Isabel Molina Guzman

Bridgerton’s Romance with Racial Nostalgia Isabel Molina-Guzmán / University of illinois

Like 193 million other viewers, I binged the gloriously extravagant second-season production of Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton (Netflix, 2022).[1] The series is an escapist space filled with normative multiracial romances, Black aristocrats, a mixed-race…

Protected: The Blurring Binaries of Black/Latinidad in US Popular Culture Isabel Molina-Guzmán / University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

Announcing CALL FOR PAPERS for The Velvet Light Trap issue 91: Digital Storytelling. Submissions due by January 31, 2022. Shareable CFP link here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dcwk4UcXwO_NPxLtGlhaVI5kR_wmaqrGakQiFG_TcIY/edit

The End of the Kardashians’ TV Reign is Cause for Celebration

The Kardashians made their money by trademarking their white femininity, their relationships with African American men and marketing Black beauty aesthetics for white women—a type of modern mediated Blackface in a cultural space where few actual…

The Cultural Legacy of “Negrita”

J.Lo is not Black nor does she claim that identity when she uses the term “negrita” on Maluma’s “Lonely” single. But Twitter isn’t having any of it and the controversy is obscuring a complicated discussion about race in the United States and the…

Isabel Molina-Guzmán / University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

As we consider the changing landscape of television and new media, TV Studies itself seems precarious. The constant stream of technological development, increasing fragmentation of audiences, and expansion of programming and distribution outlets has…

“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon”: Troubling the Visual Optics of Race Isabel Molina-Guzmán / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

On February 26, 2013, the one year anniversary of the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, FL by George Zimmerman, I stare at the beautiful face of Trayvon Martin on my television screen and online news feed. I study his cinnamon brown skin, big…

Zoë Saldana: The Complicated Politics of Casting a Black Latina Isabel Molina-Guzmán / University of Illinois

On September 12, 2012 the New York Times featured a story with the following question: “Should Zoe Saldana Play Nina Simone? Some say no.” At the heart of the report was the growing debate and on-line petitions over whether or not US-born black…

Modern Family’s Latina Spitfire in the era of White Resentment Isabel Molina-Guzmán / University of Illinois

At a moment of deep global economic anxiety, Modern Family recuperates middle-class whiteness through a subtle narrative of resentment (See Image 1). The discourse of white resentment requires that difference (sexual, ethnic, racial or linguistic) be…