Selena: The Series Missing the Mark

I wanted to love Selena: The Series. 

So. Freaking. Much. 

It missed the mark by a long shot. It let me, and many generations of fans, down. The few redeemable qualities aren’t enough to carry the series. I will still watch the second season with trepidation, hoping, but not expecting, for it to get better. Netflix needs to do better and know that there IS an audience for Latinx-starring shows. 

And that we are watching. Holding them accountable. 

I share the whitewashing concerns of many and of the physical shrinking of her curvy body. I will not explore those two points here as many have already written extensively on that significance. The biggest pitfall, in my view, was that this was not the Selena story. It was the AB Quintanilla and Abraham Quintanilla story. And most importantly, Selena’s character had no agency. 

For most of the first season, she was treated like a paper doll. I half expected the men surrounding her to flat out say it; ‘just look pretty and sing pretty and be quiet on the rest of it.’ Now, even if the men around her did, in fact, treat her that way, she would have still had her own thoughts and moments of action. 

Teens especially are active participants in their own lives. They are excited about life and industrious with a naive energy from perspectives that have yet to be knocked down. So why didn’t Selena?

Selena did bring it upon herself to learn Spanish. But the mark was missed yet again. It wasn’t because of a life-long ambition to get closer to her heritage, but rather a necessity to save herself from further embarrassment, again depicting her as vapid. The only parts of the creative process she showed any interest in was the fashion—not her music or skill as a singer—and we know that isn’t quite right. 

Even if fashion was her genuine interest, they didn’t give her ambition due respect. Fashion is a legitimate ambition, but it was depicted as flighty and silly. She had actual entrepreneurial dreams that again were shown through the lens of a man when she tells her crush about them in a ‘please don’t think I’m silly’ sort of way, rather than the very real and tangible ambition that it was. They missed a great opportunity with her interest in fashion. I can only hope they give it credence in the second season. 

The only reason to watch at this point is Suzette. Her character actually displays some sort of agency, no doubt a direct effect of Selena’s real-life sister participating in the production of the series. The single most beautiful moment of the entire series transpired between Suzette and one of her fans in Mexico. When the same was attempted with Selena and the little girl who gave her the rose, it missed the emotional mark Noemi Gonzalez, who plays Suzette, achieved. 

Apart from Suzette, Madison Taylor Baez as young Selena is probably the only real saving grace in this first season. Her absence in the second season means they will finally need to make adult Selena the main character of her own series. How sad it has to be said.