Misused: Latino Is Brown

Examples of "All Latinos are tanned" or the belief thereof

• In America Chavez's solo series, America, a large portion of the cast consists of Latinas, and America's backstory shows her going through various places in Central and South America. Every one of these people are brown-skinned.
• Played straight in Coco, where all of the living characters have dark skin.^note Ironically, this is averted with the movie's cast (both English and Spanish dubs); comprised almost entirely of Hispanic actors who, obviously, show the varied skin tones present in Latin American countries. Justified, as the film takes place in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, where the vast majority of residents have at least some amount of Native ancestry, and it's implied that the Rivera family may be one of those families, as many female members wear traditional clothing.
• In The Incredible Hulk, there's a scene where General Ross finds out that Bruce Banner is working at a soda factory in Rio de Janeiro, and advises his subordinates to be on the lookout for a white man employed there. According to census data, white Brazilians make up about 51 percent of the city's population in real life.
• Explicitly averted in Moonlight (2016) with Juan, a black Cuban played by Mahershala Ali. There's even a scene where he acknowledges this perception by saying Americans often don't think Latinos can be black.
• Taina as well, Taina's family are brown and black-haired. However, Maritza (the only other Hispanic regular) has obvious brown hair, but still has a darker skin tone.
• Todd in the Shadows once mentioned that Pitbull (full name Armando Christian Peréz), who's Cuban American, does not look Hispanic at all and just looks white. As mentioned above, most Cuban Americans in the United States are of unmixed Spanish descent and look exactly like him in terms of complexion.

Examples of "A Latino fits the Phenotype Stereotype":

• Atlantis: The Lost Empire's resident Spicy Latina Audrey Ramirez is black haired and has light brown skin.
• In The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Maria Hill is given a much browner complexion than her comic-book or live-action counterparts and it's all-but-confirmed to be of Latino heritage, she's even given the full name of Maria Christina Hill.
• Marco Diaz from Star vs. the Forces of Evil is at least half-Mexican and has a darker complexion than characters like Star (who is a blonde, blue eyed human-looking girl) or his crush Jackie. Marco's father is a tall, muscular dark-skinned fellow with big brown eyes and his mother is a Significant Green-Eyed Redhead (well, reddish-brown).

Examples of "A Latino does not fit the Phenotype Stereotype"

• Saint Seiya:
  • Averted by Musca Dio, who is very pale and has red (almost bordering on maroon) hair despite being from Mexico.
  • Also averted with Albiore, at least in the anime. While his racial background is quite ambiguous in the manga due to lack of colored illustrations, in the anime he's a handsome, blue-eyed Argentinian.
  • Also averted with Eo of Scylla, who is another Latin-American character with reddish-pinkish hair and fair skin.
  • Another addition to the list is Gold Saint Taurus Aldebaran, who is from Brazil. The anime plays the trope straight but in the original manga he's blond and blue-eyed.
• Notably averted with Beatriz Dacosta, Fire from the Justice League International, who is Brazilian and white.
• Victoria averts this with its Mexican female lead, Maria de Alva, who hails from an old aristocratic Spanish family and is purely European by blood and in appearance. However, this is also held as sufficiently uncommon for the American protagonists to consider it worth commenting on.
• Averted in Once Upon a Time, to the point where creators had to confirm that Regina, like her actress, is Latina. Her father is played by an actor with darker skin than her, and she has a light-skinned mother to imply she's mixed race.

Examples of "Latinos within the work have varying skintones"

• Averted in Blue Beetle—although Jaime and many other characters fit this trope, one of his best friends, Brenda, is a light-skinned redhead. The family reunion issue also shows that Jaime has a blonde aunt.
• Averted in Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware novel When The Bow Breaks, where one of the murder victims and her brothers are described as looking Hispanic while also having naturally blond hair, and Alex speculates that they probably had a Nordic ancestor somewhere in their family tree. Their mother and a friend of the family look much more stereotypically Mexican.
• The Brothers García - the first English-speaking sitcom to focus on a Latino family - plays with this trope. The titular Garcia family are black-haired and light brown skinned, though the daughter Lorenna is slightly darker than everyone else. Then again, they are in San Antonio, where over half the population is Hispanic. Other Latino characters of varying skin tones appear in the series - including Sandy's daughter Samantha, who is fair skinned and blonde haired.

