I grew up in what I consider to be a very typical household. Mom. Dad. Siblings. Diner at the table. Church on Saturday morning (we grew up 7th Day Adventists). In fact, the term Mexican-American didn't really hold a lot of meaning for me because everyone in my neighborhood was something-American--the Filipino-Americans across the street, the Brazilian-Americans up my block, the Italian-Americans next door.
One typical aspect of my childhood was the movies. I loved them just like all the other kids I grew up with. Okay, maybe I was a bit more passionate about them than your average kid. On weekends, I would get comfy on the couch and watch classic movies on local channel 5 in LA. And on an exceptional weekend, my mom would drop me off at the movie theater for the first show and pick me up just before the last. I'd watch the same movie 4 or 5 times in a row. It was awesome!
But there was also something I absorbed as "the norm" when I watched all those movies: Mexican people were more often than not, immigrants, lackeys, or gang members, like in THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR, STAND & DELIVER, MI VIDA LOCA, COLORS, BORN IN EAST L.A. Don't get me wrong, those are all great movies! But what my young mind understood to be "the norm" was that Mexican's like me--not an immigrant, not a gang member, not hilariously deported to Mexico by mistake--aren't in movies. Even though I so wanted to be part of my favorite films--RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARC, ALIEN, TERMINATOR, LOGAN'S RUN, E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL--there was part of me that knew it just wasn't done like that.
Robert Rodriguez's debut film, EL MARIACHI, was the first time I saw Mexican people portrayed as just normal, every day people in an American film. They were bartenders, cops, shop owners, bus drivers... Just everyday people on the street. Although, the movie is set in Mexico, I remember taking comfort in that film because there were "normal" people just like me up on the screen. Just Latinos doing their thing.
It wasn't until decades later that I got that same feeling from an American film when Disney released COCO. A world populated by regular people who just happened to be Mexican. But that movie too, was set in Mexico. Many readers could probably give examples of movies I'm overlooking, but I haven't seen them. If there are a plethora of American films in which Latinos occupy every space in casting, those movies weren't part of my childhood or much of my adulthood. They just don't exist in popular culture.
When I started writing Zero Sum Game, I knew I wanted to brake that mold: I wanted to set a movie in the U.S. (Venice Beach to be exact) that was entirely populated by Latinos--shop-owners, parents, Priests, cops, game show hosts... I wanted the world to see Latinos the way I see Latinos, which is to say, we're pretty much regular people. Some of us go on heart-wrenching, deadly adventures, like our main character, Marty, and some do homework in their bedroom, like his son, Justin. Some sit at home watching TV. Some walk the beat as cops.
Films that point out the injustices done to certain classes of people are very important. They shine a light on wrongs in the world that would otherwise hide in the shadows. But it's equally as important to see each other as just people. Just another soul headed to work every day, raising their kids, starting a business, and yes, being chosen to play a deadly game that you may not survive. Zero Sum Game isn't just a movie about a game show host who gets what's coming to him, it's about raising awareness of just how typical we all are.
Please join us in bringing Latino faces to the screen by donating to our film here: GoFundMe. For larger, tax-deductible donations, we are sponsored by Nashville Women in Film and Television. Please reach out for information on how to give through their organization.
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