Tenoch Huerta Says Latin America Has ‘A Serious Problem With White Supremacists’
Tenoch Huerta is a fierce proponent of increasing BIPOC representation in the media, and he’s a guerrero for it.
Huerta is changing the Hollywood game with #PoderPrieto
Going against the grain of Hollywood white supremacy, Huerta fights discrimination through the #PoderPrieto movement alongside other stars like Yalitza Aparicio. The “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” star also put much-needed indigenous representation to the forefront with his role as Talokan superhero Namor. Even more, he wrote the must-read, anti-racist book “Orgullo Prieto.”
Likewise, now the Mexican actor is talking about Hollywood and Latin America’s “serious problem with white supremacists.”
Huerta spoke to Variety about the “Black Panther” sequel’s success, but it’s more than just a box-office hit to him. As he explained, the movie is a game-changer because it “proves” that producers “lie” about people wanting white faces in films. What do people really want? “Representation in the best way possible.”
Moreover, as Huerta sees it, “[Viewers] don’t care. You know. You’re brown… white… Black. They love stories.”
The actor’s recent interview talks about how the media is “white supremacist”
The 41-year-old megastar told the outlet that the media’s focus on putting white people on the screen is inherently “white supremacist.” But it’s not just confined to the Hollywood hills— “In Latin America, we have a serious problem with white supremacists.”
Significantly, this isn’t the first time Huerta has spoken out about Latin America’s racism and colorism. In a recent interview with Ruido en la Red, he explained that we make racism “invisible,” but that it is unfortunately “a common practice” in Mexico and beyond.
He has also described how “racism is taught at home” to many Latinos, such as racist sayings like “marry someone with light skin to ‘better the race.’”
Huerta also wants to try his hand at directing and producing films with representation
Huerta also told Variety that he has many dreams for the future— including directing and producing his own films. Thus, he plans on making movies with “different” stories that feature “accurate representation” at all costs.
As the actor described, all of our current cultural elites are “white” and “of European descent.” Today, they may have “control over the media,” but Huerta says “we’re gonna defeat them.”
The Ecatepec de Morelos-born icon says that “We have the stories, we have the history, so we have a lot of elements to create fantastic shows, movies, [and] plays”— we just need the opportunities.
Huerta says that as people of color, “we’re gonna prove our point that representation matters” in the media.
And with one look back at the $800 Million worldwide box-office earnings for “Wakanda Forever,” the actor described how you can “make good money with representation,” too.
