Jennifer Lopez has been hailed as a trailblazer: a Latina from the Bronx who transcended her humble origins to become a global superstar. She made the green dress she wore to the Grammy Awards in 2000 so famous that it led Google to create a separate image search function, Google Images.
J. Lo’s romantic life has been as closely followed as her artistic life. She and Ben Affleck got engaged in 2002 and later broke up, but they reunited in 2021. Their marriage the following year was her fourth and his second.
In February, she released “This Is Me … Now,” a self-funded multimedia project inspired by their love story that includes an album, a movie and a behind-the-scenes documentary titled “The Greatest Love Story Never Told.”
The internet has not been kind. The movie has been widely panned as nonsensical, corny, belabored and just plain weird, while the documentary is so unflattering it’s hard to believe she greenlighted it. She has been accused of being a narcissist and a phony, among other things. The tour Ms. Lopez announced shortly after the album’s release has since been canceled.
Throughout the documentary, friends and family members question her need to shine the spotlight on her new marriage, but she insisted that she wanted to share her journey to self-acceptance and true love.
For someone who’s reached the pinnacle of fame and wealth but struggled romantically, this might be meaningful. But for the rest of us — amid wars, post-pandemic inequalities, inflation, civil rights erosion and a terrifying election — a millionaire’s personal quest to find love just doesn’t inspire. This is especially true for young people of color. The notion that you, too, can rise from the barrio to Hollywood through sheer grit doesn’t speak to a generation disillusioned with the myth of meritocracy.
Despite my fascination with the telenovela of J. Lo’s life, as a Gen X Latina I find it hard to revel in the schadenfreude of her failure. After all, when Ms. Lopez rose to fame in the late 1990s — from her debut as a Fly Girl on the sketch comedy series “In Living Color” to playing the singer Selena on the big screen — Latina women had largely not seen themselves reflected in pop culture.
I was in my early 20s then and had just moved from Puerto Rico to Charlottesville, Va., to write my dissertation. My curls, curves and accent made it hard to blend in. I remember sitting in my tiny student apartment flipping through Vanity Fair when she appeared, looking defiantly over her shoulder in nothing but heels and panties. It was the zenith of diet culture when magazines exalted Kate Moss’s “heroin chic.” Ms. Lopez’s curvy size 6 was practically revolutionary. There she was flaunting the very same traits I was struggling to accept.
Her success felt transgressive and even hopeful. At a time when Latinos were vastly underrepresented in network and cable TV and in films, Ms. Lopez played Italian American, biracial and Apache characters, as well as those with no defined racial or ethnic background. She showed us that a Latina could be the girl next door, not just the maid or the immigrant — though she played those roles, too.
She proudly asserted her Nuyorican identity. This was meaningful at a time when U.S.-born Latinos were often stigmatized for their English-inflected Spanish and their urban roots. Her second-generation Latinidad was as groundbreaking then as Bad Bunny’s unapologetic so-called Non-English is now — and just as lucrative. Sure, her music and movies were middle of the road, but that was the point. She strategically prioritized broad appeal over indie credibility.
Ms. Lopez’s particular brand of urban Latinidad allowed her to top the charts across multiple categories — Latin, pop, dance, hip-hop and R&B — leaning on the voices and talents of Black artists while being packaged as safely non-Black. That seemed to be enough to carry her success for a time. But the tide is turning.
A clip from “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” where she reminisces about running around the block with messy hair, has hit a nerve with Bronx residents. “Stop using us to look relatable,” snapped back one TikTok user. Others have accused her of cultural appropriation and using ghost singers on her songs without crediting them.
The controversy speaks to the shifting ground of Latino identity in the United States. While historically Latinos occupied a vague middle ground in America’s racial hierarchy, imagined as neither Black nor white, there is now a collective push to recognize the broad diversity within the Latino community. In this new landscape, Latino artists are expected to acknowledge not just their challenges but also their privileges.
Yet, in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in 2020, rather than reckoning with her long and complicated relationship with Black culture, Ms. Lopez instead dropped a song referring to herself using a Spanish term that roughly translates into a “Black girl” from the Bronx. The term is sometimes used among Puerto Ricans as a form of endearment, but some people questioned her decision to use it.
My generation may have turned a blind eye because we were proud to see her breaking boundaries and challenging stereotypes, but nowadays we expect more from artists than mere representation.
When Ms. Lopez rose to fame 30 years ago, the private lives of artists were largely glimpsed through the grainy lens of the paparazzi. Social media has since allowed celebrities to craft their own narratives. But it has also democratized cultural critique, empowering us to hold celebrities accountable and to deplatform those who fall short by withholding our likes and follows.
Ms. Lopez has struggled with the influencer economy, making misguided attempts at virality and futile efforts to silence internet chatter by reportedly issuing copyright violation notices to creators critical of her.
Still, I find no joy in her takedown. And I question why other artists who also flaunt street cred while joining the millionaire’s club are not held to the same standards.
While J. Lo might currently be in her flop era, she once inspired us to embrace our roots, curves and naked ambitions. But her triumphs, though remarkable, haven’t quelled society’s unease with loud, ambitious Latinas.
“This Is Me … Now” has quickly faded into pop culture history. And the love story that inspired it is now rumored to be unraveling. If true, perhaps this will be the catalyst she needs to finally break free from fairy tales and clichés and step into her power once again.
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