Selena: The Series Part 1 Review: Cómo Me Duele, This Show is Not Good

Selena: The Series, “Part 1” is an act of treason against The Queen. It brings me actual pain to say it, but I write no Mentiras.

Selena Quintanilla, La Reina, Queen of Tejano Music is so-named because of the incredible and dynamic power that she had, on and off stage. This series saps her of all of that power and makes her a complacent, saccharine, shallow, and agency-less trophy.

Selena: The Series renders Selena a mere figment of imagination, rather than bringing her back to life. 

Let me admit before I really dig in that I bring my personal connection to Selena to this review.

I’m a Mexican American woman who grew up as a brown-skinned girl living in the white-washed South West world. While I certainly relate very closely to Selena’s multicultural identity, and how she navigated it with great humor, that is only one piece of why she is so significant to me.

Selena was bold, passionate, sexy, and charming in a completely self-possessed way. The richness and depth in her voice was equally reflected in her confident character.

Because of Selena, when others would label my boldness, sexiness, and ambition as “challenging” or “difficult,” or “bitchy,” I recognized myself as a star. 

Selena matters to me. So sue me, I’m picky about how she’s portrayed.

Indeed, I’m personally saddened that this Netflix version of Selena’s story doesn’t have an ounce of the magic that so many of us were inspired by. 

13 Going on 30

Selena: The Series‘s fatal flaw is its decision to cast Christian Serratos, who is thirty years old, as fifteen to twenty year old Selena.

Serratos is a great actress, but this is not the role for her. 

Serratos’s version of fifteen seems to be to constantly giggle and slouch her shoulders in her 80s-style clothing. It is beyond distracting. 

At times, the absurdity of a thirty-year-old woman trying to pretend to be a young teenager is actual comedy. There are conversations between Selena and her dad where her dad points out her young age and I laugh out loud. 

The age difference between the actress and the icon she portrays is the root of many issues. 

Selena was confident and passionate. Here, she is shy and has a weird high-pitched breathy voice. And, I swear, she is happy in every scene until the final episodes where there is a romantic conflict. 

One reason this is so harmful to the series is that it goes to great lengths to show how demanding, stifling, and oppressive this life was for Selena. Her mom and dad get mad and scold her in the back of the van for literally using her voice at all. At all!

That is a fascinating reality that is quite particular to Selena. There aren’t many other people who were the lead singer of their family band from age 8 and who spent the majority of their life sleeping in the same room as their entire family. 

That would do something to a person and even more to a girl going through adolescence. 

But, on Selena: The Series it does absolutely nothing to Selena. We see a, frankly, borderline abusive situation, but we don’t see any internal conflict that arises from it.

Selena, the same woman who playfully disses her family on stage at the Tejano Music Awards, just brushes off the extreme control her father has over every single aspect of her life with a sweet smile? I am not buying it. 

This show feels like it was written by someone who has no idea what it is like to be a horny teenage girl with a super controlling father.  

That is really too bad because it is such a delightful and real thing to tap into. Selena in particular always oozed this mischievous, sultry, carefree badassness that is essential to any truly cool teenage girl. 

The show just misses this. It is a miss that is nearly impossible to get over, even though there are things to love on the series.

Selena Quintanilla had Mexican heritage on both sides of her family, and her mother’s side has Cherokee heritage. She had brown skin, prominent Indigenous features, and a thick booty.

Serratos has Mexican heritage on one side of her family and European on the other. Serratos is very thin and has a relatively light skin. 

It may not be quite fair to say that the show white-washes Selena, but it at least comes close and it is certainly worth pushing back on this casting choice. There are many multi-talented non-white Mexican American, Indigenous-Latinx and Afro-Latinx actresses that could have been given the opportunity. 

No, Selena wasn’t Afro-Latinx, but she wasn’t white-Latinx either. If the representation isn’t going to be totally accurate, then it should skew towards marginalized groups. 

