With Culture Clash, nothing is sacred except satire
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Los Angeles is home to an industry that makes dramas and exports them around the world. But there’s something wrong about the way our diverse city looks and sounds in big Hollywood films, writes Hector Tobar.
With a few, notable exceptions, Latinos are usually in the background, doing yardwork or working as nannies, putting on the thick Spanish accents demanded by their scripts. Black characters are often wacky police officers, gangsters or single moms. Asians are technicians or immigrants who look confused. And the white characters are usually well-off and self-involved, fated to learn about the essential goodness of all the other ethnic groups.It’s all so predictable and unsatisfying. The real L.A. is a crazy cast of Shakespearean characters and tragicomic contradictions. Where can you find actors who bring that reality to life? In our small but vibrant community theater scene, of course.
Including, Tobar goes on to note, the Culture Clash comic trio, a veritable institution in Southern California.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City