Examples of changes to character or actor design involving the phenotype (Brownface, Race Lift etc) — these are all in the realm of trivia and probably shouldn't be on the page

• Averted in Big Hero 6 with Honey Lemon, who is Latina by Word of God. She's also a light-skinned blonde (whose in-film model leans towards a lightly Dark Skinned Blonde). She's voiced by Hispanic actress Genesis Rodriguez, who also made sure to have Honey pronounce some words to imply her Latin heritage - for example, pronouncing 'Hiro' by rolling the "r". Various prototypical designs were dark skinned and raven haired but the artists opted otherwise, most likely to differentiate her from dark-haired GoGo.
• While still blonde, Elsa Pataky (Spanish actress of Romanian-Hungarian descent on her mother's side) is more tanned and has her hair darker than usual in her first Hollywood role, the passenger Maria in Snakes on a Plane. This is completely avoided in her later role as Brazilian police officer Elena Neves in the The Fast and the Furious franchise.
• As mentioned in the Comic Books section, the Marvel superhero Sunspot is Afro-Brazilian. Despite this, his two film appearances (X-Men: Days of Future Past and The New Mutants) have had him played by non-black actors who fit the more typical view Americans have of what a "Latino" looks like.

All Latinos in the setting have have brown skin, which usually goes hand in hand with dark hair. Included here is the expressed belief that all Latinos look like this, whether or not it is true for the work.

1. Main.Five Token Band: Sink Hole with "stereotypically brown Hispanic"
2. Main.Misplaced Accent: white Latino will have "difficulty physically passing for Mexican"
3. Main.People Of Hair Color: Explains this trope (dark hair)
4. Characters.The Road To El Dorado: Sink Hole; generalization of "or what Westerners generally think of "Latinos" as yet."
5. Literature.Save The Pearls: The author [portrays] all Latinos as one race, presumably this one
6. Series.Orange Is The New Black: "Looking Latino" is discussed, and it is explained that Latinos are multiracial
7. VisualNovel.Mother Of The Year: Discussed with a white-passing Mexican-American
8. WesternAnimation.Pinkalicious And Peterrific: "Rafael, Frida, Mayor Martinez, and Coach Mario all have brown skin."

A Latino (or a character implied to be/of an ethnicity equivalent to Latinos) has this Phenotype Stereotype to distinguish him from non-Latino characters

1. Main.Space Jews: One character has brown feathers
2. Main.Spicy Latina: Used to describe a presumably Latina character.
3. Characters.Big Hero 6 Allies: Example says she is heavily implied to be Latina, while the character image has her with brown skin and dark hair.
4. Characters.Black Lagoon The Lovelace Household: "...downplayed... she does have a more notable tan"
5. Characters.Craig Of The Creek: "dark skin...fluent Spanish." Image also shows character fits this phenotype and has a Spanish name.
6. Characters.Justice League Action: "implied to be a Latina because of her tanned skin"
7. Characters.Law And Order Special Victims Unit: A mixed Latino is kind of tan, but his family is dark.
8. Characters.Max Steel 2013: "Alex has a light shade of brown [sic] and black hair." (Presumably they meant brown skin.)
9. Characters.Pacific Rim: A mixed Latino is fair in the movie itself, but drawn as tan in the tie-in comic compared to white characters.
10. Characters.Ready Jet Go: "She's Latina and she has brown skin"
11. Characters.Tekken 6: A Spanish Spexico character has brown skin and dark hair, unlike the other Europeans
12. Characters.The Loud House Kids: "Name's Francisco, has brown skin and raven hair."
13. Characters.SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy: The only Latina has dark skin
14. Characters.Yuri On Ice Other Ice Skaters: Tan Mexican-American
15. Characters.Wild Kratts: Latina with brown skin
16. Creator.Zoe Saldana: Afro-Latina and has dark skin, but the example notes that she usually plays black women and not Latinas.
17. Film.Knives Out: Marta (who is definitely Latina but no one knows from where) is tan and dark-haired.
18. Wrestling.Bella Twins: Tan Italian-Mexican (writeup itself explains that they are presented as the former rather than the latter because they're fairer).
19. Wrestling.Rosa Mendes: Darker-skinned Latina gets her heritage played up

