Flamin’ Hot Movie Screens at White House as Joe Biden Celebrates Immigrant Heritage Month

A special screening was held for the new film Flamin’ Hot at the White House, shown to hundreds of viewers on the South Lawn where director Eva Longoria was joined by President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. President Biden remarked while addressing the crowd that the screening marks the “first-ever public screening of a film focused on the Hispanic community at the White House,” per Deadline. He also noted that it was “fitting that we host his screening during Immigrant Heritage Month.”

“Like so many of you, like my family and Jill’s from Ireland and from Italy, we look and see American families,” Biden explained, “and most of us came because we were persecuted. Most of us came because we weren’t welcome where we were. And when we got here, we had to fight like hell to be recognized. [The movie] is a reminder of that essential truth: opportunity. It’s a cornerstone of our democracy and the American dream.”

The U.S. president also referenced the ongoing writers strike by praising the writing of the film, saying that the screening was “a reminder of the power of stories, the importance of treating storytellers with dignity.”

Flamin’ Hot stars Jesse Garcia as Richard Montañez, a Mexican-American janitor working for Frito-Lay who has been credited with creating the famous “Flamin’ Hot” version of Cheetos. Biden says that Montañez’s story is also a reminder of “exactly what the Hispanic community embodies: opportunity and courage.”

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Flamin’ Hot Tells the Story of the American Dream

“Richard Montañez disrupted the food industry in the ’90s by channeling his Mexican American heritage to help turn Flamin’ Hot Cheetos into a multibillion-dollar brand today and a cultural phenomenon,” Longoria also said of Montañez’s story, per USA Today. “We are telling a story that celebrates the American entrepreneurial dream without sidestepping the fact that the dream isn’t available in the same way for everyone.”

In a recent interview with MovieWeb, Longoria also told us about the film, “So I feel like this is an opportunity to show the world the Mexican American community in a way they’ve never seen it, not villainized, not demonize, not attacked. We’re not Narcos. We’re so much more than that. And this was a love letter to the Latino community, even the Cholos and the gangbangers are humanized, and complex, and family-oriented.”

It’s not the first time in recent months President Biden has screened a film to acknowledge the special month. In February, he hosted a screening of Till in commemoration of Black History Month; the film tells the true story of Emmett Till, a teenage boy murdered by a racist lynch mob in the 1950s. In May, Biden also screened the Disney+ series American Born Chinese at the White House to help celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Directed by Longoria, Flamin’ Hot was written by Linda Yvette Chavez and Lewis Colick. Along with Jesse Garcia, in the lead, the film also stars Annie Gonzalez, Emilio Rivera, Vanessa Martinez, Dennis Haysbert, Tony Shalhoub, and Matt Walsh.

Flamin’ Hot is now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.