine media.
Hummingbirds by Silvia Del Carmen Castaños & Estefanía “Beba” Contreras
Winner of the Berlinale Generation Grand Jury Prize, Hummingbirds celebrates the power of friendship, laughter, and joy as tools of survival and resistance. Actor-Directors Silvia Del Carmen Castaños & Estefanía “Beba” Contreras tell their own coming-of-age story in Hummingbirds. Described in their website, as “a punk-rock portrait of the last summer of their youth on the Texas-Mexico border. Together they transform their hometown of Laredo into a cinematic wonderland of creative expression and activist hijinx. Offering an unexpected depiction of the US/Mexico border, this joyful and irreverent tale of friendship and resilience explores the crossroads of immigration, gender, sexuality, mental health, and class.”
Hummingbirds’ national broadcast premieres on PBS Television Channel on Monday, July 1, 2024, at 10pm/9C. It will also be available to stream until September 29, 2024, on pbs.org and the PBS App.
Watch the official trailer below!
Land of Women (Tierra de Mujeres) on Apple TV+
Dramedy series Land of Women stars Eva Longoria as Gala, a well-to-do New Yorker, who has her life turned upside down when her husband fails to repay a debt. As described in the official synopsis, with dangerous criminals in pursuit of her family, “Gala is forced to leave the city with her aging mother Julia (Carmen Maura) and teenage daughter Kate (Victoria Bazúa) to her mother’s hometown in northern Spain — a place that Julia fled 50 years ago — to start life anew and hope their identities remain hidden. But gossip in the charming wine town quickly spreads, unraveling deep family secrets.”
The new six-episode series made its global debut on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Wednesday, June 26, followed by a new episode every Wednesday through July 24.
Mexican actress Victoria Bazúa, who plays Longoria’s teen daughter in the show, told MáximoTV she fell in love with the script from the moment she first read it. As a trans woman, she recognized the importance of the role as a platform and an opportunity to give visibility to the Latine community and the trans community in a story that explores familial relationships between women. Watch her speak more about her role in Land of Women below.
Michaela Jaé Rodriguez in Loot
Hit comedy show Loot follows billionaire philanthropist Molly Wells (Maya Rudolph) after she settles her very public divorce from tech mogul John Novak (Adam Scott). Season two returns a year later with Molly thriving in her role as the head of her philanthropic organization, the Wells Foundation.
In a sneak peek of season two, Apple shared that “Sofia Salinas (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez), the no-nonsense executive director of the Wells Foundation, continues to run things with compassionate efficiency, but her all-business ethos is thrown for a loop when she meets someone new. The Wells Foundation team, including Rhonda (Meagen Fay) and Ainsley (Stephanie Styles), must pull together as co-workers and friends as Molly strives to publicly live up to her promise of giving away all of her vast fortune.”
Watch the trailer for season two below and stream both seasons of Loot on Apple TV+ now!
Michaela Jaé Rodriguez is an actress, singer, and activist and is the first trans actress to win a Golden Globe and the first trans woman to earn an Emmy Award nomination in a major acting category, with iconic roles in Pose, Rent, and Tick, Tick, Boom! and many others. Listen to Rodriguez speak about her trailblazing career, the importance of representation in TV, and how powerful it is to get to play a character that isn’t solely defined by her identity, in the interview below.
“We need to see more people and more trans people centered on screens, but not specifically for their transness, instead for storylines that each and every last person around the world can actually relate to.” – Michaela Jaé Rodriguez
Songs From Omar Apollo’s Upcoming Album
Mexican-American singer-songwriter Omar Apollo released “Less of You” and “Dispose of Me” new singles from his upcoming album God Said No set to be released on June 28th.
Apollo who is “never coy about his sexuality” talks about queerness and fluidity in an interview with Variety, and touches on his identity in his work, including “Bi-Fren” and “Kamikaze” from his Apolonio EP.
Watch & listen to this live performance of “Dispose of Me” and keep your eye out for the release of God Said No.
To Keep Your Eye On
These shows with great LGBTQ representation are coming out with new episodes weekly! Tune in every week to support the creation of more seasons. When LGBTQ inclusive shows do well, more of them get made.
Julio Torres’ Fantasmas
Fantasmas is one of the most unique shows on television right now. Writer, director, producer, and star Julio Torres plays a fictionalized version of himself as he goes on a quest to find a diamond-encrusted pearl earring he lost at a dance club. While following his journey, audiences delight in a series of surreal vignettes and a star-studded cast of intriguing characters including Julia Fox, Kim Petras, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Alexa Demie, Ziwe, Aidy Bryant, Bowen Yang, Tomás Matos, Steve Buscemi and others.
Fantasmas’ funny, colorful fantasy world serves as the ideal vehicle for razor-sharp social critique. In his search for a new apartment, Julio seemingly can’t escape the necessity of acquiring a new form of ID called a “proof of existence” that will soon be needed for everything from riding public transportation to uploading your consciousness. Proving your existence is not a new concept to immigrants all over the world, especially in the United States, and Torres has expressed how his own experience with the labyrinthine US immigration system and getting a visa designated for “aliens of extraordinary ability” inspired this surveillance-capitalism imbued antagonist. In another vignette, Julio encounters an insurance analyst who relishes customers’ suffering, and professes her deep love of big banks and weapons manufacturers in a moment of delicious satire.
Among a deluge of critical acclaim, Indiewire wrote that Fantasmas is “operating on a level of brilliance beyond the bizarre” in a series that “centers hamster nightclubs and sequined toilet seats while slyly crafting a vicious indictment of late-stage capitalism.” And Time called Fantasmas “both a sparkling specimen of weird TV and a manifesto championing the existence of that possibly dying art.”
Watch Fantasmas now on Max, and tune in for new episodes Fridays at 11pm ET.
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Acapulco Season 3
Global hit bilingual comedy series Acapulco, follows Máximo Gallardo as his dream comes true when he gets his dream job at Acapulco’s hottest resort, Las Colinas and soon realizes his career at the hotel will be much more complicated than he ever imagined.
Season three’s official synopsis reads, “it’s time to reconcile past mistakes and exciting new beginnings. In the present story, older Máximo (Eugenio Derbez) finds himself returning to a Las Colinas he no longer recognizes. While in 1985, younger Máximo (Enrique Arrizon) continues his climb up the ladder of success while potentially jeopardizing all the relationships he’s worked so hard to build”.
In addition to Derbez and Arrizon, the returning Acapulco ensemble cast includes Fernando Carsa –who plays Máximo’s beloved best friend Memo– Damián Alcázar, Camila Perez, Vanessa Bauche, Regina Reynoso, Raphael Alejandro, Jessica Collins, Rafael Cebrián, Regina Orozco and Carlos Corona, with recurring guest stars Jaime Camil (Schmigadoon) and Cristo Fernández (Ted Lasso) joining for season three.
Rolling Stone applauded Acapulco because it “is set in Mexico with a multinational cast of actors and frequently toggles between English and subtitled Spanish dialogue. And it’s the characters from north of the border who are treated as the slightly caricatured interlopers here, while the deep roster of Latinx performers are given more complex roles.” Reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes say season three is “filled with humor and crazy nostalgic music and moments, this season is not to be missed.”
Watch all three seasons of Acapulco now on Apple TV+!
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Go to Eugenio Derbez’s instagram bio to get a free two month trial of Apple TV+
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Highlights From the Socials-Sphere
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