Netflix released Selena: The Series on December 4, 2020. The show is a retelling of the life of famous Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla and her family. Born in Texas in 1971, Quintanilla entered the music industry at a very young age. She was the vocalist and outfit designer, her brother AB on the bass, and her sister Suzette on the drums. Her musical career started as ‘Selena y Los Dinos’ but became ‘Selena’ when she got a record deal.
While there has been a film of Selena featuring Jennifer Lopez, the series is a two-part biography. The first part focuses on her childhood and journey to fame, and the second part on her already big success as she works towards a platinum album.
The series takes its time to show us their lives outside of music. It shows the parents’ struggle and stress over money and how they lost their houses due to the depression. It also shows us the kids’ conflict, wanting an everyday life but that being impossible because of their music career. How starting a family and being on the road all the time can affect you. How wanting to be with someone but it’s forbidden (in Selena’s case) or because you are continually traveling (in AB and Suzette’s case), is painful.
They also show that you still want validation and support from your parents, no matter how famous you are. Selena: The Series demonstrates how big companies will try to play you, to continually check your contract before signing and reminding both parties of the agreement to keep true to it.
One big theme the series focuses on, besides retelling the life of Selena, is working hard on what you want instead of waiting for it to happen. You make it happen. The other theme is to be true to who you are — your style, your ambitions, it’s all you. You can’t let others tell you what to become.
It is becoming a trend with many of the latest Netflix series that the actors are awkward for the first three episodes. I don’t understand if it’s because the actors don’t have time to properly immerse themselves into the character or if they are new at acting, or maybe they didn’t rehearse enough before rolling.
There is nothing wrong with being camera shy and awkward as an emerging actor/actress. Still, when the entire cast, excluding Cristian Serratos, Noemi González, Hunter Reese Peña, and Gabriel Chavarria, aren’t portraying their character, this throws the viewer into an awkward loop. Thankfully, as the episodes progress, the acting gets better, even with the characters’ young adult actors’ introduction.
There is one aspect that remains off-putting through the whole series — their incorporation of English and Spanish. Yes, the typical use of certain Spanish words was excellent and is the most common way to remind the viewers that they are Hispanic or Hispanic descendants. However, in Selena: The Series, they make people unnaturally converse in both languages. For example, in a phone call, the conversation starts in English, weirdly transitions to Spanish and ends with a sentence in English that interrupts the person on the other side, who is speaking in Spanish. It doesn’t feel natural. Yes, you can talk in both languages on the phone, but they didn’t do an excellent job making us believe they knew the languages.
The creation of this series is a perfect opportunity for younger generations to learn about the singer. As someone that didn’t know much about Selena, Netflix did a good job. Although I haven’t read much about her, so far, they seem to stick to what happened.
Despite the uncomfortable acting and Spanish inclusion, the filming, editing, and costume were great; the camera movements whenever Selena was on stage and the transition between the crowd and Selene looking at her band were flawless.
The makeup was on point. None of the cast looked like a clown. Be it a natural look or something more daring, the makeup was adequately done — the same with hairstyling on natural hair. With Selena’s mother, performed by Seidy López, something was going on with her wigs. I feel it was purposely done to match the time the series takes place, and since I know close to nothing about wigs in that era, I won’t judge. At least we learn who Selena gets the inspiration of constantly changing her hair from.
If you are into songwriting / music production or want to know what goes into it, the series shows you the process and struggle through AB, who became Selena’s music producer. If you are interested in clothing design, pay close attention to Selena. She designs the band’s clothing as well as herself. Selena hopes to one day release her clothing line.
There is comedy, romance, drama, life; I mean, the series has a little bit of everything. Even its own version of fantasy. Who should watch Selena: The Series? Everybody who wants to know about her life. You don’t need to know about her to see the show.
I give this show a 7.5 out of 10 stars due to the awkward acting and Spanish inclusion.