Racism or Just Good Business?

Does one movie make a trend? An article in this week's Newsweek, only citing Hitch, reports an upsurge in Black Man/Hispanic Woman pairings in film. But is that the case?

A brief look at Eva Mendes' career shows that, despite playing twice opposite Denzel Washington, she will soon play opposite Nic Cage and David Duchovny.

Will Smith has played opposite Latinas less times than he's played opposite aliens.

But the real question is whether Hollywood discriminates against Black/Black and Latino/Latina pairings. This doesn't seem to be the case for Smith, who has had plenty of intraracial action. And, putting Mendes aside, I don't detect a pernicious trend in the careers of Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, or Rosario Dawson (who is, ince, "of Puerto Rican, Cuban, African American, Irish and Native American descent").

If anything, the casting seems to be based on the story and the stories seem to be selected based on Hollywood's raceless creed: will it make money? The fact that Hollywood moguls are betting mass audiences will pay to see interracial love casually portrayed on screen -- something that was taboo not too far back in our nation's past -- should be a good sign, right?

Sorry Newsweek, but a movie like Hitch, where ten or fifteen years ago Will Smith's character would've been played by a jive-talking sexless Eddie Murphy and the movie would've centered on the white Kevin James character (undoubtedly played by Steve Gutenberg or Ted Danson), doesn't make your case. It shows progress.