"Devious Maids" premiered Sunday night on Lifetime, the first American television series featuring a main cast of Hispanic women. But is the show a step forward for Latinas in Hollywood, or does it just reinforce old stereotypes?

Much like the Hispanic community, feelings on the subject are far from homogenous.

The series is executive produced by Eva Longoria, the "Desperate Housewives" actress who has since become a force for social good, leading Hispanic outreach for the Obama campaign and receiving a master's degree in Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge. She is again paired with Marc Cherry, writer and creator of both "Desperate Housewives" and "Devious Maids."

The setting for "Maids" is a familiar one: wealthy families in Beverly Hills scheme for power and influence, servants know more than they reveal, and the motives for a murder are cloudier than they first appear.

But the story focusus on the lives of five maids, all Hispanic, played mostly by television veterans: Judy Reyes of "Scrubs," Dania Ramirez of "Premium Rush," Ana Ortiz of "Ugly Betty" and Roselyn Sanchez of "Chasing Papi." Newbie Edy Ganem also stars.

Aside from Ganem, these are all proven, capable actresses. All of them have paid their dues, playing stereotypical characters at some point in their careers. Now they have the chance to anchor an ensemble drama, and it would be silly to expect them to pass up such an opportunity.

But does their portrayal of maids help to relegate other Hispanics, particularly women, to those types of roles in the future? Some activists think so.

"It is not wrong to be a maid, or even a Latina maid, but there is something very wrong with an American entertainment industry that continually tells Latinas that this is all they are or can ever be," wrote Alisa Valdes, a New York Times bestselling novelist and author of The Dirty Girls Social Club.

"It's not just that Hollywood sees Latinas as one-dimensional, subservient sex objects; it is that this is how our nation has historically viewed all of the native peoples in the Americas, including the vast portions of this country that were once part of Mexico and Spain," said Valdes.

Longoria has taken point in defending the show. "Are maids a realistic reflection of Latinas in America today??" she wrote. "Yes, but they are not a reflection of every Latina."

"I choose to break the cycle of ignorance by bringing to light something we have not seen before, a deeper, more complex side to the women who live beyond the box that some choose to put them in. The only way to break a stereotype is to not ignore it. The stereotype we are grappling with here is that as Latinas, all we are is maids. And yet, this is a show that deconstructs the stereotype by showing us that maids are so much more," continued Longoria.

While the National Hispanic Media Coalition is supportive of the show and the exposure it gives these Latina actresses, some critics say the characters aren't representative of the real lives of American Hispanics.

"Many of my family members have worked as maids, waitresses, factory seamstresses and janitors," wrote Michelle Herrera Mulligan, editor in chief for Cosmopolitan for Latinas. "I watched my mother come home from jobs where she took orders, cleaned floors, and answered to wealthy women. But here's the difference between them and the women shown: In our house, the priority was finding a better life, whatever it cost. My mother didn't waste her time trying to seduce 'el patrón,' 'gossip about her bosses,' or beg for their mentorship."

And perhaps that is the central disagreement about "Devious Maids." Is seeing Hispanics on television in leading roles a net benefit, even if those roles are subservient within the storyline?

African Americans actors have long struggled with this conundrum. Hattie McDaniel herself, who became the first black Oscar winner in 1939 for her portrayal of the house slave Mammy, received a great deal of criticism for taking similar roles, though none can dispute that she broke ground for the more positive and empowering roles that followed.

Of course, "Devious Maids" is a soap opera, based on the telenovela "Ellas son la Alegría del Hogar." Caucasian soap opera characters aren't expected to be representative of their race (and by all accounts, Susan Lucci's turn as a pill-popping terror in "Maids" is the highlight of the show), so it seems a bit of a double standard to enforce that restriction on Hispanic characters.

Still, did every maid need to be Latina, and did every Latina on the show need to be a maid? Why not feature a diverse cast of maids, as well as a diverse cast of employers? The struggles of the maids often center around immigration issues, but African, Southeast Asian and Eastern European immigrants suffer at the hands of the ICE as well, and Longoria herself showed us that a Latina can make a convincing and intriguing lady of the house.

"Devious Maids" is a lost opportunity, but it is not a completely wasted one. As for whether it's worth watching, that depends entirely on your opinion of Marc Cherry's imagination.