George Lopez Essay -- Media Television TV

The television show, George Lopez, is a series in which Latinos make up the entire cast of the family. It takes place in the present day Los Angeles and focuses on a family and their daily lifestyle. This is one of two television shows that are directed to the English speaking population that has the Latino minority as the main ethnicity of the cast. Only 4% of Hispanics make up the cast of prime-time television shows, a miniscule amount considering that Hispanic-Americans are the largest minority group in the US. The ways in which minorities are portrayed in the show have their good aspects as well as bad aspects. This is to be expected since showing all good points or all the bad points isn't a fair perspective of the Latino population. As a show that points out a minority, its necessary to look as the good as well as the bad to find if it is actually a optimistic view of the race or a pessimistic one. The positives shown in The George Lopez Show are demonstrated by the members of the family in many different ways. The main character George, was promoted to plant manager of an L.A. airplane parts factory in the beginning of the series. He also receives an award for excellence in business management later on in the series. These represent the success of a Latino man. In one episode, when George finds out that one of his son's friends is having a rough home life, he makes arrangement for someone to take him in and take care of him until his home is safe enough for him to reside in. This show's how human and how caring he towards others as well as his family. When his son, Max, needs help with his baseball skills in another episode, George shows that he is a devoted father and works tirelessly on improving his son's skills. ... ... Show† properly portraying Hispanic Americans in this country? Or is it just hopeful thinking on the part of Mr. Lopez on what he hopes will change (Porter, 2002)? It is true that â€Å"The George Lopez Show† does not stoop to the usual levels of stereotyping Hispanics as lazy or gang members (Morales, 2002). For the most part the show does a good job in portraying Hispanics in a non stereotypical way, however, the way that certain characters on the show talk, such as the mother and the brother, are very much the stereotypical Mexican dialect. Also, Lopez’s children are extremely lazy, which is stereotypical of the Hispanic culture, although its also very abundant in teenage culture too (Morales, 2002). The â€Å"George Lopez Show† has been very successful up until now in starting to remove the typical Mexican stereotypes in America, but it still has a long way to go.