I am lame, and that's probably okay

 I am an avid watcher and student of all things film/cinema.  My relationship to this medium, however is a complicated one. I am a pale, mildly overweight Hispanic man. I am not a very suave or charismatic person, and I'm losing my hair fairly early in my life. This picture (my picture) is a far cry from the images of sexy, chiseled, tall, tan and overall good-looking Hispanic men portrayed in film. On a scale ranging from Antonio Banderas to Danny Trejo, I am Danny Trejo, If Danny Trejo were lame. 

definitely me

By now you're probably wondering, "Why's this guy talking about Danny Trejo?", and the answer is, because Danny Trejo is cool. 
But seriously, I have always taken issue with the portrayals of Hispanic men in film, because they are always either one dimensional  in a suave, overly sexualized way, or they are shown as dangerous, hyper masculine "badasses". If you need an example, take a look at this clip of Antonio Banderas from Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2002) where Antonio Banderas is seen being his usual well dressed self, with long hair, playing a guitar, which happens to be a gun.  More examples come to mind, such as Danny trejo in almost all of his films, most notably his role as Machete in Machete (2010), where Danny Trejo portrays a character who does literally nothing but kill and have sex.These are obviously extremely caricatured versions of the usual tropes used to portray Hispanic men, but they perfectly illustrate what I mean. Whenever I see Hispanic men portrayed in film it's always has these undertones of either sex, or violence, as if Hispanic men are nothing more than these two things.

This is obviously not true, as you can see here 

Exhibit A

but these images have played a huge part in my life. they have made me feel as though I was not adequate, they have made me feel as though I am somehow less Hispanic.( Especially considering my family is full of muscular, stoic men who buy into these ideas and tropes.) At times I have felt as though being Hispanic meant that if I were to voice my opinions or negative emotions I would be seen as violent, or tough, even though I am clearly a cinnamon roll (see above picture). Despite this, I love film, and believe my purpose in creating media and film in the future is to change how Hispanic men( and women, because those portrayals are even more offensive in a lot of ways) are portrayed because as it stands, the industry is not doing such good job.