Eva Longoria blasted what she called Hollywood’s double standard when it comes to movie’s successes or failures — and she said that as a Latina female director, she’s held to a different standard than white men.
During the 48-year-old actress/director/producer’s appearance at the Cannes Film Festival in France, Longoria said that she “felt the weight of my community” at her feature directorial debut of “Flamin’ Hot,” Variety reported.
“I felt the weight of every female director because we don’t get a lot of bites at the apple,” the actress said. “My movie wasn’t low budget by any means — it wasn’t $100 million, but it wasn’t $2 million. When was the last Latina-directed studio film? It was like 20 years ago. We can’t get a movie every 20 years.”
Eva Longoria: “A white male can direct a $200 million film, fail and get another one.” She says that’s not the case for women directors.”#Cannes #WomenInMotion @KeringGroup pic.twitter.com/8WcSnzbepY
— Variety (@Variety) May 23, 2023
“The problem is if this movie fails, people go, ‘Oh Latino stories don’t work, oh female directors really don’t cut it,’” she added. “We don’t get a lot of at-bats. A white male can direct a $200 million film, fail and get another one. That’s the problem.”
Longoria didn’t share the name of male directors who have failed and gotten another one, but continued and said, “I get one at-bat, one chance … work twice as hard, twice as fast, twice as cheap. You really carry the generational traumas with you into the making of the film.”
“Flamin’ Hot,” centers on “the inspiring true story of Richard Montañez who as a Frito Lay janitor disrupted the food industry by channeling his Mexican heritage to turn Flamin’ Hot Cheetos from a snack into an iconic global pop culture phenomenon,” according to a description on IMDb.
Longoria said the movie also deals with how corporate America underestimates the Hispanic community and said the same could be said about Hollywood studios.
“28% of ticket buyers at the box office are Latino,” the director said. “Your film will not succeed if you don’t have the Latino audience. Do you know how many Latinos showed up for ‘Crazy Rich Asians?’ Do you know how many Latinos bought a ticket for ‘Fast and the Furious?’”
“We over-index at moviegoing, so why shouldn’t there be content for us if we are the ticket buyers?” she added. “If we are the viewers? … For me, I take great pride in throwing around that buying-power weight. If you don’t speak to us, we may not buy that movie ticket.”
“Flamin’ Hot” hits theaters June 9.
