ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some films My Family/Mi Familia and The Perez Family. "The Perez Family," a film directed by Mira Nair and distributed by the Samuel Goldwyn Company, swirled in controversy before its release, when it was learned that the film would feature two non-Latino actors playing the major Latino characters. Latino actors and activists, led by Sonia Gonzalez of Latinos for Positive Images, which was created to get Latino actors work, got national attention by urging audiences to boycott the film. "The Perez Family" is one big incongruity. And whatever is good about the film, it is consistently undermined by the obvious miscast of the two leads, whose non-Spanish-speaking pretentions render the film a campy piece of silliness. Latino has written and directed such a film. Chicano director Gregory Nava, who says that the family is the protagonist of his film, not any one person, fought against Latinos being perceived as a poor subculture.
