…By giving us a genuine, scripted, professional TV show starring Latina actresses and run by Latina writers. In other words, “diversity” is here and it fucking works:
by Ana Defillo
With shows like Sleepy Hollow, How to Get Away With Murder, and Black-ish, we’re finally seeing realistic diversity on our television screens, and MTV’s new scripted dramedy Happyland is a reflection of that, both in front of and behind the scenes. In front of the camera, Happylandboasts two Latina actresses as their leads, Camille Guaty and Bianco Santos. Their characters, Elena and Lucy respectively, are not burdened by the usual hyper-sexualized Latina tropes: Lucy is an ambitious and witty teenager counting the days until college and her mom, Elena, is a hopeless romantic that would rather live in the fantasy world of Happyland than the harsh reality of living paycheck to paycheck.
Behind the scenes, the show has a female show-runner and three Latina writers. “What intrigued me about the show is that our lead, Lucy Velez, is hispanic, and so is her mom… I thought it was really cool and very relatable. I’m half Cuban, as well, so we tried to bring into our episodes some of that authenticity,” says Erica Harrell, staff writer for Happyland.