In the Heights

Brian in Mesa

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In the Heights

Release Date: June 11, 2021
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Dorector: Jon M. Chu
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some language and suggestive references
Screenwriters: Quiara Alegria Hudes, Marc Klein, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Genre: Drama, Musical

Starring: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anthony Ramos, Jimmy Smits, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Gregory Diaz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Stephanie Beatriz, Dascha Polanco, Marc Anthony


Plot Summary: A film version of the Broadway musical in which Usnavi, a sympathetic New York bodega owner, saves every penny every day as he imagines and sings about a better life.

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Brian in Mesa

Brian in Mesa

Advocatus Diaboli
Super Moderator
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Interesting critique:

'In the Heights' movie slammed for lack of Black Latinos in New York's diverse Washington Heights

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/i...inos-in-new-yorks-diverse-washington-heights/

Growing up in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, Emmanuel Abreu saw people who looked like him walking down the street, going to the bodegas on his block and speaking Spanish at almost every place he stepped foot in. Many of them were Black Latinos.

But in “In the Heights,” the recent film adaption of the hit Broadway musical of the same name that focuses on a Latino community in Washington Heights grappling with gentrification, immigration and the struggles of being a first-generation American, few of the actors with speaking parts are dark-skinned Black people. That didn't sit right with Abreu.

“There were some steps that could have been taken and they missed the mark,” he said.

While many Latinos have celebrated “In the Heights” for its rare representation of Latino culture in mainstream, English-language media, the growing outcry over the film’s erasure of Black Latinos has cast a shadow over its release. Critics within Washington Heights and beyond argue that the movie's cast is an insult to the Afro-Latino community that has long driven the music, food and culture of Latin America, especially in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico and other Latino homelands highlighted in the movie.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of “In the Heights” and a Puerto Rican New Yorker, released a statement Monday night on Twitter apologizing for the lack of Black Latino representation in the movie.

"I hear that, without sufficient dark-skinned Afro-Latino representation, the world feels extractive of the community we wanted so much to represent with pride and joy. In trying to paint a mosaic of this community, we fell short. I'm truly sorry," he wrote.

More at the link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/i...inos-in-new-yorks-diverse-washington-heights/
 
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