Speaker 1: On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy zef
Speaker 1: in best start changing it with the beck Del Cast.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
Speaker 1: my name is Caitlin Darante, and today is a much
Speaker 1: requested episode that we're excited to bring you. But first,
Speaker 1: it is our sacred duty, our soul and duty, our
Speaker 1: only duty in this lifetime to tell you what the
Speaker 1: podcast is about, which we don't always remember to do.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say that, like it's
Speaker 1: our sacred duty to to sing, since we've been doing
Speaker 1: that a week lately, we have been singing quite a bit,
Speaker 1: I feel like, because I mean, if you've clicked on
Speaker 1: the episode, you know, I just it would not be
Speaker 1: you know, I can imitate a Disney orchestra, but I
Speaker 1: can't be Selina. So I'm it's best if we know.
Speaker 1: Although I have heard I mean when when Selena songs
Speaker 1: come up at karaoke, they always are the most spirited
Speaker 1: performance as whether they are good or really bad. Um,
Speaker 1: but yes, it's our those our sacred duty to pod
Speaker 1: in this life. Yeah when in our podcast, it is
Speaker 1: a podcast where we examine movies from an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 1: That's true, and what we've noticed is that a lot
Speaker 1: of movies do a very bad job. Hold on, no,
Speaker 1: it's true. Um, And we use the Bechtel tests simply
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point to inspire a much larger conversation.
Speaker 1: And the Bechtel Test, of course, is a media metric
Speaker 1: created by queer cartoonist Alison Becktel, sometimes called the Bechtel
Speaker 1: Wallace Test and by our standards because there's some different
Speaker 1: renditions of the test, but the one that we use
Speaker 1: is two people with names of any marginalized gender speak
Speaker 1: to each other about something other than a man for
Speaker 1: at least two lines of dialogue. You think it would happen,
Speaker 1: but you think it would happen more than it does.
Speaker 1: But today is I'm really excited. It has been a
Speaker 1: much requested episode that I think we've gotten another spike
Speaker 1: in request recently because of the recent TV adaptation which
Speaker 1: I also watched, and I'm interested to talk about. UM.
Speaker 1: So let's bring our guests into the mix. Yes, let's
Speaker 1: do it. She is a writer and the co host
Speaker 1: and co producer of the podcast Locator Radio. It's Malomnios. Hello, Hi, welcome,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for having me. I'm extremely excited
Speaker 1: to talk about this movie, and I mean the Bechdel
Speaker 1: test in general, but like even the invitation, I had
Speaker 1: never thought of this before in relation to Selena the movie,
Speaker 1: Like it had never occurred to me to apply this
Speaker 1: metric to the film. So I've never talked about this
Speaker 1: before in relation to the film. Um, so I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I'm excited too. Well, part of it is like when
Speaker 1: we cover biopics, which we haven't done a whole ton of,
Speaker 1: but we've done some. Sometimes there's kind of like just
Speaker 1: a trickier conversation around doing a biopic because it's a
Speaker 1: story about a real life person versus like a completely
Speaker 1: fictional character. So like you know, sometimes like the conversations
Speaker 1: that we tend to have get a little trickier when
Speaker 1: it's a biopic. But you know, Bectal test does apply
Speaker 1: to Selena. And yeah, for sure, Yeah, it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I will first, Um, I guess let's talk about what
Speaker 1: our personal histories with this movie. And I guess, well,
Speaker 1: let's extend that to Selena in in general. You know,
Speaker 1: I identify as Chicana. I'm Mexican American born in ninety
Speaker 1: two in l A County and raised by two Mexican Americans. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: my father identifies as Chicano, and he's from California. He's
Speaker 1: from Bakersfield, and my mom is from l A. Um,
Speaker 1: depending how do you count. I'm like third or fourth
Speaker 1: generation Mexican American. And so I found Selina by way
Speaker 1: of just existing and being raised in that house and
Speaker 1: via my kind of like I really connected with her
Speaker 1: because she's also like a second third gen Mexican American
Speaker 1: raised by Mexican Americans. And she also had a very
Speaker 1: public sort of relationship with her learning of the Spanish
Speaker 1: language and her music was around. You know. The movie
Speaker 1: came out in the nineties. She was murdered in the nineties,
Speaker 1: and she was um twenty two, and I grew up
Speaker 1: with her, you know, as a nineties baby. So the
Speaker 1: film is one of those movies that there are periods
Speaker 1: of time where it's just I have memories of the
Speaker 1: movie just being on, like on repeat, eat in the house,
Speaker 1: you know, like somebody left the DVD in and then
Speaker 1: it just keeps closing. The next time on TV, it's
Speaker 1: back on the movie. And then when you're you're walking
Speaker 1: with the kitchen, you stop and you stand because it's playing,
Speaker 1: and it's just a cycle. For so, you know, very much,
Speaker 1: just in my life and as an adult, getting really
Speaker 1: into the sort of fandom of Selena, especially here in
Speaker 1: l A who among us has not donned a Selena
Speaker 1: costume for Halloween or for a karaoke night, a Selena
Speaker 1: Oaky night at east Side Love. You know what, I'm
Speaker 1: the bi monthly like anniversaries and celebrations, the countless fan
Speaker 1: accounts and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube pages and channels
Speaker 1: about her, the Selena impersonators, the shows, the Coma Left
Speaker 1: Lord festival, you know that anything for Selena's this, that, that, that, that,
Speaker 1: all of it. I'm in it. I go to the
Speaker 1: party's the Selena techno Cumbia. I love the drag queens,
Speaker 1: have the merch um. It's it's all things all Selena
Speaker 1: all the time. Hell yeah, yeah, I love it. And
Speaker 1: she has such iconic looks that like, yeah, replicating all
Speaker 1: the looks, yeah, all the highwaisted pants, all the crops,
Speaker 1: the red lips, the hair, all of it, because she
Speaker 1: was dawning looks that were like they're easy for for
Speaker 1: like a girl who looks like her or who's somewhere
Speaker 1: in that that range. You know, it's like, we can,
Speaker 1: we can wear these looks and like really rock them,
Speaker 1: and they're accessible. She wasn't serving Kylie Jenner, you know,
Speaker 1: she was serving Selena keepinning up from Corpus Christie and inaccessible.
Speaker 1: And and that's why so many women today continue to
Speaker 1: replicate her aesthetic because it's like, oh, yeah, this is ours,
Speaker 1: we can rock this, this is easy. We do this anyways.
Speaker 1: We would have done this regardless. You know. A friend
Speaker 1: of the pod, uh, Danny Fernandez has done some incredible
Speaker 1: Selena looks over the years. Truly, concur I agree, shout
Speaker 1: out Danny, Danny another iconic Kanda. We love it, We
Speaker 1: love Jamie. What about you your history and relationship? Um
Speaker 1: I I've known Selena's music since I was really young.