Selena was accepted as a sex symbol even though her looks didn’t abide by the Eurocentric beauty standards we continue to have in place. Erasing some of those features of her identity on the TV show dims the significance that she has had and continues to have for many of us.

At no fault of Serratos, the show also erases how deeply and sincerely charitable Selena was. The only time charity comes up is when Selena asks her dad to go to the Hands for Hunger event. It comes across as if the only reason Selena wants to go is to see a boy. 

That’s fine, I’ve been there. 

However, there is never any follow-up or circling back to how philanthropy was as big a thing for Selena as chasing crushes.

It’s as if Selena is just a two-dimensional version of what dads think their teenage daughters are like. 

We get no insight into Selena as a complex individual and we’re left with someone who is a prop doll on her father’s ride toward success. 

Bidi-Bidi Bomb Bomb

The drawn-out pacing and strange editing on the show also hold it back from success.

Every single episode of the season, including the final one, ends at a place that makes no sense. There are no cliffhangers or climactic moments. It honestly feels as if the series was a film that was arbitrarily cut at the 45-minute mark. 

This contributes to another flaw in the show: it’s boring. 

The highest tension moment comes when there are fans jumping on the rig connecting the van to the trailer. The crowd is frenzied and pushes against the front row fencing. It feels ominous and like someone’s about to get crushed. 

And then, nothing.

Several scenes later this leads to the trailer becoming detached. Even that is not dramatic but is shown as a funny moment for the family. 

This is another strange move because both A.B. and Suzette are at really interesting places in their lives. They are in stages of becoming. 

Rather than lean into those conflicts and what each sibling’s personal growth means for the band and for Selena, the show gives us this irrelevant event. 

It’s a pattern that is repeated. It is almost as if the series is being forced into a simplified and unemotional mold in the same way that Abraham forces his family into a prescribed and rigid life. 

We never learn why Abraham is driven to make his daughter a star. It is not really even clear if he loves music. Based on this show, it isn’t clear if any of them love music. 

Abraham is unceasing in his efforts to control his daughter. He becomes irate when he realizes his adult daughter, who has never been able to have any semblance of a normal childhood because of his insistence, has fallen for another adult. 

This is Britney conservatorship level problematic. Yet, the show makes no efforts to message that this behavior is simply not okay. 

Abraham pulls his daughter from school, forces her to work to exhaustion, and then gets pissed when she asks to go to the movies. 

Why in the world is he like this? Why is his wife okay with it? Why is his ambition admirable and Selena’s ambition trivialized? Why does this show think Abraham’s speeches about never stopping are anything but creepy?

“Why” is a huge, big, fat question that looms over each member of the Quintanilla family.

Because we don’t understand their motivations, their fears, or their dreams it is difficult to care much about what happens. This is especially true for a biopic where we know what is going to happen in the end. 

A TV show dedicated to Selena is an opportunity to know the characters intimately, unlike any Wikipedia page could provide.

Unfortunately, the characters are presented naked, without their deeper reasoning and motivations to clothe them. 

It is saddening that the music in the show is not better.

The concerts are great and there is a high level of accuracy with the costuming and staging. The rendition of “Qué Creías” is particularly excellent, with the romantic conflict overlaid onto the dramatic song. 

For me, Serratos’s performance never goes beyond imitation. It actually reads like an imitation of Jennifer Lopez’s version of Selena in the 1997 film Selena most of the time. 

The dancing is practiced but never soulful.

Admittedly, Selena is absolutely unmatched when it comes to stage presence. It may have been an impossible feat for a person who hasn’t actually performed on stage. (Becky G would have been a really interesting person to consider for the role, in my opinion).

Beyond the music from the titular star, the score is flat and tries to force emotional connection when the script hasn’t earned it. 

A repeated conflict in the series is how Abraham shuts out his daughter Suzette’s feelings and thoughts. During a scene where Suzette is finally confronting her dad about his monomaniacal approach to the band, the music softens and beckons us closer to the pair. 

But, um, the dad just says the same thing as always and never recognizes his extreme toxicity. It’s not sweet, it’s annoying at best. 

