Latin Grammy: How to improve the show before it dies

The Latin Grammy Awards took over Las Vegas last night but left many fans feeling underwhelmed after an irritating show that failed to represent all Latinos. Here are our suggestions to make them watchable.

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KEEP IT CLASSY: The Latin ‘elite’ was supposed to be there last night but apparently they left their decorum at home. With jokes about hemorrhoids, Eugenio Derbez and Lucero just made us cringe. Yes, Latinos love to joke around but most of us keep our bathroom issues to ourselves, especially when the event involves wearing a tux or gown.

Juan Gabriel's performance saved the Latin Grammy


STOP STEREOTYPING: We don’t even know how many times we heard the words Latin passion, fire, spiciness, and other ridiculous labels that shouldn’t be used by us. Let other people define us with those limiting words. We know our culture is richer than that so we suggest taking such a public forum to show it without resorting to the usual and tired ‘Latin’ appeal.

Another poor taste snippet we had to endure was the explanation as to why the Latin Grammy are now in Spanish. The hosts proceeded to poke fun of ‘gringos’ who can't say band names like Ozomatli. With help of a video montage featuring the late Celia Cruz and Olga Tañon, they also implied our stars can’t communicate in English. However, they let Eva Longoria butcher our language. Really? We thought the point of these awards going mainstream was to let others in, not segregate ourselves. Why not just let people speak in whatever language they prefer?

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MIX IT UP: The musical performances and winners were predictable. Mostly, those who perform or present awards win one later on. This is common in all award shows and the Latin Grammy is joining that club resulting in a very boring evening. We know there's more to our musical universe than the usual suspects who were there last night. To showcase more of our talent, producers should take a hint and invite some of the people who win but never get air time onstage.

SHOW OUR DIVERSITY: No offense to Mexicans everywhere, but the show focused so much on Reg-Mex that those of us who don’t get down with Pepe Aguilar or Los Tucanes de Tijuana felt left out. A commenter on our live blog begged the show to branch out, "It's always the same with the reg-mex and it’s disrespectful towards other countries."

Let's hope the show improves next year, we wouldn't want to quit celebrating our music but at this juncture they have to try harder to keep us interested.

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