Hispanic Fanatic

We here at Hispanic Fanatic world headquarters have always had a complicated relationship with Jennifer Lopez.

On the one hand, she’s a beautiful and talented Latina who has had an enormous impact on an industry that is notoriously dismissive of Hispanics.

On the other hand, she is responsible for an ungodly amount of bad movies and wretched music.

So you see the dilemma.

Well, news came out recently that puts J Lo firmly on the positive side of history. It seems that you have her to thank for the invention of Google Images.

One of the founders of Google claims that it was Lopez’s infamous green dress, which she wore to the 2000 Grammys, that provided the impetus to catalogue images on the search engine.

Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt says that “J Lo green dress” (or some variation on that) was the most popular search query the company had ever seen. But they had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted, which was Ms. Lopez wearing that dress.

So they tinkered with the code, allowing pictures and graphics to come up in queries, and in the words of Schmidt, “Google Image Search was born.”

That settles it. Jennifer Lopez is all right with us.

And as a public service, and just in case you don’t remember that famous dress, here it is.

Yes, that’s very little fabric for such a cultural milestone and technological breakthrough. But that’s just J Lo for you.

Congratulations to Odyssey99 and Lupe G., who won passes to see The Boy Next Door, the new movie starring Jennifer Lopez.

To be honest, the movie doesn’t look so great from the commercials. Hopefully, it will not be a career low for J. Lo.

Why, yes, I did stay up all night devising that play on words. Why do you ask?

Who doesn’t love J. Lo? Well, besides her many ex’s and those women who are jealous of her gluteus maximus.

Unless you’re in one of those two groups, you’re no doubt open to seeing her new movie, The Boy Next Door.

I’m offering you the chance to win passes to a screening of the film, which is about “a love affair that turns into a horrifying obsession,” to quote my sources.

You can catch it in one of the following cities:

Chicago

Dallas

Los Angeles

Miami

New York City

All you have to do is comment on one of my posts (including this one) about anything you please. Just make sure to tell me what city you plan to see the movie in, and tell me what names (up to two people) I should put on the guest list.

I’ll announce the contest winners in the next week or so.

By the way, did you know Jennifer Lopez is a forty-something mom of twins but still appears scantily clad in music videos? That’s either inspiring or depressing. I will let you decide.

Accusations of “selling out” are often flung around when Hispanics clash over controversial topics, like immigration reform or Obamacare or whether Jennifer Lopez has ever recorded a decent song. It’s an easy way to discredit your opponent while bolstering your own bona fides,

But usually, it’s all just talk. I have to admit, however, that the selling-out label may actually fit in one particular debate. And it’s over the dry concept of net neutrality.

As we know, net neutrality is the concept that everybody should have equal access and priority on the Internet. It seems obvious enough that this is a good idea.

But telecommunications companies see an opportunity to make extra bucks by charging for access. So they’ve enlisted organizations like the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership, which says that net neutrality policies could inhibit investment and leave disenfranchised communities farther behind. 

This is absurd, of course. And anyone who supports the telecoms must be getting paid off (i.e., selling out).

Sane parties, such as Latinos for Internet Freedom, point out that an open Internet means more job opportunities and better educational opportunities for Latinos. The group says, “creating new hierarchies of faster and slower websites means a new variation on the ancient theme of discrimination.”

The fight is getting personal. The Latino advocacy group Presente.org has started a petition titled, “They Don’t Speak for Us,” which harshly criticizes those Latino organizations that support the telecoms.

One way or another, the outcome will greatly affect Latino consumers’ access to the Internet. And it will provide a perfect example of what selling out really means.

I live in Los Angeles, so updates about the entertainment industry count as local news. As such, I couldn’t help but notice the following item:

In a “first in U.S. English-language television history,” four Latinas are headlining their own series. Cristela Alonzo stars in Cristela, Callie Hernandez is in The Club (both on ABC), Gina Rodriguez is in the CW’s Jane the Virgin, and NBC’s Shades of Blue stars our old friend Jennifer Lopez.

Now, I have no idea what these shows are about, or if any of them are remotely good. For all I know, they will all be cancelled a month into the season.

Regardless of their fate or pedigree, however, it is unquestionably a positive development that Hispanics are getting more representation on television, and even better, that starring roles are becoming more plentiful. And yes, that’s true even if JLo is involved (just kidding, Ms, Lopez; you know we all love you).

I’ll try to check out these shows when they come on. In the meantime, I will continue pitching my own idea for a show, which is about a gritty, truth-seeking Latino blogger who is smart, sexy, and devilishly handsome.

What can I say? The idea just popped into my head.

I’ve written before about the poor representation of Latinos at the Oscars, and in the world of cinema in general.