Speaker 1: I didn't know uh any like I guess specific details
Speaker 1: of her life. I kind of just knew the general
Speaker 1: overview of her life. But when I was little. I
Speaker 1: just remember this the other day, By when I was little,
Speaker 1: I did uh like ballet Dance to Dreaming of You,
Speaker 1: and it was like a herd of little girls in
Speaker 1: pink dresses, just like flailing around. And so I remember
Speaker 1: learning a little bit about Selena, because that would have
Speaker 1: been maybe like five years after she died. I was
Speaker 1: um and and then I didn't learn more about her
Speaker 1: life and kind of the fan culture around her life
Speaker 1: until kind of a couple of years ago where another
Speaker 1: friend of the pod uh Melissa Lozada Oliva, who's an
Speaker 1: incredible poet and writes about Selena pretty extensively, And it
Speaker 1: was just through interacting with her work and just talking
Speaker 1: with her that I learned more about Selena's life. So
Speaker 1: as far as the movie goes, I'd seen it in
Speaker 1: like bits and pieces over the years, but I hadn't
Speaker 1: really like sat with it um before a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago to get ready for this show what About You, Caitlin.
Speaker 1: I admittedly had never seen this movie and only had
Speaker 1: a general understanding or general sense of Selena. I knew
Speaker 1: her as an icon, and I knew just the tragic
Speaker 1: story of her murder, but I I didn't know a
Speaker 1: whole lot. And it wasn't until I saw this movie
Speaker 1: that I was like, oh my gosh, she was amazing.
Speaker 1: And now I I was like, I'm gonna listen to
Speaker 1: Selena songs on Spotify and so now I and I
Speaker 1: have like Komala Floor stuck in my head right at
Speaker 1: this very moment, like so yeah, I uh in a
Speaker 1: in a short time now have become a pretty big fan,
Speaker 1: all thanks to Selena the movie. And I also watched
Speaker 1: the series on Netflix to kind of prepare for this
Speaker 1: episode and did a bunch of reading and yeah, listen
Speaker 1: to a bunch of our music and yeah, so that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's kind of where I'm at. Well, I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you before we kind of just jump into the
Speaker 1: meat of the movie. So I found this and Kyl
Speaker 1: found it as well. This amazing interview you did with
Speaker 1: Vice around the time that the series was coming out.
Speaker 1: And I mean there were certainly a lot of takes
Speaker 1: on the series, um, but you you spoke like really
Speaker 1: in depth about where Latin X representation is at in
Speaker 1: Hollywood right now, and so I kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: start before we jump into the hyper details of the movie,
Speaker 1: just talking a little bit about that because Selena is such,
Speaker 1: you know, such a huge figure. But you know, you're
Speaker 1: you're saying that there should be absolutely more figures in
Speaker 1: the Latino community represented, So, um, yeah, I just would
Speaker 1: like to kind of open that up. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: want to start by saying that I have been talking
Speaker 1: about Selena a lot recently online because um of Selena
Speaker 1: the series, right, So it brought up a lot of
Speaker 1: conversations a new and what folks in the creative space
Speaker 1: have pointed out and in the fandom have pointed out
Speaker 1: is that there's been a lot of activity around Selena
Speaker 1: in the past few years. The Matt Cosmetics line, the
Speaker 1: Ever twenty one line, the series, I feel like more
Speaker 1: Selena like impersonators and tribute artists and bands more than ever,
Speaker 1: and a lot of activity from the fandom on the internet.
Speaker 1: So she has this enduring legacy that has had like
Speaker 1: a spike. And so with the series, there were so
Speaker 1: many things going on with the series, and I have
Speaker 1: been putting out like I g t V videos to
Speaker 1: give my actions and my reviews of even the promo material,
Speaker 1: the trailer they put out like in at this point
Speaker 1: and then one itself. So I've been like really kind
Speaker 1: of just digging in and um, so all that to say,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes when women criticize things and analyze things
Speaker 1: and give opinions on things like TV shows and pop
Speaker 1: culture icons. Um, you know, I experienced a lot of
Speaker 1: online I'm a hater. I just am mad that they
Speaker 1: didn't cast me as Selena. I'm a relationship with my father,
Speaker 1: i am a traitor to the Latin community, and I'm
Speaker 1: tearing us all down. You know, the list goes on
Speaker 1: very chill, very chill reactions to having an opinion, very
Speaker 1: about a television show about So that being said, I
Speaker 1: love Selena, and I recognize that when somebody like Selena
Speaker 1: a huge talent of just boundless, you know, potential cut
Speaker 1: way too short. I'm talking about somebody like this, like
Speaker 1: she was so amazing and so talented and so gifted,
Speaker 1: but also such a professional. She was going places and
Speaker 1: an icon like her, we can expect to see her
Speaker 1: everywhere forever. Tattoos, people have Selena rooms in their houses.
Speaker 1: I've been to to Selena super Fan like a house
Speaker 1: in Texas. Uh. I went down there with the podcast
Speaker 1: to like do a speaking engagement in South Texas, and
Speaker 1: the woman who was hosting us, she took us to
Speaker 1: her house real quick and she had a Selena room
Speaker 1: not in common build with merch you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: So not unlike Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley, you know,
Speaker 1: or Tina Turner, any icon of this status. We're going
Speaker 1: to see her on on all kinds of products and
Speaker 1: on TV and in film and commercials forever. It's to
Speaker 1: be expected. There's nothing wrong wrong on some level with it,
Speaker 1: and it's almost speaks to how legendary she truly is.
Speaker 1: At the same time, at the same time, there are
Speaker 1: so like few examples of her level of talent, but
Speaker 1: there are more people and more figures who possessed and
Speaker 1: possess her level of talent in the Latin X and
Speaker 1: the Latin American space, and I would love to learn
Speaker 1: about them as well and see more of those figures
Speaker 1: as well, and have that magnitude of you know, social
Speaker 1: awareness and appreciation for their work and talent as well
Speaker 1: from Black artists from Latin America, Indigenous artists from Latin America,
Speaker 1: and US Latin X artists from a lot of different
Speaker 1: ethnic and cultural backgrounds. And as a Mexican American, I
Speaker 1: want to apply like a lens that complicates Mexi centrism
Speaker 1: and that allows us to say, yes, this is great,
Speaker 1: also we can we want more, right, you know. So
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of where my take on the Selena
Speaker 1: and representation because I don't think that this is necessarily
Speaker 1: a celebration of like more representation. M it's kind of
Speaker 1: a rehashing of something that we've seen, and it's not
Speaker 1: as though it's undeserved. And of course you'd want to
Speaker 1: highlight a figure like Selena in movies and TV and stuff,
Speaker 1: but there's just so few stories with Latin X characters
Speaker 1: in mainstream American media that we should see stories about
Speaker 1: people with more just kind of average lives who didn't
Speaker 1: rise to superstardom, because I mean, just so many different
Speaker 1: people with so many different experiences deserve to have their
Speaker 1: story told, and you know, we just need to see
Speaker 1: a wider scope of Latin X stories in general. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, how many different kinds of white families do
Speaker 1: you see on TV? And in movies like a ba
Speaker 1: jillion they make them up like there it is, it's
Speaker 1: always so yeah, like it it is like just some
Speaker 1: bare minimum ship and it's always really frustrating, especially when
Speaker 1: it's a cultural figure who's so like who is as
Speaker 1: amazing as Selena is. It's like, it's not knocking Selena
Speaker 1: to say that there should be more like that's that's
Speaker 1: part of what she was fighting for. Yeah. Um, So
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to also see how like people shut
Speaker 1: down criticism. In my experience talking about Selena recently, the
Speaker 1: number of men specifically and including queer men, which I
Speaker 1: think is really important to talk about in fandom circles
Speaker 1: because we all like love and appreciate a queer fan
Speaker 1: base because queer fans have the best taste, and really
Speaker 1: it's true, like true europe queer icon, it's because your
Speaker 1: fan base has taste and you're really delivering something of
Speaker 1: high quality, and that's what gives an artist staying power
Speaker 1: and lasting power. Like in the pop culture space pointbling period,
Speaker 1: if you're a diva, like, you're not a diva unless
Speaker 1: you have queer fan base, and that's true. Queens dressing
Speaker 1: up as you like you haven't done it right. So
Speaker 1: but there is can still be a toxic masculinity among
Speaker 1: your men, among gay men in particular, and so you
Speaker 1: know within the Latin X space that queer macheese will
Speaker 1: exist and that queer misogyny exists, and it for me
Speaker 1: came out in these ways that a number of queer
Speaker 1: men and straight men, Latin X men, Mexican American cheka
Speaker 1: woman telling me as a Latino community, we must uplift
Speaker 1: like everything Latin or everything Mexican or the or they Netflix,
Speaker 1: They're going to think that we don't know how to
Speaker 1: support each other. They're never gonna give us anything ever. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you guys are still fucking dramatic. First of all,
Speaker 1: she has a feature as the fucking series and it's
Speaker 1: the number one show on Netflix. Kenna Bitch Rant on
Speaker 1: her own Instagram page, Lord under the Bags were all
Speaker 1: Latinos to support all of it, and I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: you know how many motherfuckers have a Spanish surname. You
Speaker 1: think I'm a community with everybody with the Spanish last name?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. Also, that's what you're advocating for, is like?
