ABSTRACT
The April 2012 Secret Service scandal in Cartagena, Colombia overshadowed other news resulting from the sixth Summit of the Americas, including the announcement of the US-Colombia free trade agreement. Drawing on Isabel Molina-Guzman’s approach to the study of Latina bodies in the media, this chapter analyzes online audience discussions of Sofia Vergara in order to “interrogate the social and political consequences of increased media visibility” for Latinas generally and Colombians in particular. In the national imagination, La Costa is seen as black in contrast to the Andean interior. The Colombian government and many citizens took issue with US media coverage and chastised Dania Londono Suarez for tarnishing the city and the country’s image. Sofia eventually decided against a career in dentistry and moved to Bogota to pursue a modeling and TV career. Sofia Vergara constructs a narrative of an upwardly mobile, transnational Colombian citizen that benefits economic interests between both the United States and Colombia.