So I was pleased to find out that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the people who hand out the little gold men) have recently decided to get on the Latino bandwagon and throw open the doors to more Hispanics.

The Academy just released its list of new members, and of the 276 additional people who will get to vote on Best Picture, there are 22 Latinos.

Among the new members are Jennifer Lopez, Rosario Dawson, Michael Pena, and, yes, Danny Trejo.

That’s right, Machete himself is now a member of the Academy.

How cool is that?

The nicest thing my mother-in-law has ever said to me is, “In a certain light, you kind of, a little bit, resemble Johnny Depp.”

Now, even a straight man like me knows that it’s a compliment to be compared, however vaguely, to this guy. Sure, he’s a talented actor, but what he’s best known for is being the uber-hunky male of so many women’s dreams. Even the tough-as-nails Bitca has been known to swoon if she catches a glimpse of Mr. Depp’s visage.

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A great thing about writing a blog is that one can just check the events of the day and respond with a quick post immediately. A bad thing about writing a blog is that those same events rarely behave and adhere to your schedule, and you end up writing from behind, so to speak.

Such is the nature of the evolving debate over the Arizona anti-immigrant law. I have started and abandoned many posts on this topic because its ever-changing nature and unending cascade of loony behavior have made my points obsolete before I could slap punctuation at the end of a given sentence.

The Arizona law, which makes it unlawful to so much as resemble an illegal immigrant, has offered America even more ludicrous moments and bizarre antics than we’ve come to expect from our political theater.

I thought the absurdity had reached its nadir when Senator John McCain insisted, on national television, that illegal immigrants were intentionally ramming unsuspecting citizens on the freeway. But the best was yet to come.

First the GOP, in the true spirit of leadership, announced that it was picking up its loose marbles and going home. Republicans screamed and yelled about how illegal immigration was out of control, but when pressed on how to resolve the problem, they demurred, en masse.

Sounding almost apologetic, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said,  “We’ve got a lot of work left on our plate between now and the end of the summer. And we’re starting on financial regulatory reform…. I’m not sure where you find the time to deal with these other major issues.”

Chambliss sounded like a teenager complaining about how much homework he received over winter break. But at least he was more rational than Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, who said “moving forward on immigration” in a “hurried, panicked manner” had offended him so much that he was walking out of talks on climate change legislation. It was as if conservatives had said, “Don’t even ask us to even think about this whole immigration mess. I mean it. We’re willing to destroy the environment over this… if we believed in global warming, that is. So there.”

This caused the rest of us to ask, “Who dragged climate change into this?” But we had no time to ponder because the all-American sport of baseball became the next collateral damage.

With a certain amount of glee, Keith Olbermann stated that the Arizona Diamondbacks are arguably the only MLB team without a prominent Latino player. In addition, many commentators pointed out that Hispanics and Latin American immigrants make up a large percentage of today’s top players. So we should have been unsurprised when protests erupted at Wrigley Field and fans started threatening to boycott next year’s All-Star game, which is being held in (gulp) Chase Field in Phoenix. But at least that shrinking violet, Ozzie Guillen, spoke his mind, for once in his life.

Of course, as we know, nothing really exists in America unless a celebrity is involved. So we were all relieved when our first pop star entered the fray. The beautiful and talented Shakira announced that she is opposed to the Arizona law. I can only hope that if she is pulled over in Tucson, she gives the cops one of those icy glares she utilizes before launching into an especially violent hip shimmy. It will be out of context but even more intense.

By the way, it’s odd that few American-born Latino celebrities are speaking out on the issue. One would think that Jennifer Lopez, for example, could take a brief break from peddling her latest cinematic disaster to at least appear socially conscious. But that’s ok – keep shaking it, J Lo, we still love you!

However, things have now come around again to the world of politics. No, I’m not talking about Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s superficial change to the law, which she announced yesterday. I’m talking about the once-obscure Pat Bertroche, who is trying to gain the GOP nomination in Iowa to run for a House seat. His recent comments top the list of offensive, perplexing, and just plain oddball statements about Arizona’s efforts.

Bertroche said, when referring to illegal immigrants, that “We should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going. I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I microchip an illegal?”

Before anyone could answer this most unanswerable of questions, Bertroche  said of his own proposal, “That’s not a popular thing to say.”

Perhaps he’s a master of understatement, but Bertroche could have added, “And it’s not sane, coherent, respectful, or in any way related to the real world. In fact, it’s just batshit crazy and wildly racist.”

But he didn’t, so we’ll just have to imagine it. Fear not, however, I’m sure before all this is over, somebody or something else will top the insanity we’ve seen so far.

Perhaps we should start praying now.