Speaker 1: More so like, what's the problem people are addicted to
Speaker 1: being mad? Um? Yeah, okay, should we talk about the
Speaker 1: movie and recap it? Let's do it? Okay, so um,
Speaker 1: obviously this is a biopic about Selena Kentonia, the iconic
Speaker 1: Tejano music musician. We open in media rez to get
Speaker 1: very film school and everybody. Um was that me again?
Speaker 1: Um into the midst of things? Okay, Um, I think
Speaker 1: something I don't know. I don't know Latin. Okay, But
Speaker 1: we opened that way on Selena about to play the
Speaker 1: huge show that she plays at the Houston Astrodome. Um,
Speaker 1: she's at the height of her career. It's February, only
Speaker 1: about a month before she would be murdered. So we
Speaker 1: see her playing this show, and then we cut to
Speaker 1: her father, Abraham, as a young man and member of
Speaker 1: a group called Lost Dinos, who get screwed out of
Speaker 1: doing a gig by a racist club owner who didn't
Speaker 1: know that the Dinos were Mexican. So they go and
Speaker 1: try to play at a club where the clientele is
Speaker 1: mostly Mexican, thinking that they'll fit in, but the crowd
Speaker 1: there doesn't like the Dinos, kind of like white barbershop
Speaker 1: quartet style of music. So, um, there's a bit of
Speaker 1: backlash there. Then we cut to twenty years later, to
Speaker 1: nineteen one now, and Abraham is now Edward Jim's almost Uh,
Speaker 1: we need to talk more about him on this show.
Speaker 1: Another character actor icon for the ages. The first major
Speaker 1: thing I saw him and I think was Battlestar Galactica
Speaker 1: and what I grew up watching Stand and Deliver from
Speaker 1: substitute teachers. That was my Edward James. Almost like any
Speaker 1: time a teacher is sick, there would be like a
Speaker 1: twenty two year old substitute that's like, um, here's a
Speaker 1: movie about math, like inspired, Yeah, and I loved it.
Speaker 1: I was like I could. I could probably recite Stand
Speaker 1: and Deliver from memory at Easter LA Community College. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if they still do this. They probably
Speaker 1: still do. They offer this summer math program for kids
Speaker 1: called the High Miss Galanthan Math Program, and I was, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, it was. I mean, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It's cool. It's a great community resource. I went to
Speaker 1: the Highest Glantha math program every s as a kid.
Speaker 1: I was. It was so like, it's just yes, Edward
Speaker 1: and him are everywhere. That's that's so cool. He made
Speaker 1: math sexy. I'm not easy to do, not easy to do,
Speaker 1: so true icon. I want to say, and and Edward
Speaker 1: not Edward, um hemislanta. I want to say he was Bolivian.
Speaker 1: Let me check, yes, yeah, Bolivian American educator. Yeah, oh god,
Speaker 1: that was like l A l A used to feel
Speaker 1: so far away and abstract to me. So I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like whatever happens in Standing Deliver, that's what l
Speaker 1: A is like. It's a bit of a dramatization, but there. Yes,
Speaker 1: um okay, so we got we have Edward James almost.
Speaker 1: He now has a family including his wife Marcella played
Speaker 1: by Constance Marie, a young son, a b and two daughters,
Speaker 1: Suzette and of course Selina, who I think is eight
Speaker 1: or nine when we first meet her as a child,
Speaker 1: and Abraham's discovers that Selena can sing very very well,
Speaker 1: so he basically makes his family start like form a
Speaker 1: band with a B on bass, Suzette on drums, and
Speaker 1: Selena as the singer. And the kids are reluctant at first,
Speaker 1: but then they keep with it and they start playing
Speaker 1: as Selena I Loostina's at the restaurant that Abraham opens up,
Speaker 1: and Selena discovers that she loves performing. Uh. Then Abraham
Speaker 1: teaches her to sing in Spanish and they have a
Speaker 1: conversation about their identities as Mexican Americans. But then the
Speaker 1: family restaurant has to close down after a few months
Speaker 1: because of the Reagan era economic recession that was an
Speaker 1: iconic I love when there This movie I feel like
Speaker 1: does pretty well with the fact that it's like at
Speaker 1: times of period piece. But I love when in a
Speaker 1: period piece someone just like drops like a hot vocabulary
Speaker 1: word to remind you what year it is where it
Speaker 1: was like they're they're like, why is the why is
Speaker 1: the restaurant closing? And someone responds Reaganomics. I was like, right,
Speaker 1: it is the eighties, right, Reaganomics. Great line. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: the family has to move to leave their home and
Speaker 1: move into an uncle's house, which is when Abraham starts
Speaker 1: trying to kind of ramp up their like music careers
Speaker 1: and book gigs for Selena I Loostino's and get them
Speaker 1: more exposure to see if they might be able to
Speaker 1: kind of earn money this way, and Marcella expresses concerns about,
Speaker 1: you know, people making only space for men in Tahano music,
Speaker 1: which is the type of music that they are now playing,
Speaker 1: and she's worried that Selena, because she's a girl, won't
Speaker 1: be able to get very far. But then we cut
Speaker 1: two nine and Selena is now Jennifer Lopez, and the
Speaker 1: band is really good and they are pretty well established
Speaker 1: Tejano musicians with a following and people love Selena. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then we get this fun scene where their tour bus,
Speaker 1: Big Bertha, gets stuck and these two guys stopped to
Speaker 1: help and it fox their car all up, but they
Speaker 1: don't even care because they love Selena so much and
Speaker 1: they're just like, I'm gonna hang this as a shrine
Speaker 1: on the wall of my garage. Iconic love that scene.
