Photo credit: seventeen.com

The name says it all. One of TV’s most recognized tropes; the sultry, sizzling, spitfire in a red dress depiction of Latin women can be traced back to the 1940s and characters such as Lupé Vélez and Dolores Del Rio playing ‘Latina spitfire’ roles which saw them through the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. Nowadays, a quick flick through Netflix unravels a realm of modern comedic films, TV shows and successful series which seem to rely on showcasing the ‘spicy Latina’ stereotype. Orange is the new black, for example, boasts an extensive ensemble of easily identifiable stereotyped Latinas; such as Maritza Ramos and Aleida Diaz. This seems to follow other recently aired shows too, such as Jane the Virgin’s Xiomara Villanueva and, most strikingly, Modern Family‘s Gloria Pritchett.

Played by Sophia Vergara, Gloria is a beautiful, curvaceous, dark haired, olive skinned, Colombian mother of one. In line with what the ‘Spicy Latina’ stereotype demands, Gloria is recognized by her fashionable, figure hugging clothing, usually including colorful leopard prints and low cleavage shirts.  More important than the aforementioned archetypal Latina spit fire regalia, however, is the clever use of language in bringing the ‘Spicy Latina’ to life. Gloria’s thick, strong, sultry Hispanic accent is the most immediate feature of her dialect, (and by expansion, character) that sees her as an outsider. Coupled with numerous grammatical errors, mistakes in vocabulary, linguistic misunderstandings and dead pan mockumentary delivery to boot, these linguistic anomalies set her apart from the rest of the cast as a foreigner. Although this is sometimes subtle, it certainly plays quite a direct role in framing her character’s identity.  In th
e first episode, her husband (Jay)’s ex refers to her as ‘Charo’, the iconic ‘Latina spitfire’ icon of the 1970s, a very clever inter-textual reference which may mirror a comparison that viewers of the series may have already bridged.

However, inter-textuality isn’t the only linguistic device that can be seen, or rather heard in action.Gloria’s mispronunciations are also noteworthy; for they are not commonly recognized by diverging from the degrees of intonation,staccato, or diction that American English demands, (although these features are ever present in her speech). On the contrary, they are realized by and result in utterances which hilariously deviate from the governing expressions of ‘American’ culture, thus transcending simply over stressing a syllable in the pursuit of eliciting humor. For example, in one episode, she refers to the phrase ‘A dog eat dog world’ as a ‘A doggy dog world’. In another, she says ‘Blessings in the skies’ instead of ‘Blessings in disguise’. She also refers to ‘drop off’ as ‘drop out’, and is corrected by her fluent English speaking son, Manny. Another example of a linguistic error which finds its roots in cultural differences is when she refers to Manny’s friend as ‘Looooook’, as opposed to ‘Luke’. When he corrects her, she says that she cannot hear the difference, and he says ‘It’s not that hard, one of them is my name’. She then exclaims, ‘Your name isn’t Juan?!’ Juan, of course, being a very popular Hispanic name.

Her linguistic errors seem to also be portrayed as a result of her native language dominating her English, such as the differences in verb-subject order between Spanish and English. This can be observed when she asks her son in a different episode, ‘Really Manny, do you want me to learn you English?’ By bringing Gloria’s foreignness to the foreground in such a mischievous way, positioning it to both flirt and fight with American humor, the stereotype of the ‘spicy Latina’ is conveyed as a positive one that challenges the status quo, much like Gloria herself in the show.

The portrayal of the appeal of a ‘spicy Latina’ through language makes Gloria’s linguistic setbacks less of a setback and more of an asset, however, and her accent seems to be accentuated even further when flirting with her husband, Jay. In one episode, he asks her to repeat what she said, to which she replies  ‘You want me to say it because you want me to roll my Rs’. After his pleading, she says ‘Rrrrrruben’. Most funnily, though, Gloria questions the ‘Spicy Latina’ stereotype herself in the show, at one point even asking, in her unique heavy intonation and accent,’ Who say I was a goaaalll’ diggir?’ (gold digger). Nobody, Gloria, nobody. We all love you.