There are also So. Many. Quiet. Dinners. 

We get it, the business of becoming a pop-star is rough. But it should also be exciting!

There is simply no liveliness to the journey. If you’ve seen That Thing You Do you know it can be done. 

There aren’t any truly exciting moments on the series where the audience can feel the joy that these artists surely must have felt. How Suzette finds out she’s going on her first date packs more of a punch than the team finding out they have a golden record. 

The show gives too much time to the nuts and bolts without tapping into the juice: how it all emotionally impacts Selena y Los Dinos. 

Y Los Dinos

While the show fails at capturing the special magic of Selena, it does a good job of digging into the experiences of Los Dinos, Selena’s band. 

A.B. is a fascinating character who battles with OCD-like symptoms while living a nomadic and messy life. He faces immense pressure from his father and we can see how this contributes to some of his fears about the world. 

Some of the strongest parts of the season are when we see A.B. as a dad. He is able to compose new songs while using his daughter’s toy keyboard, symbolizing perhaps how the true extent of his talents are trapped in an unlived childhood. 

It is fun to see the wrenching process of coming up with a song.

When Pete and A.B. bring “Como la Flor” to Selena and they practice it in the back of the bus, we finally get a glimpse of the beauty and magic of this team. 

It will be interesting to see what Selena: The Series, “Part 2,” covers. It would behoove the show to continue past Selena’s death to include A.B.’s grief and any ripple effect that has on everyone.

Suzette, played by Noemi Gonzalez, is another strong character. She isn’t given development, but she is given dimension.

This is an example of how a performance can elevate surface level characterization to rich storytelling. 

The parking lot scene where Suzette realizes that she is an inspiration is quietly poignant. It’s a truth about the family band that is worth highlighting. Selena: The Series earns a star by placing a nice spotlight on Suzette’s iconic status as a female drummer. 

This review saves the best for last: Julio Macias as Pete Astudillo. 

Macias takes the material and buffs off all the dead skin so what we see is the glow. He gives a layered performance that brings life to this key member of the band. 

The friendship between Pete and A.B. is dynamic and sweet. They make beautiful music together. The script can’t pull its attention away from Abraham long enough to really develop the relationship, but it gives us a good start.

Pete’s conversation with Abraham about him leaving the band is intimate. We feel how hard it is for Pete to pursue his own dreams, especially because it is making him break bonds of loyalty with this family he loves. 

It is also really cool and significant to see Macias play a character that is such a departure from his more typical roles, like his turn as Oscar “Spooky” Diaz on On My Block.

This man has range! The series proves that Macias, and other actors like him, can do more than one type of role. Put him in a Pride & Prejudice adaptation, I say!

If you are looking to be inspired by a young Latinx teen’s musical talent, watch Julie and the Phantoms. If you want to learn more about Selena’s dad, brother, and the Tejano music scene, watch this show.

There’s another pivotal reason to watch this true-life tale. Latinx actors, writers, producers, and directors created it.

Even if Selena: The Series only succeeds by providing a vehicle for Latinx talents to be recognized on the largest mainstream stage, that is a meaningful success that Selena herself championed. 

Backstage Passes

• The actress who plays Young Selena, Madison Baez, is an absolute phenom. That voice! That face!
• The 80s fashions are totally rad! But these wigs, these wigs are not it. Wow.
• Selena was so very flirty in real life. There is no way that she and Chris weren’t getting their mack on all over that bus. 
• Three houses??!! Things have changed. 
• If Selena were a teenager today, she would undoubtedly be a Youtube sensation. 
• Although the show says over and over that Selena is Mexican and American, we don’t see any evidence of her Mexican culture in her life. 
• Selena’s Bedazzle excitement is very relatable. 
• Why was Selena not into Pete! No, really. I want to know why.
• Selena: The Series, “Part 2,” will feature Bidi Bidi Bom Bom and that’s enough for me to stick around for.

What did you think of this season of Selena: The Series? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Selena: The Series, “Part 1,” is streaming now on Netflix.

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