Specific character/actor aversions: Latinos who do not fit this Phenotype Stereotype, without the In-Universe belief that they do

1. Characters.How To Get Away With Murder: Half-white, half-Latina and has fair skin
2. Characters.Killer Instinct: Vampire Latina with pale skin
3. Characters.Rick And Morty The Smith Sanchez Family: Presumably Latina woman is fair. Character image also shows she is blonde.
4. Characters.Sakura Wars Star Division: "her profile pic shows she's light skinned with very light brown hair."
5. Characters.Troll Hunters The Trollhunters: Pale-skinned implied Mexican
6. Creator.Cameron Diaz: Blonde and blue-eyed. But the example notes that she usually plays white women and not Latinas, possibly due to this belief.
7. Film.Machete Kills: Latina played by the fair-skinned, blonde, green-eyed Amber Heard (but the example notes that looking like this may be one hint that she's a fraud)
8. Film.Starship Troopers: Fair-skinned Argentinian, which is accurate to real life
9. Manga.A Silent Voice: Portrays black Brazilians

Setting or cast-wide aversions/zigzags/mixed examples: Some Latino characters look like that, some don't, often compared to the real-life diversity of Latinos

1. Anime.El Cazador De La Bruja (lacks context - "Played straight with Margarita. Averted with Antonio.") but I got the gist. The example writeup on the page itself also explains more. "Played straight with the raven haired, brown-eyed, tan olive skinned Margarita- yet averted with her husband Antonio, who has blond hair, blue eyes, and very fair skin."
2. Characters.Inazuma Eleven Supporting Characters: "He's a dark-skinned Argentinian. Averted by his teammates, most of them being fair-skinned." (This show is about soccer so his teammates are presumably also Argentinian)
3. ComicBook.A Peoples History Of The American Empire: "most unnamed Latino characters are, but all of the Latin American historical figures are portrayed correctly as whatever ethnicity / race they were"
4. Puerto Rico Strong: " Averted. Puerto Ricans are portrayed multiracially"
5. Barcelona: Fair skinned and blonde Spaniards
6. Literature.Decades Of Darkness: Fair-skinned upper classes of Latin America vs. dark skinned indio and mestizo.
7. Recap.Charmed S 5 E 6 The Eyes Have It: "Ava is dark skinned, but her aunt Lydia is fair-skinned too."
8. Series.Euphoria: One Latina "fits the stereotypical look", the other is fair
9. Series.Switched At Birth: Most look like this, the main Latina daughter doesn't
10. WesternAnimation.Elena Of Avalor: "Avalor is modeled on Latin cultures and is very diverse, with the average crowd shot showing skin tones ranging from very light to very dark"

Lacking context/misuse

1. Characters.Elvis Duran Morning Show: ZCE, Spanish surname but no indication of appearance
2. Characters.Survivor Cook Islands
3. Manga.Resident Evil Heavenly Island: "Averted with Inez, her name suggests she is Portuguese, but she is Caucasian." Unclear if she's actually Portuguese or just has a Latin-ish name.
4. Fillmore Next Stop Armageddon: "Oscar Guiererro is likely Latino, if his surname is anything to go by." Does not say anything about what Oscar looks like
5. Good Guy Comic: " Guy is depicted as having tan skin in colored artwork. Justified by the fact that this comic is autobiographical and creator may very well look like this." But neither the example nor the page confirm or imply that Guy is Latino, although the author's name is Brian Martinez.

Results:

• All Latinos have tan skin, or the expressed belief thereof: 8/51 (15.7%)
• A Latino character fits the Phenotype Stereotype: 19/51 (37.3%)
• A Latino character does not fit the Phenotype Stereotype: 9/51 (17.6%)
• Latinos within the work have a variety of skintones: 10/51 (19.6%)
• Lacking context: 5/51 (9.8%)