'True Detective' Season 2 Cast Review: Are Latinos Degraded in Current Season?

"True Detective" is a highly popular tv series, which means that there are a lot of fans scrutinizing the every turn of the show. Unfortunately, this season, it seems that there is a bit of a problem in portraying a part of the population from Central California, where the story is set.

According to Pop Matters, in an episode halfway through the season, a big shootout that became the turning point of the murder mystery shows Colin Farrell's Detective Ray Velcoro looking around an overcrowded housing complex full of undocumented Latino immigrants and their children, muttering to himself with a look of disgust on his face.

While this seems to be passed off as just another reaction, it has a bigger impact on the shows treatment to the Latino population, especially considering the fact that the show portrayed them as violent drug-dealers, low-wage laborers, and fearful undocumented immigrants with characters defined through their sexual preference and activities -- prostitutes, gay lovers and pregnant girlfriends.

According to the website, while it is understandable that the show was set in an economically depressed community, portraying them as drunk, sexual deviants is harmful especially considering today's political issues involving Donald Trump -- which vilifies Mexicans and other Latinos as dangerous criminals and is causing a lot of debate for next year's elections.

It was also noted that the show failed to address the fact that as of 2014, Latinos are officially the largest ethnic group in California, with 14.99 million in the state compared to the 14.92 million white residents. It is also the third state in the U.S. not to have a Caucasian majority.

Variety noted that the series has been widely panned by critics, and it seems that writer Nic Pizzolatto was aware of his choice of casting but failed to provide deeper insight to Latino lifestyle other than the typical stereotypes. Pizzolatto already went under fire for his portrayal of female characters in the show's first season, but it seems that this time, he still failed to properly portray another important element in the series, with a certain brand of racism, intentional or otherwise.

As mentioned by Pop Matters, while set in the '90s hostile landscape, the show could have done better by giving more deep, diverse and complicated Latino characters instead of those merely trying to evade or thwart justice.

Do you think Latinos have been degraded in "True Detective" this season or is the setting apt in a less progressive '90s backdrop?