Whiteness Beyond the Skin: Privilege and Exclusion in Latin American Media

This book reveals how the Latin American media scene—encompassing film, television, streaming, news, and advertising—conceals a powerful whiteness that still holds influence across the region. Bringing together scholars from eight countries, the volume combines whiteness studies, critical race theory, and media analysis, to trace the colonial roots of mestizaje, decode colorism’s visual language, and show how screen stories—from Mexico’s Golden Age cinema to Netflix telenovelas—favor light skin as a symbol of modernity while portraying Afro-descendant and Native identities as marginalized. Case studies analyze award-winning films, news, reality TV, and children’s ads, while also highlighting counter-hegemonic voices. Overall, the chapters argue that whiteness acts as the invisible operating system of Latin American media despite white ethnicity not being dominant in the region; and the book reveals how this idea shapes the media landscape and, ultimately, society itself.