‘Flamin’ Hot’ Director Eva Longoria Accuses Hollywood Of Racism And Sexism, Claims Female Latina Directors “Don’t Get A Lot Of At-Bats” But “A White Male Can Direct A $200 Million Film, Fail And Get Another One”
Only in Hollywood can you take a promotional appearance for a film about empty carbs and turn it into a swing against white people.
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Making an appearance during Variety’s ‘Women in Motion’ panel held as part of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival – which has seemingly become nothing more than a platform for woke women to whine about their male counterparts – former Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria made the bold claim that while men are allowed to have box office bombs, women in the industry aren’t allowed even the smallest bit of grace for their failures.
Speaking to her experiences directing the upcoming Flamin’ Hot, a biopic recalling former Frito-Lay janitor Richard Montañez’s alleged role in the invention of the red-dusted Cheeto variant, Longoria asserted, “We don’t get a lot of bites at the apple.”
“My movie wasn’t low budget by any means it wasn’t $100 million, but it wasn’t $2 million,” she continued. “When was the last Latina-directed studio film? It was like 20 years ago. We can’t get a movie every 20 years. The problem is if this movie fails, people go, ‘Oh Latino stories don’t work…female directors really don’t cut it.’”
Reiterating, “We don’t get a lot of at-bats,” Longoria then declared, “A white male can direct a $200 million film, fail and get another one. That’s the problem. I get one at-bat, one chance, work twice as hard, twice as fast, twice as cheap. You really carry the generational traumas with you into the making of the film. For me, it fueled me. I was determined.”
Joining Longoria on stage was Dr. Stacy L. Smith, the founder of USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative – an organization perhaps best known for providing Netflix with an annual ‘inclusion progress report‘ – who added, “This was a collaborative effort to reward folks that are doing well on-screen when it comes to representation across multiple categories: gender, race, ethnicity, LGBTQ+ as well as people with disabilities and over the age of 65.”
“Are we showing the stories that aren’t told?” said Dr. Smith. “And then who is working behind the camera?”
“The metric in which you measure success is important,” Longoria continued. “They’ve gone from [hiring] one to two [women]. And you’re like, ‘Okay, technically, you did, but you still only hired two women.’ So, how you measure success is really important. And inclusion being that metric is so awesome because you can applaud the people who are doing it right.”
Calling for further Latino representation in Hollywood, the actress-turned-director detailed, “28% of ticket buyers at the box office are Latino. Your film will not succeed if you don’t have the Latino audience.”
“Do you know how many Latinos showed up for Crazy Rich Asians?” she asked the crowd. “Do you know how many Latinos bought a ticket for Fast and the Furious? We over-index at moviegoing, so why shouldn’t there be content for us if we are the ticket buyers? If we are the viewers?”
“For me, I take great pride in throwing around that buying-power weight,” Longoria affirmed. “If you don’t speak to us, we may not buy that movie ticket.”
Noting that felt not just the weight of her people, but also the weight of every female filmmaker in Hollywood on her back when she started production on Flamin’ Hot, she ultimately concluded, “We’re still underrepresented in front of the camera, we’re still underrepresented behind the camera, we’re still not tapping into the females of the Latino community.
“We were at 7% in TV and film, now we’re at 5%, so the myth that Hollywood is so progressive is a myth when you look at the data,” said Longoria.
In the age of diversity and inclusion, everyone in Hollywood is looking for an angle to be the biggest victim because victimhood is currency, and ecause a movie about the alleged origins about Hot Cheetos doesn’t create enough headlines, Longoria is going down the route of ole reliable and attacking white men in order to drum up publicity.
The idea that women are held to a unfair standard than women when it comes to failing upwards is hilarious for anyone outside of the Los Angeles bubble.
While there may be a shortage of female directors in the eyes of Hollywood women, there is no shortage of females complaining about the lack of female directors in Hollywood.
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