Chicana/o Studies vs. Blue Beetle | PhD Candidate Kevin Cruz Amaya | Silly Questions, Smart Bruins

When it topped the box office last week, “Blue Beetle” set several impressive records, becoming the first major live-action superhero film with a Latino lead as well as the first film to break past the industry-reviving “Barbenheimer” juggernaut.

It’s also the first DC movie in a while to capture the spirit of family and fun that Marvel has long perfected, feeling like a breath of fresh air, especially for the vastly underserved Latino moviegoing public. According to UCLA’s 2023 Hollywood Diversity Report, in 2022, only 2.3% of theatrical film leads and 6.1% of streaming film leads were Latino.

To celebrate the film’s cultural impact, we reached out to Kevin Cruz Amaya, a doctoral candidate in the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. Born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, and raised in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, Amaya studies the roles played by artists like Gilbert “Magu” Luján in the worldmaking impulses of the Chicano civil rights movement — and he found plenty in “Blue Beetle” to fire his imagination.

In the fifth installment of the UCLA College video series “Silly Questions, Smart Bruins,” Amaya explains why inclusivity is crucial to superhero films, why we need an origin story for Jaime Reyes’ abuela and why the Blue Beetle could win any bug-themed brawl, antennae down.

Credits:
“SQSB Theme” by What’s Everyone Working On? Music Publishing
Music: Bensound License code: UBCFNERF1AXUVPXC
Music from #Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/matrika/overdrive
License code: 1DLWJEWDZ4TRBVPL
Royce Hall: Beyond My Ken/Wikimedia Commons
Beetle: Erik Karits/Pixabay

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