Speaker 1: Then Chris Pettrez played by John Cita, gets brought into
Speaker 1: the band as a guitarist and Selena thinks he's cute
Speaker 1: because he's cute, that's favorite. John Cita as Chris Press specifically,
Speaker 1: is just like like in the film Universe, Jazz Cram
Speaker 1: Dela Crown for me. Yeah, I love him. It's so
Speaker 1: and they're like their chemistry is so good, and you're
Speaker 1: like it's sometimes I'm like, oh, this this romance is
Speaker 1: taking up too much space in the media, But this
Speaker 1: this one, Caleb and I were both like, no, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I texted Jamie this morning and I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with Chris and Selena, Like their scenes are scenes
Speaker 1: that that I rewind and rewatch, like, you know, like, no,
Speaker 1: I need to rewatch the scene where she told him
Speaker 1: he's a dumb idiate after he trashes the hotel room.
Speaker 1: I must must replay. Yes, it's so like, it's so
Speaker 1: it's I don't know, it should tip over into super melodrama,
Speaker 1: but it somehow doesn't. Where John Cita So I love
Speaker 1: when Selena goes up to him and he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: no good for you. Like he's just like I'm a
Speaker 1: bad boy. You don't understand, and she's like, shut the
Speaker 1: funk up, like perfect, you're not that tough. I love
Speaker 1: this music you spent You've spent a lot of hours
Speaker 1: rehearsing in practicing music, Like please, I love it. So uh,
Speaker 1: Selena thinks he's cute, and then they flirt a little bit.
Speaker 1: They go out for pizza, they start to like each other,
Speaker 1: and then they kiss on the bus, but more like
Speaker 1: because it's danger and someone I forget which character walks
Speaker 1: in on them and it's like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, but he I think it's Pete. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they get caught, but like the real threat is getting
Speaker 1: caught by Abraham, which doesn't happen yet. Meanwhile, they get
Speaker 1: booked for a gig in Monterrey, Mexico, and there's a
Speaker 1: concern about whether or not the band who has made
Speaker 1: up of Mexican Americans will be able to play to
Speaker 1: a Mexican crowd. Um. This is also when we get
Speaker 1: the trouble with Chris where he and and so Lena
Speaker 1: are having to sneak around. There's that whole you know,
Speaker 1: trashing the hotel room scene. Abraham thinks he's a punk. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm no good for you, and she's like
Speaker 1: shut up and kiss me um, and he immediately was
Speaker 1: like okay. And so they keep seeing each other in secret,
Speaker 1: and then it turns and then they do the gig
Speaker 1: in Mexico and it turns out the crowds there love Selena.
Speaker 1: So now Selena and Chris have gotten closer. They are
Speaker 1: in love. They want to get married. But this is
Speaker 1: when Abraham finds out about the relationship and he fires Chris,
Speaker 1: but Selena is like, I still want to be with you.
Speaker 1: We have to get married to like show my dad
Speaker 1: that this is serious. So they elope and Abraham finds
Speaker 1: out about it, and he's really upset at first, but
Speaker 1: then he comes around and then that scene where he's like, hi, son,
Speaker 1: welcome to the family. I'm just the ultimate mark of approval,
Speaker 1: kind of acceptance into a American home. Did you bring
Speaker 1: your guitar? Did you bring her guitar? When the Texan
Speaker 1: accents sneak out, I love it. Um. So the band
Speaker 1: is all this while they're they're blowing up. Record sales
Speaker 1: are really good. They're nominated for a Grammy. Selena starts
Speaker 1: working on a crossover English language album. Selena opens a
Speaker 1: boutique because she's always been interested in fashion design, and
Speaker 1: this is when we meet Yolanda Salvidar, who is played
Speaker 1: by Lupe ante Veros, who handles Selena's businesses and also
Speaker 1: as the president of her fan club. Then we get
Speaker 1: another fun scene where Selena and I'm a little unclear
Speaker 1: on this character's name. She calls her Reenie, but then
Speaker 1: I couldn't find her on IMDb as that name. Who
Speaker 1: she she goes to them all with, Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure who the person is to Selena exactly, but
Speaker 1: she's in the movie from like pretty early on, Mala,
Speaker 1: do you know so? I think so. I think they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be friends. I don't know if she had
Speaker 1: a real life friend like this I don't know how
Speaker 1: many like girlfriends Selena had like in real life, honestly, Um,
Speaker 1: it's honest. It's the like, an enduring friend is not
Speaker 1: necessarily somebody that comes up a lot in like the
Speaker 1: fans spaces. I don't see a lot of that, like
Speaker 1: the bandmates, you see the family, you see Chris, you
Speaker 1: see the backup dancers, you know, um, and in retellings
Speaker 1: and in writings and in readings, and I don't She's
Speaker 1: not somebody that's in real life. Stands out to me. However,
Speaker 1: the actress that played the friend in the movie played
Speaker 1: the mother Marcella in Selena the series. Oh, I didn't
Speaker 1: pick up on that either. Incredible because she's in the
Speaker 1: scene where like they first mate Chris and they're like,
Speaker 1: what like watching him audition basically, So like she's in
Speaker 1: a fair number of scenes and stuff, but they like
Speaker 1: don't really draw that much attention to her. So I
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly sure who she was like to Selena or
Speaker 1: even what her name was. In my notes, I referred
Speaker 1: to her as a friend who's over the house a lot,
Speaker 1: which I can relate with. I was that friend, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's you know, I'm sure because they I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like she didn't have friends. Well I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's possible that she had there
Speaker 1: was somebody that a family member or a friend of
Speaker 1: the family or a neighbor that was there all the
Speaker 1: time or definitely possible, But I don't. I wish maybe
Speaker 1: this is actually a really great line of inquiry, like
Speaker 1: I want to I want to know more now, I'd
Speaker 1: be interesting because if they if they did add her,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm always happy in I mean, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about it. But like one of one of the things
Speaker 1: about this movie is I wish that we saw Selena
Speaker 1: talking to women in her life who weren't just her
Speaker 1: mom a little bit more so whenever that character came in,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, it would be cool to know,
Speaker 1: you know a little what the context for this person is,
Speaker 1: because we don't see Selena talking to women, you know,
Speaker 1: about her dreams very much, so when she does, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: who is this? Like yeah, right, In any case, a
Speaker 1: friend who's over at the house a lot and Selena
Speaker 1: um go to the mall in l a shortly before
Speaker 1: the Grammys to buy address for this friend, and they
Speaker 1: go into this store where a white lady is racist
Speaker 1: to them. But meanwhile everyone at the mall figures out
Speaker 1: that Selena is there, and there are a bunch of
Speaker 1: like retail and restaurant workers and then also just shoppers
Speaker 1: who are huge fans of Selena, and they rush to
Speaker 1: see her. And then the racist lady looks like a fool.
Speaker 1: She deserves, she very much deserves. And then the Selena
Speaker 1: is like, actually, we don't want your dress and screw you.
Speaker 1: Jayla really delivers that line. It's really very cathartic. Okay,
Speaker 1: So then we see them at the Grammys. Selena wins
Speaker 1: a Grammy. Things are going great until the family starts
Speaker 1: to notice some discrepancies with the finances of Selena's businesses
Speaker 1: and they realize that Yolanda is probably behind it, but
Speaker 1: Yolanda denies it. Um then we cut back to that
Speaker 1: scene at the very beginning from the Houston Astrodome, which
Speaker 1: kind of sort of morphs into the murder of Selena
Speaker 1: by Yolanda. And Selena has been shot, She's rushed to
Speaker 1: the hospital, she dies, her family mourns, her fans mourn.
Speaker 1: There are vigils with huge crowds of all of Selena's supporters,
Speaker 1: and then we get a montage of footage of the
Speaker 1: real Selena Quitania and that kind of closes out the movie.
