Latinos who are striving to build careers in entertainment need to embrace a “F— you” mentality.That was one of the sentiments that emerged from a salon dinner discussion held Tuesday evening in Beverly Hills with about 20 senior industry insiders. The subject was how to make the business case in the C-suites that Hollywood is losing money by largely ignoring the U.S. Latino population in mainstream movies and TV series.
The event was hosted by the Latino Donor Collaborative, a nonprofit advocacy group. As strongly articulated by one participant, a “f— you mentality” means being willing to go to extraordinary lengths to create content and build careers outside of the traditional studio and network system, in the tradition of media entrepreneurs ranging from Tyler Perry to Oprah Winfrey to Robert Rodriguez to Ted Turner.
LDC has once again teamed with consulting giant McKinsey & Co. for its annual report on the status of Latino representation at all levels of the entertainment industry. The just-published report goes deep on proprietary research done through McKinsey to examine the U.S. Latino audience and its impact on box office results, TV ratings and the influence of the cohort’s consumer purchasing power, estimated at some $2.8 trillion.
