Why My ‘Dora and The Lost City of Gold’ Tweet Went Viral

My ‘Dora and The Lost City of Gold’ tweet went viral last night. If you were watching the Kids’ Choice Awards this past weekend, you saw 17-year-old Isabela Moner razzle the stage as she watched the premiere of the first trailer from her new film Dora and The Lost City of Gold from Paramount Pictures. It thrilled so many kids to see a character many had been invested in since it debuted on the Nickelodeon channel 19 years ago, finally get a live-action adaptation from a major film studio it deserved.

When I viewed the trailer, what stood out most to me were the end credits which highlighted six names: Isabela Moner, Michael Peña, Eva Longoria, Danny Trejo, Benicio del Toro, and Eugenio Derbez. None of them were Anglo, all were Hispanic. The number of big Hispanic names (including Adriana Barraza, an Oscar nominee not included in this first trailer) being positioned as the main box-office draw for a major Hollywood studio film was and is an extraordinary sight in today’s current Hollywood climate.

So I went ahead and tweeted the following…The result, as you can see, 70 comments, 736 retweets and almost 4,000 likes as of this writing, surprised me. This level of engagement isn’t common, but I’m glad to say most of the reactions were positive, supportive, and embracing of the film.

Virality to me has always meant a momentary collective consensus of thought, opinion, or piece of content that sums up the feelings of a majority. Based on my data and a reading of the comments, I would venture to say the reasons the tweet went viral were the result of:

1. Timeliness of the tweet.
2. Commenting about it from a different perspective.
3. Speaking to an engaged and powerful community searching for equal representation in mainstream media.
4. Jubilation that a Hollywood film studio is taking a chance on Latinos as stars, and not as fillers.

Dora, though a Latina character, created by Valerie Walsh Valdes, Eric Weiner, and Chris Gifford, is a role model for all children around the globe. But for the Latino community, which has seen many of their contributions and achievements be ignored by mainstream Anglo-media, this moment is a galvanizing thumbs-up for Latino representation in Hollywood. Kudos to Paramount Pictures for greenlighting the film and being one of the few Hollywood studios to believe in Hispanic stories, Hispanic characters, and most importantly, Hispanic actors as the main box-office attraction.

Though the film is directed and written mostly by Caucasians, top-tier voices in the production crew are Hispanic. Take, for instance, Eugenio Derbez, who apart from co-starring in the film, is also an executive producer. Then you have film composer Germaine Franco who composed music for the Oscar-winning film Coco, along with other films such as Tag, Dope, and the STARZ television series Vida. She is also the first Latina to join the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And lest I forget Spanish cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe who worked on The Road, The Others, and The Sea Inside, all great films.

Will Dora and The Lost City of Gold become our ‘Black Panther,’ or ‘Crazy Rich Asians’? Only time will tell, but at least we’re headed on the right track. Dora and The Lost City of Gold will be released in theaters on August 2nd. Will you be watching?