Speaker 1: So that is the story. Let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back to discuss where where to begin.
Speaker 1: I guess one thing that stood out to me that
Speaker 1: I just I didn't know. I didn't I knew nothing
Speaker 1: about the production history of this movie. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: how soon after Selena's death this movie was shot and released.
Speaker 1: It was very, very um quick. Yeah, I just, um,
Speaker 1: that's just kind of a rogue observation. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: it was, you know, basically two years after Yeah, because
Speaker 1: she was murdered in and just thinking about what it
Speaker 1: takes to get a movie greenlit and up and running
Speaker 1: and written and cast and all these things. I feel
Speaker 1: like it was almost it was like right after she
Speaker 1: was murdered, they got into talks about it and they
Speaker 1: got started. I could assume it appeared I read that, um,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of like non official biographies like
Speaker 1: in the works right after her death, and the Kingtonia
Speaker 1: family was just like, all right, we gotta if people
Speaker 1: are gonna try to make movies that might misrepresent Selena's story,
Speaker 1: like let's just nip this in the bud and like
Speaker 1: be a part of doing this ourselves. Because Abraham Kingtonia
Speaker 1: is one of the executive producers of this movie, so
Speaker 1: they kind of this is the one they signed off on,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of conversations with the director, Gregory Nova,
Speaker 1: and he came in and talked too many members of
Speaker 1: the family and just like basically got Selena's whole life
Speaker 1: story and um then adapted it to this screenplay and
Speaker 1: this movie. So yeah, but I think that was kind
Speaker 1: of why it all happened so quickly, because there was
Speaker 1: other productions like maybe about to like mess the story up,
Speaker 1: so they were let's let's do it right before they
Speaker 1: do it wrong. Yeah. Yeah, And I want to say
Speaker 1: it was m I want to liot this up now,
Speaker 1: but it was either the director, Gregory Nava or one
Speaker 1: of the producers Sparsa, who had a teenage daughter who
Speaker 1: at the time before Selena's death was a Selena fan
Speaker 1: and who was really into Selena, and his daughter was
Speaker 1: sort of one of the catalyst behind she went like
Speaker 1: like turning Selena's life and death into a story. I
Speaker 1: don't know, a fact check can be done, but it's
Speaker 1: either either a Sparta or Nava who had a teen
Speaker 1: daughter who was a Selena fan. And I think that's
Speaker 1: important to talk about two because her fandom also inspired
Speaker 1: and influenced and kind of asked for the films to
Speaker 1: sort of memorialize her, and I think it is sort
Speaker 1: of there is a sort of timeline around like a
Speaker 1: major event having to do with the celebrity and end
Speaker 1: of keeping that momentum, going to put her story to
Speaker 1: as many people as possible, and because I think on
Speaker 1: on the one hand it's like shrewd business, but on
Speaker 1: the other hand, it's like no, she we do. We
Speaker 1: do want people to know about her and what happened
Speaker 1: to her, and we also want people to hear her music.
Speaker 1: And what I love about the film is it's such
Speaker 1: a concert film. And what I didn't realize was that
Speaker 1: growing up I was watching on beaches and DVD on
Speaker 1: you know, just TV screens, and a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago at the I want to say the Hungarian American
Speaker 1: Cultural Center, there was this event where they rent out
Speaker 1: of this big vintage theater from like what the thirties
Speaker 1: or something with the huge screen and the seats and stuff,
Speaker 1: and they played Selena the Selena the Movie on the
Speaker 1: big screen, and they interviewed Constance Marie and a few
Speaker 1: other people from the film, and Um, I never realized, No,
Speaker 1: this movie was meant to be watched on the big
Speaker 1: screen as and as if you were at a concert,
Speaker 1: because you're in from the perspective of the audience for
Speaker 1: so much of it, and so much of it is
Speaker 1: recreating the sound in the space when she was performing,
Speaker 1: you know, So, yeah, that's amazing. I like, I I
Speaker 1: also really appreciate how I don't know, I feel like
Speaker 1: in most biopics they cut off the song, they're like
Speaker 1: all right, you know, but they they let it go.
Speaker 1: And I feel like having the context of her passing
Speaker 1: away pretty recently is also like, I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I it seems like almost like a healing thing as well,
Speaker 1: to to be showing all of the music and like
Speaker 1: really meticulously recreating those scenes. I was also impressed by, um,
Speaker 1: the fact that the family was so involved in this production,
Speaker 1: and also, you know, don't like they they do come
Speaker 1: off as flawed characters still, I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: kind of common biopic fumble where the subjects were either
Speaker 1: you know, at least living, if not actually involved, where
Speaker 1: sometimes they're like, well I don't mention that, but right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I I don't know how exactly faithful everything
Speaker 1: was here. I'm sure you know a lot more than
Speaker 1: I do. Malla, and and the way the series portrays
Speaker 1: it is also very different in like a different tone,
Speaker 1: uh where sometimes I'm like, I don't I think Abraham
Speaker 1: is being very manipulative, but then the TV show goes
Speaker 1: like boeing and I'm like, oh, I'm supposed to be laughing.
Speaker 1: Um ut, very stut observation. Yes, real strange, um but
Speaker 1: at least at least you know, in this one you
Speaker 1: have Edward James almost who gives Abraham's negative quality like
Speaker 1: they shine through in his performance, which, um yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I was impressed, you know two years later
Speaker 1: that there was some nuance to how the family was depicted.
Speaker 1: My goodness. So I in my conversations about Selena and
Speaker 1: Selena the series, Abraham is so important and comes up
Speaker 1: so much because I mean, again, like culturally on a
Speaker 1: very culturally specific way, like a family like Selena's family,
Speaker 1: and being that she worked with her family and they
Speaker 1: spent so many hours and so many years of her
Speaker 1: life from her most formative years starting when she was
Speaker 1: like ten, rehearsing, touring and on the bus together and working.
Speaker 1: And that's a lot of hours and a lot of
Speaker 1: time to with your family. We're already super claustrophobic as
Speaker 1: a people, and they want they keep us in the
Speaker 1: house for as long as they possibly. They keep us
Speaker 1: in the womb for as long as possible, and they
Speaker 1: keep us possible having three or four generations in a
Speaker 1: house and people stay until they get married. And that's
Speaker 1: the desire and the expectation. Very normal, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: the idea of like not being surrounded by family at
Speaker 1: all times for some of us, for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: is is very foreign, is very different. So on the
Speaker 1: one hand, it's like, I wonder if even applying the
Speaker 1: like the beck told test to Selena specifically is even
Speaker 1: a fair metric, if it's even relevant on a very
Speaker 1: specific level. Because she was murdered when she was twenty two,
Speaker 1: she spent so much of her life with her family.
Speaker 1: How much time did she spend alone? How much time
Speaker 1: did she spend with non family? Probably not that much.
Speaker 1: You know, she had to Elope like she had to
Speaker 1: Elope and Abraham and to productions, Abraham being an official
Speaker 1: producer on Selena the movie, an sling of the series,
Speaker 1: presents himself as a complex and flawed person. Oh very
Speaker 1: much so. And there's a certain level of self awareness
Speaker 1: amongst Mexican dads. They know that they could be a
Speaker 1: little tough and harsh and a little being very generous. Um.
Speaker 1: They know how they are. They know they know themselves,
Speaker 1: you know, and they'll talk about it. They own it.
