Raymond Arrieta, the Telemundo host has a history of doing Blackface and Brownface in his sketches. Strangely Telemundo which took great offense at Donald Trump’s comments seems to think that mocking Black and Brown people is harmless. Media representation of Latinos in Spanish Language media historically has been White. Afro Latinos or people of Native descent were excluded or otherwise marginalized by Spanish Language Media. A movement has risen against this and now protesters are taking to the internet to protest these racist images in Spanish language media. An example of this is a petition that demands Raymond Arrieta stop his Blackface and Brownface performances. More appalling is that Telemundo is owned by NBC Universal. NBC could never get away with having Blackface on their English language channels, so why is it okay for them to have Blackface on their Spanish language channels?

Cinematography in its Infinite Possibilities: Update

On Jan. 17th, at AARI CUNY, the Asian American Film Lab hosted an event with cinematographer Eric Lin. The event was moderated by Erik Lu. Both Lin and Lu are board members of Asian American Film Lab. The film lab works to increase diversity in the media and to provide workshops for members of the film community.

Eric Lin spoke in great deal about the technical and artistic aspects of cinematography. He was very informative about the active phase of production, filming, and also about the collaboration between directors and directors of photography during pre production.

Lin showed clips of two of the feature films he directed. The two were Exploding Girl and Arcadia. His work is excellent, and Lin spoke on how they set up the lighting, worked with other crew members such as the sound team, etc. This event would have been excellent not only for seasoned members of the film community, but those just entering the film industry would have benefited from attending. Lu asked Lin questions as moderator, and Lin also took questions from the audience.