Content area
Full Text
Isabel-Molina Guzmán New York University Press, New York, 2010, paperback, 256pp., US$22.00
ISBN: 978-0814757369
A problem not anticipated by earlier cultural critics is how minority groups and especially Latinos/as have been exploited, discriminated against and misrepresented by the media. Beyond using and abusing Latinas/os' suitable images, mass media teaches the audience about the imaged construction by the United States, of Latinidad as a homogenous category in terms of race, socio-economic profile, English language proficiency, migration history, levels of education and political participation. Even more dangerous is the impact of such misrepresentation on the minds of Latinas/os, and how misrepresentations are used as a mechanism of regulation and control of the population in general. Dangerous Curves: Latinas Bodies in the Media presents a fresh look at the use and abuse of Latinization in the global mass media.
On the basis of films, news coverage, television shows, tabloids and Internet blogs, Dangerous Curves claims that Latina performers, producers and audiences are part of global media culture. Moving away from chronological analyses of Latinas/os in films, Molina-Guzmán focuses on the present and undertakes a more complex "discussion of the English and Spanish language media as global institutions that contribute to...