Selena Quintanilla, also known as the Queen of Tejano music, was an American-Mexican songwriter, fashion designer, and spokesperson. Her contributions to paving the path for Latin music in America made her one of the greatest artists in America. Netflix’s Selena The Series is another frugal attempt to capture her momentous stardom.
Her journey to stardom has not been an easy one, from playing in the garage to becoming one of the greatest artists of Tejano Music at such an early age. However, Netflix failed to do justice to her life. It would be nearly impossible to reproduce all the emotions, the highs and lows and the complexities in her life.
Selena The Series had the music, the acting and the narrative but it completely missed out on the emotions, internal conflicts and bringing out Selena as a human. From the beginning, Selena is placed on a pedestal, she doesn’t make many mistakes and barely rebels when things don’t go her way. She is portrayed as a teenager who is just interested in changing her hair every two days and designing her clothes. It is overwhelming to take on so much at a young age, but the series made it look so easy. Seemed as though, she just happily played along while her father Abraham spoon-fed her.
Even the other characters, her parents, siblings and boyfriend barely have any depth to them. For example, her mother was almost insignificant in the show. She merely had a few dialogues and was mostly concerned about paying bills. Additionally, I felt that most of the characters came off as frivolous. Forget about covering their internal conflicts, their characters weren’t even established properly.
Selena The Series was flat, had no build-up and definitely no climax. At most, the only conflict was with the label and that also was played off as a minor issue. In reality, Selena Quintanilla persevered so hard to get there. And just when things picked up and got interesting the show ended. Honestly, it would have been interesting to see her battle, the conflict of picking between her boyfriend and music and how she did it all.
Nevertheless, at least Netflix got the music and the actors pretty accurately.
Stream It or Skip It
SKIP IT! It was good to find out about Selena and make her known to the current generations, but was it accurate? Absolutely not. This series was overall just a teaser to Selena’s life and I had to Google the rest of it. Nevertheless, it’s a light watch and the last resort.
Selena The Series is now streaming on Netflix.
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