Speaker 1: But we're not complicating the tension and the impact that
Speaker 1: that has. It's not enough to be self aware sometimes,
Speaker 1: what's the impact and what's the tension. Maria Gutsia as
Speaker 1: a journalist from South Texas and she just put out
Speaker 1: a podcast called Anything for Selena. Yes, And the second
Speaker 1: episode is all about this daughter father Mexican American relationship
Speaker 1: and really dives into that complexity with Abraham and you
Speaker 1: hear from him and he speaks and it's it's amazing,
Speaker 1: honestly to hear that's so cool. Yeah, I listened to
Speaker 1: the first episode and realm like really enjoying it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was curious about Yeah, how I mean, starting yeah
Speaker 1: with with Abraham's character. I don't know. I mean my
Speaker 1: feeling as far as the Bechdel test goes for this,
Speaker 1: I feel like, I don't know. It's it is complicated
Speaker 1: whenever it's a biopic, because you're not going to like
Speaker 1: add in new characters unless that friend truly is fictional.
Speaker 1: But like you're not going to add in new characters
Speaker 1: just to have the movie past the Bechtel test. But
Speaker 1: there were like small things where I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I wish that, you know, like Susan's right there and
Speaker 1: her mom's right there, like there's so much more, but
Speaker 1: like she does, But it felt to me like there
Speaker 1: was way more of an emphasis on the father daughter
Speaker 1: relationship than it was on the mother daughter relationship. And
Speaker 1: maybe that you know, again, when you're adapting a person's
Speaker 1: whole life and like yeah, yeah, you don't have that
Speaker 1: much time. You have to kind of figure out what's
Speaker 1: maybe what are the biggest opportunities for tension in a story,
Speaker 1: and like what are the most kind of dramatic moments,
Speaker 1: because those are going to be the things you want
Speaker 1: to showcase in a cinematic story. But I'm still just
Speaker 1: like I'd like to see more interactions with Selena and
Speaker 1: her mother, even if you know, the ones with Abraham
Speaker 1: or maybe more wrought with tension. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like to believe because we don't. We never hear
Speaker 1: from Marcella, we never hear from mom, and like notoriously historically,
Speaker 1: even in um, you know, nineties accounts of the aftermath
Speaker 1: of Selena's murder, and Maria Garcia talks about this on
Speaker 1: her podcast as well, and this sort of archival footage
Speaker 1: is brought in um from journalists and such that Marcella's
Speaker 1: just is not around and she's not public and she
Speaker 1: doesn't make statements, and the same was sort of true
Speaker 1: when Selena was performing. And I think one thing with
Speaker 1: the movie being a concert film is Selena had a
Speaker 1: particular relationship to her father Visa via music, you know,
Speaker 1: and didn't share with her mom. Um. And I wonder if,
Speaker 1: like I always wonder, and again coming from a culturally
Speaker 1: specific place, well, if we had scenes with Selena and
Speaker 1: her mom, how much of it would be about not
Speaker 1: the music right and how much of it would be
Speaker 1: about Selena's specific hopes, dreams, wants, desires, um, how much
Speaker 1: would it be Selena really going to mom is a confidante,
Speaker 1: to bounce off of each other, you know, and to
Speaker 1: kind of recover from their time with Abraham, which is
Speaker 1: so much of mother daughter Mexican American dynamics. Is like
Speaker 1: we're being to each other about dad, right or mom
Speaker 1: is is it's okay? You know how your dad is like,
Speaker 1: it'll be fine, let him cool off. And how many
Speaker 1: of those scenes again Abraham as producer, because Marcella is
Speaker 1: not the producer, Abraham, how many of those scenes are
Speaker 1: we going to be allowed to see? Or does he
Speaker 1: even know about? How much? To even knowledge? It could
Speaker 1: have been a ship talking absolute party every single night.
Speaker 1: You never know. That's really, That's really I never I
Speaker 1: never picked up on the fact that it seems like
Speaker 1: in UM and then on Selina the series, is it
Speaker 1: Abraham and Suzette who are involved? Is ab involved in
Speaker 1: the series? It's it's Abraham, A, b and Susette are
Speaker 1: all in. Marcella is not so much not enough titled
Speaker 1: public written about way anyways? Right? I mean, I will say,
Speaker 1: as far as how Marcella is portrayed in this movie,
Speaker 1: I do like any scene that she and Selena have together.
Speaker 1: I really like like the I like that she is,
Speaker 1: So I mean, I don't know if I feel like,
Speaker 1: for the little screen time she has comparatively like you
Speaker 1: do kind of get a feeling for what the push
Speaker 1: and pull in her life is of, Like she um
Speaker 1: doesn't want to upset her husband, but that doesn't stop
Speaker 1: her from telling him how she feels about stuff, even
Speaker 1: though she doesn't necessarily have the final say. I like
Speaker 1: that she, you know, is able to like speak openly
Speaker 1: with Selena and be like, yeah, this is bullshit, but
Speaker 1: let's navigate it how we can and then let's the
Speaker 1: I feel like the maybe maybe the last like meaty
Speaker 1: scene we have with them is when Selena is saying
Speaker 1: that she wants to have a baby and she like
Speaker 1: has these so those are like I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is with when Selena is talking to women that
Speaker 1: you get to know her the best, and when she's
Speaker 1: talking to Abraham the plot is being moved forward basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I love those moments where it's like when she
Speaker 1: talks to a friend who's over a lot about um
Speaker 1: about how she's interested in fashion and like this is
Speaker 1: a whole other side of herself that she um like
Speaker 1: wants to get into and and then when she talks
Speaker 1: to her mom, she's talking more about like what her
Speaker 1: goals are personally, and you know, I want to get married,
Speaker 1: I want to have a kid on top of a career,
Speaker 1: and I really like those I just I just wish
Speaker 1: that there was like a little bit more of that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, you only have so much
Speaker 1: time in a biopic, But in those moments, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like two, Like she's interested in a lot of
Speaker 1: different stuff. She's like hasn't fully figured herself out. And
Speaker 1: it's such a like an interesting phase of life to
Speaker 1: hear people talk to each other about. So I just
Speaker 1: wish there was like a little bit more of it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I got two hours. Yeah I will say
Speaker 1: that I think maybe, and I honestly would have to
Speaker 1: go back and watch like again again, like with a
Speaker 1: very fine tooth comb. But I want to say maybe
Speaker 1: the only scene with only women talking to each other
Speaker 1: about another woman is this scene at Selena's fashion show
Speaker 1: where Yolanda is talking to the other Senoras about giving
Speaker 1: Selena a gift. Yes, yeah, but it's sucked up because
Speaker 1: it's like sinister because you want to and I don't
Speaker 1: think those other ladies again, I'd have to go back
Speaker 1: and look and listened to how Yolanda addresses those senoras.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if they're named. You know, um,
Speaker 1: I want to say no and this and this and
Speaker 1: if so. It was like a quick exchange. I mean
Speaker 1: the things as far as the Bechtel test goes, I
Speaker 1: mean there were a few. One of the things that
Speaker 1: made me laugh because I like that technically passes two
Speaker 1: lines of dialogue is when Selena is uh stealing Susette's chips.
