There Aren’t Enough Latine Teen Shows — But They Keep Getting Canceled

Last summer, the Latine Internet was in a furor over HBO canceling the beloved and short-lived Gordita Chronicles. That near-perfect show had it all: solid ratings, diverse Latine representation, Latina star power in Eva Longoria and Zoe Saldana working behind the camera, and positive reviews. But it still only got one season — and to add insult to injury, you can’t even stream it anymore because HBO removed it from its catalog. And it’s happening again. 

Some nine months after execs canceled Gordita Chronicles, the Hollywood brain trust saw fit to do the same to two shows starring Latine youth, Netflix’s Freeridge and Disney+’s National Treasure: Edge of History. With these recent cancellations, the entertainment industry is adding to a pattern that goes back at least to Nickelodeon's 2001 Taina (which only lasted two seasons despite high ratings), through 2020’s Julie and the Phantoms (which was canceled just after one season), and on until today.

Latines make up nearly 20% of the U.S. population, and our communities are overwhelmingly young. In fact, 61% of us fall in the coveted under-35 demographic. Even more, Latines make up a quarter of the country’s under-18 population. Those making kid and teen content should be catering to our communities if they want to get a decent amount of that market share, yet the numbers in Hollywood don’t reflect this. In 2022, Latines accounted for 2.6% of television leads, which is down from previous years. 

For viewers, these cancellations signal that our stories do not matter to Hollywood. “It's so obvious,” Carrie Rodriguez, a mom and fan of Julie and the Phantoms, told Refinery29 Somos. “It's the coincidences of so many shows with Latinos on them getting canceled. … [It’s not the] ratings. You gotta give me another reason. You don't have money? You don't want to put in money for this? Because you have the story. You have the audience.”

Diana Leon-Boys, Ph.D., assistant professor of communications at the University of South Florida and author of the book Elena, Princesa of the Periphery, agrees. She told Somos that each cancellation of a Latine show sends the message that “it wasn't enough to stay on air. It wasn't important enough, it wasn't exciting enough, it wasn't entertaining enough to keep the engagement of audiences. I say that lightly, though, because … we don't get all of the industry background information in terms of what the audience numbers look like.”

Whatever the reason behind the cancellations, Dr. Leon-Boys know they matter. She argues that pop culture is hugely instrumental in how young people see themselves and others in the world. And when Latine youth start noticing how Hollywood consistently doesn’t value them, the effect is “really problematic,” if not also “traumatizing.”

So how did we get here? Dr. Leon-Boys has a theory that Hollywood doesn’t really commit to Latine projects up front. Instead, our shows are just “one of those projects that are going to check off some box. And once the box has been checked off … there's no longer the need for that story to continue to be on air.”

It doesn’t help that there’s so much pressure on each show that comes out. Dr. Leon-Boys says, “We want that one to do it all … highlight all the intricacies and nuances of these niche groups within all of these communities. And it's impossible.” She’s right. We’d need hundreds of shows to do that, and we don’t have them. We need proportionate representation for each cancellation to not hurt so much, to not carry so much weight. For youth, that would be one in four shows about and/or prominently featuring Latines.

Dr. Leon-Boys thinks the demographic numbers are “a double-edged sword.” She notes that “the showrunners, producers, and all of these folks that are in charge of making these decisions are also cognizant of the [demographic facts, but] it's a panic discourse in this country. Like, ‘oh, goodness, we see these numbers, what is that going to do for white populations? How is that going to flip the numbers? What is it going to look like in 2060?’” 

And that fear may be part of why shows like Julie and the Phantoms don’t get renewed despite building solid fanbases. Rodriguez says the Netflix series, which dropped in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, was really important for her daughter. “Julie and the Phantoms is [about] losing her mother, finding friends through music and inspiration, [and that] really helped a lot,” Rodriguez says, especially during a time of so many Covid-19-related deaths. “We became fans to the point where we watched the show 1,000 times.” 

In fact, Rodriguez credits the show with inspiring her daughter to pursue her artistic dreams, something Rodriguez didn’t have the courage to do until recently — and she’s a grown adult. 

This is why this issue of youth series cancellations hits so hard. Rodriguez is worried that Latine youth will see all the cancellations and decide to not even pursue a career in entertainment. She sees her daughter’s generation is more involved in the arts, but she worries “If they go to college and don't see opportunities, they're gonna say, ‘why am I going to go for this? Why waste so much money going to college if I'm not going to get my chance, my big break?’ It costs so much sacrifice for our parents to even get us to college.”

Rodriguez thinks the solution lies in Latines creating our institutions. She asks, “Do we have to create our own PR companies? Do we have to create our own movie companies? Do we have to create our own theaters? We spend money. We are a large community in this country. So do we have to build our own things?” In that sentiment, she echoes a growing group of Latine entertainers, like John Leguizamo, who aren't waiting for studios to greenlight their works; instead, they are building their own networks and companies.

Still, she has a message for the studios. “Just be fair and let us shine,” says Rodriguez. “Give us an opportunity. We deserve to be great.”