I Couldn’t Fall In Love With Selena: The Series on Netflix
By: Quarantined Binge-Watching Queen
Tags: Netflix, Selena Quintanilla, Texas, Review, Music

With a trailer that has amassed almost 2 million views on YouTube at the time of this post’s publication, I clearly was not the only one who was excited for this much anticipated new series on the late and great Queen of Tejano. But sadly, after watching all of the episodes it pains me to say that I could not fall in love with this series and believe me I REALLY wanted to.

As a proud Latina who was born in Texas, who grew up listening to Selena and who has visited her memorial statue in Corpus Christi I was excited and curious to see how Netflix would tell this story since it has been 23 years since Jennifer Lopez starred in the Selena film that was released in 1997.

First, I will preface this by saying that if you’re going to watch this series you can’t go into it with JLo’s film in mind. I saw a lot of online comparisons when the series was released. Simply put the two don’t compete mainly because it’s not a fair fight. I mean it’s Jennifer Lopez for crying out loud.

Instead, what you should go into this series with in mind is that you’ll get more of Selena’s family than you will get of Selena. If it was done correctly, this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. I mean there were definitely some fun facts that I didn’t know about that revolved around how her and her siblings started out in their band in the early days that I wasn’t originally aware of, but there were also some things that I felt could’ve been left out. For example, did I need to know that AB’s first wife (he’s had several) was the sister of the woman he was originally pursuing? Personally, I think I could’ve been spared that detail.

Yet despite a good amount of screen time being devoted to Selena’s siblings, it was the casting of her father (Abraham Quintanilla) that was one bright spot for me. Ricardo Chavira’s performance as the head of the household was brilliant. By the end of the series, you can’t stand him.

Something else that I couldn’t stand though was the lack of time that was devoted to Selena’s husband, Chris Perez. Out of nine episodes, we don’t see Chris and Selena interact until we’re seven episodes in! It seems like they were taking Amor Prohibido a little too seriously. I’m sure he’ll play a bigger role in the second season (I hope), but even then it might be too late to win over fans who fell in love with their love story. A real life Romeo and Juliet and all we could get out of Netflix were three episodes to tell it in the first season?

If you couldn’t tell my romance-loving heart is pretty salty about that, but what really makes me sad is thinking about how this series could’ve been so much better. In a world where Latinx stories are underrepresented in the television and film industry, there was a real chance here to do something special and I just think production fell short on this. But because I don’t want to end my review on a complete sour note, (I’ll spare you from ranting about the time that was devoted to Selena’s hairstyles and bad wigs used in this series) I want to say there was one thing that really resonated with me.

Like Selena, I am a proud Mexican-American who has always struggled with either not being Mexican enough or being looked at differently recently because I was too Mexican in the eyes of people thinking I was the only Mexican living in a town with no diversity. This constant struggle Selena faces throughout the series of not fitting in with either side of her culture, but that she eventually overcomes by learning to speak Spanish and embracing it through her singing was one of the few things I enjoyed seeing because it was something I could relate to and I’m sure it’s something a lot of other people could relate to as well.

So will I be watching the second season when it’s released? Yes. Even though I didn’t fall in love with this first one, I’m curious to see how they’ll wrap it up and who knows maybe they can turn this thing around?

In the meantime, stay safe, stay streaming and stay tuned for next week’s Netflix review.

-Quarantined Binge-Watching Queen