Speaker 1: That passes the PacTel test. We did it, chips passes,
Speaker 1: That works ower There are definitely moments, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean as far as Selena is usually talking to her
Speaker 1: mom about either her dad or Chris. But there are
Speaker 1: some exceptions, but but usually it's Dad or Chris because
Speaker 1: those are kind of the two relationships that are the
Speaker 1: engine of the movie. Yeah, given the most focus. And
Speaker 1: I wonder, like this movie was written and directed by
Speaker 1: a man, Gregory Nava, and I wonder if it had
Speaker 1: been approached differently or for a woman was telling the story,
Speaker 1: if she would have given more focus to Selena's relationships
Speaker 1: with other women in her life. I don't know. Food
Speaker 1: food forgot, but it's it's a sort of similar set
Speaker 1: up with the series or you have again you know
Speaker 1: Q Productions Abraham and A. B. Susette is involved in
Speaker 1: as well. But you know, Abraham is a very strong force.
Speaker 1: He is in his family, and he's the head of
Speaker 1: the house, and he's the head of two productions, and
Speaker 1: he's in charge and in control of the estate and
Speaker 1: all things Selena. He just quite simply is and always
Speaker 1: has been. And the showrunners and the men who um
Speaker 1: you know owned and founded the production studio and who
Speaker 1: who made the series. You know, their men there their
Speaker 1: latin x they're latinos. And I know that the writer's room,
Speaker 1: I know they boast like you know, a very heavy
Speaker 1: like woman in LGBT writer's room. But you know, uh,
Speaker 1: we're in l A and we hear things, and people
Speaker 1: gossip and people chatted and people have are working on
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like people work on things,
Speaker 1: and people know people who work on things, and then
Speaker 1: we all talk about it. The talk of the talk
Speaker 1: of the town is um that the incredibly talented writer's
Speaker 1: room you know wrote essentially wrote a script and that
Speaker 1: you know, good old Abraham, who is my favorite. I
Speaker 1: do love Abraham, but we all have complicated relationships with
Speaker 1: these men, and um, good old Abraham. I guess reviewed
Speaker 1: the script and didn't like a lot of things and
Speaker 1: and sent it back and said, rewrite it. And then
Speaker 1: they did it, and and now we have what we have, right,
Speaker 1: And so I'm not shocked, you know, at all by
Speaker 1: the gender dynamics. I think it's very much to be expected.
Speaker 1: And I just and again, and I know our dads
Speaker 1: can do a lot for us, and they really want to.
Speaker 1: They really do have the best of intentions. They want
Speaker 1: to believe that they can provide everything, that they understand
Speaker 1: everything that they've got to cover, that they're in control.
Speaker 1: There's an issue, they can handle it. They know their
Speaker 1: kids super super well. But again, in a family like Selena's,
Speaker 1: for her to Elope is no small feet. It's not
Speaker 1: a minor thing to talk about. It's not a just
Speaker 1: oh okay, now, that's like a huge, like huge, like
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb level deal like in a house like hers
Speaker 1: and a family like hers in the culture and at
Speaker 1: the time, like, no, this is not something to just
Speaker 1: skim over and kind of forget happened. There. There was
Speaker 1: a there was years intention and build up and unhappiness
Speaker 1: and and distress leading up to that decision for her, honestly,
Speaker 1: because it's one of those things that like, oh, my God,
Speaker 1: wouldn't dream of it, dear Lord, even my sanity and
Speaker 1: my life and my safety and my peace too much
Speaker 1: like I feel to not to to go off and
Speaker 1: get married against your father's express wishes, and to not
Speaker 1: have your mom and your family there and they don't know,
Speaker 1: and it's in secret and it's not part of your
Speaker 1: religious tradition with family, and no, no, no no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: So I know that there are just things that our
Speaker 1: dads cannot do for us, cannot provide for us, and
Speaker 1: will never understand about us. I would never I love
Speaker 1: my dad, super involved, super supportive to this day. I
Speaker 1: would never ever ever want my dad to tell my
Speaker 1: life story. Are you kidding me? How? No? I'm a
Speaker 1: grown woman. He can't. And I feel similarly about Selina.
Speaker 1: She was, She was a grown woman. She was super sexy,
Speaker 1: super sexy, and she knew it. She was a bad
Speaker 1: bitch and she knew it. She was hell confident. She
Speaker 1: was a sex symbol and she fucking knew it. I
Speaker 1: hate hearing interviews and descriptions from you know, her living family,
Speaker 1: but also from people who who created media about her.
Speaker 1: She was so sweet. She was so nice. She was
Speaker 1: so sweet, she was so nice. She was nice girl nice.
Speaker 1: She just nice, nice girl, nice, super nice girl. She's
Speaker 1: a sucking baddie. She's a bad bit. She was a
Speaker 1: genius's out. She knew it. She fucking knew it, dude,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. She loved her man and
Speaker 1: she was all about her man. She was all about
Speaker 1: her dude. And they were sharing a bus. They were
Speaker 1: on a tiny little bus, all these people, you know,
Speaker 1: it was no, she wasn't and again accounts she wasn't
Speaker 1: hiding her relationship. She she was openly affectionate. That was
Speaker 1: her boo, that was her man, that was her dude. Like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, you you know what I mean. And it was
Speaker 1: a big fuck you when she went and eloped and
Speaker 1: she said, nope, I'm making my own decision. And for
Speaker 1: somebody who didn't have a traditional high school graduation, didn't
Speaker 1: have traditional markers of like adolescence and adulthood. Because she
Speaker 1: was neighboring and working and earning money and being a
Speaker 1: celeb at such a young age, I consider her eloping
Speaker 1: being her like, this is my mark of official and
Speaker 1: treat into adulthood and womanhood. And I'm taking my man's
Speaker 1: last name, you know what I mean, Like you love
Speaker 1: you guys, But enough right that. But that seemed to
Speaker 1: like the scene where she's just telling Chris like we're
Speaker 1: we're doing this, and because it's like he's well aware
Speaker 1: of what the risk is there. It's like a risk
Speaker 1: to her career, risk to the family, risk to everything.
Speaker 1: And I it's so I hadn't really considered I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, the idea that your dad would be
Speaker 1: overseeing the biopic and the TV series of your life
Speaker 1: absolutely horrifying and of course, and it's gonna and I
Speaker 1: never thought of it that way. Of like, of course
Speaker 1: her like, her sexuality is going to be inherently played
Speaker 1: down because her dad, like it would be weird if
Speaker 1: he was like, no, include all the sex you want,
Speaker 1: like that's the year two. So I'd never consider it
Speaker 1: that way. That that totally and so it's like we
Speaker 1: are I don't know it. It makes me so curious
Speaker 1: because it's like if if your family are the main
Speaker 1: people in your life and they are also the ones
Speaker 1: carrying your legacy to an extent, you're you're this mythic
Speaker 1: figure because there are parts that either your family is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't like that's weird to think about, like my
Speaker 1: daughter like being sexually confident. I don't want to think
Speaker 1: about that. Or there's just like these kind of elements
Speaker 1: that will just become more of a miss than than
Speaker 1: who she was. That's like damn, yep, yep, I have
Speaker 1: to go on a walk. Let's process, let's process. Um.
