Angelique Cabral
She’s smart, she’s strong, and she’s one of the best things about Fox’s new comedy series, Enlisted.
The fact is, Enlisted is a whole lot better than it should have been. The original premise sounded dangerously like Gomer Pyle, USMC, which seemed pretty horribly inappropriate in the twenty-first century world of Iraq and Afghanistan, but the creators of the show have found a clever–and yes, funny–way to explore life as a soldier at home that’s both respectful and a little nuts.
And Angelique Cabral is in the middle of it, playing a platoon sergeant who is happily Latina–without an accent or stereotypes.
The current episode, available here for free on Hulu, is a showcase for Cabral. It’s also a commentary on the almost painfully self-conscious “diversity” of modern casting. The show is about as multi-racial as you can get, with a camp commander who is African American and members of both platoons from pretty much every imaginable ethnicity. But they know it on Enlisted. They even make fun of it. As one of her soldiers says to Cabral on a particularly boozy night out, “We got all our ethnic bases covered: Latin, Asian, African-American.” And the Asian contingent agrees: “We’re like a yogurt commercial!” And when a blonde walks by, it’s Cabral who says, “Keep walkin’, white girl! Your had your time!” And all this is after she’s been referred to as “a bargain basement Jessica Alba, which she most definitely isn’t.”
Parker Young, Geoff Stults, Angelique Cabral, Chris Lowell
and Keith David. Patrick Photo: Ecclesine-FOX
The gig on Enlisted would have to quality as Cabral’s big break, TV-wise. She’s been working her way up in Hollywood for a decade or so, staring with unnamed roles as “Waitress” and “Actress #1” on the soaps and nighttime shows until just the last couple of years ago, when she made a couple of feature films–The Perfect Family with Kathleen Turner and Emily Deschanel, and Friends with Benefits with Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. The TV roles kept coming to, about equal parts Latina and non-Latina, playing best friends, doctors, and party girls. Then she was cast in the pilot of Devious Maids…and abruptly killed off.
Enlisted took a long time making it from the “up-fronts” last year to the Fox schedule, but it’s numbers are decent and growing, and Cabral is showing off her talent for comedy and class, even if she’s dressed in khaki most of the time. You can catch her on Fox, Fridays at 9P.
