Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico's ambassador to the United States, might be more of an independent-film type. The ambassador blasted Hollywood during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Friday for promoting what he said was a distorted image of his country. "Mexicans in the silver screen are usually portrayed as poor and uneducated at best, corrupt and violent at worst," he said, adding that the usual stereotypes of "drug traffickers and gardeners" glimpsed in movies produced by Hollywood studios didn't mention the contributions his countrymen have made to the United States.
Since becoming ambassador to the United States in January of this year, Medina Mora has urged American lawmakers to pass a version of immigration reform which would allow undocumented immigrants to reunite with their family in Mexico. He has treaded a careful line on the question, however, saying that the question is an internal matter for the United States to decide and that the voice of Mexico is heard among the many Hispanic groups already in the midst of the debate. "We haven't stopped letting our voice be heard with the logic of pursuing the best interest of Mexican citizens" he said in August, adding that his country "will not be as significant a provider of migrants as it was in the past".
In Washington on Friday, the ambassador said that the typecasting of his countrymen limited the range of roles which even the most talented and best-known Mexican actors could play. Not even Demian Bichir, who was nominated for an Oscar for his lead role in the 2011 drama "A Better Life", has been able to escape those stereotypes, Medina Mora said, pointing to Bichir's roles as a gardener and drug trafficker in the aforementioned film and "Savages". "I'm still eagerly waiting for the movie where Salma Hayek plays a Nobel Prize-winning chemist that teaches young Americans to create new forms of alternative energy," he said, according to Fox News Latino.
The ambassador also warned that the importance of the stereotypes and myths that pervade Hollywood depictions of Mexican immigrants should not be overlooked, saying that "the American public, which consume those types of movies, will inevitably be influenced by them." He added that drug trafficking is a problem which affects other regions of the world other than Mexico and that portrayals of them as bad, criminal and corrupt were not only "racist", but "totally wrong".
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