BY RAY MONELL
Roberto Orci has thrived as a screenwriter and executive producer in Hollywood, but he hasn't let his achievements obscure the degree to which Latinos are underrepresented in television and film.
His way of responding, in part? Try "Matador," the edgy new espionage thriller on "Machete" director Robert Rodriguez's El Rey network, starring Gabriel Luna as Tony Bravo, a DEA agent who gets recruited by the CIA to pose as a professional soccer player by day while serving as a spy by night.
"The Latin community is about to explode in media," Orci, 41, says of the new channel, which airs "Matador" on Tuesdays at 9 p.m.
"It's no accident that (Rodriguez) and I got together. I've been in the industry 10, 15 years. He's been in it longer. It took us that long to even meet. It took us that long to even pitch each other something.
Why is that? "I think it's because I'm going through the studio system learning my thing, trying not to raise hell, trying to (earn) my stripes, and he's doing his thing," adds the Mexico City-born scribe, who co-wrote the screenplays for "Transformers" (2007), "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013) and "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014).
"And it takes a minute for it to occur to all of us to get together and raise hell. Finally, it's all coming to the surface, and the frustration is justified and real."
Already picked up for another 13-episode season, "Matador" features many familiar Latino faces, from Alfred Molina to Elizabeth Peña and Julio Oscar Mechoso.
What's unfamiliar about the show, much like the channel it's on, is that the presence of Latinos behind the scenes won't be as rare a sight as it is in the rest of the industry.
"The Latino Media Gap" - a recent study tracking the state of Latinos in American media - found that when it came to the top ten TV shows from 2010 to 2013, Latinos accounted for just 1% of producers, 2% of writers, 4% percent of directors - and none of the show creators.
During the same period, 2% of directors, 2% of producers and 6% of the writers involved in top-10 movies were Latino, despite the demographic comprising 17% of the U.S. population.
"I've gone to this producers conference, for example, for years where I've talked about the Latino market," says Orci, who'll helm the next "Star Trek" film for his feature directorial debut.
"If someone tries to talk to you as a Latino and they bull---- you, that's where they get in trouble. It has to be authentic, and so, whether or not you speak Spanish or English, if they're gonna try to come at you culturally, they better understand the culture a little bit.
"They think that if they just (present) … some kind of immigrant story, or Spanglish story, that we're gonna go for it. That's not the case."
Orci is fully aware of one of the caveats with having the reins of a TV show - one perfectly summed up by a maxim made famous the Spider-Man saga: "With great power comes great responsibility."
"(The network) is giving you total freedom, and if anything goes wrong, it's all on you," he says.
"There's a bit of pressure; we have to make a good show. But the fact that we're talking about this is a small victory. We can celebrate some progress having been made in increasing diversity in media, but we can't stand still."