Speaker 1: I always need therapy after I talked about Selena every time, always,
Speaker 1: it always sends me into spiral um. But now I
Speaker 1: think about, Look, I've been podcasting for four years. I've
Speaker 1: me and like my co host Yosa for look at
Speaker 1: Thought our radio. We've gotten like Forbes features and l
Speaker 1: A times like you know, write ups and in print
Speaker 1: and Cosmo, and we throw parties. And my parents have
Speaker 1: been to my events and like, I been doing this
Speaker 1: and it's I'm doing it at a level where I
Speaker 1: feel like it's a big deal. My dad still refers
Speaker 1: to my podcast as of vlogs. Oh my god, our
Speaker 1: dads are just going to get things wrong intention because
Speaker 1: they don't like us, not because our dads are going
Speaker 1: to get things wrong, and there's so many things our
Speaker 1: dads don't fucking knowing everything with her daddy, Are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? Right? Like I mean, and you even see
Speaker 1: that in the movie that her dad co signed that
Speaker 1: she didn't tell everything to her dad, Like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: thank you for kind of contextualizing the I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like the movie tells you that the eloping is a
Speaker 1: fuck you. But even in the context of yeah, just
Speaker 1: how how controlled and regimented her life was of like
Speaker 1: her asserting herself in any like in any way that
Speaker 1: had an actual impact in And also like I don't know,
Speaker 1: at least as far as the movie goes, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh she is. She's like asserting herself as the breadwinner
Speaker 1: of the family too, because it's like, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do? Fire me? I'm Selina. You can't fire me,
Speaker 1: so you're just going to have to deal with my decision.
Speaker 1: She's so cool. She's so cool. She's super cool. And
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, we do a disservice when
Speaker 1: we don't like point these things out, because I want
Speaker 1: that part of her to be remembered, or at least
Speaker 1: I want us to think about it or ask about it.
Speaker 1: I want us to want to know more you know
Speaker 1: about about her internal life, and it's I like, I
Speaker 1: mean the same there's I don't know. I mean as
Speaker 1: far as how the movie is like Rights Selena, I do,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's she is actively voicing her opinion at
Speaker 1: every step, and sometimes her opinion gets steamrolled. But that
Speaker 1: was what was happening in her life, it seemed like.
Speaker 1: But I really liked how just the way that it
Speaker 1: was written, there's really no point where she doesn't say
Speaker 1: what she's thinking about something, even when sometimes she's trying
Speaker 1: to protect someone's feelings or trying to kind of negotiate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like she says what's on her mind, and she chooses
Speaker 1: her I guess chooses her battles in terms of like
Speaker 1: when she's going to do the funk you. But I
Speaker 1: don't know, I felt like a pretty well rounded as
Speaker 1: far as like something You're dead would sign off on
Speaker 1: a pretty like well rounded portrait of like how active
Speaker 1: and outspoken she was, even when she didn't, you know,
Speaker 1: win that particular battle. Yeah, And I almost feel like
Speaker 1: the proximity to her death allowed for there were enough
Speaker 1: people around who knew her and who remembered her and
Speaker 1: how she was and the way that she spoke that
Speaker 1: I don't think that they could have I don't think
Speaker 1: it could have been written any other way. Honestly. That's
Speaker 1: one of my big gripes with Selee the series is
Speaker 1: we're over twenty years away from her death at this
Speaker 1: point and her murder at this point. I mean, watching
Speaker 1: Selena the series, she has very little screen time, very
Speaker 1: few lines, very quiet hers like an episode where they
Speaker 1: around the bus and they keep telling her to shut up,
Speaker 1: you know. And I hate that fucking word now because
Speaker 1: I used it like six times and remember that I
Speaker 1: and you know, And there's multiple scenes like that throughout
Speaker 1: the series. There in restaurant somewhere and Abe made some
Speaker 1: slick sucking comment about my sister can't even talk, you know,
Speaker 1: what do you expect from her? And it read is
Speaker 1: very bitter and it is very jealous and it's very um.
Speaker 1: I felt like this time around, with cleaning the series
Speaker 1: so far away from her. You know, Aby has his
Speaker 1: own illustrious career, and I mean that in Kumbia and
Speaker 1: as a producer and with the Gumbia Kings, and he
Speaker 1: is a legend in his own right. He is a
Speaker 1: very talented songwriter and and her fusion with her brother
Speaker 1: really brought their music to life. However, maybe is also
Speaker 1: a fucking mess. Dude, Like, he's a mess and he
Speaker 1: his his career. He's not a legend the way that
Speaker 1: she's a legend. She was the star. People showed up
Speaker 1: for her. She was the headliner. It was her and
Speaker 1: it's always been her and it's still her. So for
Speaker 1: the series, it read very like they muted her. They
Speaker 1: toned her down in every way, and um, she has
Speaker 1: practically no lines. So I appreciate that. In the movie, yeah,
Speaker 1: you get a sense for her personality and her opinions
Speaker 1: and her feelings. And I appreciate that because she wasn't
Speaker 1: a shrinking violet. She wasn't a wallflower, you know, her
Speaker 1: dad wasn't wasn't designing her costumes and doing her choreography
Speaker 1: from her. That was from her. She was doing that.
Speaker 1: You know. She was a creative genius. And so I'm
Speaker 1: happy that that that part is there. Yeah. The yeah,
Speaker 1: this series, I mean, I know this is not a
Speaker 1: podcast about the series, but uh, the series was so
Speaker 1: confusing to me as I'm like, do you have all
Speaker 1: this extra time, this would be all the all of
Speaker 1: our like mini grapes here of like, oh, it would
Speaker 1: have been cool to know like a little more about
Speaker 1: her dreams and a little more about this. And it's like,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you have ten hours to do that,
Speaker 1: but where was it? Yeah? Why not capitalize on opportunities
Speaker 1: to showcase Selena more? Yeah, I do appreciate in the
Speaker 1: movie that we just get this well rounded character because
Speaker 1: Selena in real life, like real life people are are
Speaker 1: well rounded people. Because we talk so much on this
Speaker 1: podcast about fictional characters in movies, fictional women are usually
Speaker 1: written to be just so flat and one dimensional and
Speaker 1: just don't feel like real people. So you know, I
Speaker 1: do when you adapt a real person onto the screen
Speaker 1: and you do it well, you get those nuances of
Speaker 1: their character and you get those all those dimensions because
Speaker 1: you see you see Selena being sexy, and you see
Speaker 1: her being playful, you see her being smart, you see
Speaker 1: her being a very talented musician. You see her learning
Speaker 1: and grow and just like the whole what you experience
Speaker 1: in life as a person, you know, we see her
Speaker 1: go through. And one of the things I especially liked
Speaker 1: about the character, and I anytime there's a head of
Speaker 1: roal romance in a movie, I'm usually just like my
Speaker 1: default is just like okay, this in But like I
Speaker 1: loved the way the romance develops in this movie because
Speaker 1: like you actually see like the common ground that they share,
Speaker 1: and like you see them flirting in like a cute way.
Speaker 1: The scene when they're at like eating pizza together and
Speaker 1: like he's like trying to be all tough with his
Speaker 1: hot so it's like a start of cringe, but it's
Speaker 1: so cute. It's cute. And then he's like dumping like
Speaker 1: cholula all over his pizza, and then she's just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: good luck with that, Like I know that's gonna go
Speaker 1: horribly for you, and it does, and then they just
Speaker 1: like laugh about it and they're oh, I just like yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole the whole relationship. I just liked how they
Speaker 1: chose to approach that and just like and especially because
Speaker 1: you see Selena and I'm not exactly sure this how
Speaker 1: accurate this was to her real life, but like she's
Speaker 1: kind of the one to initiate that relationship, Like she's
Speaker 1: the one who like kind of approaches him and says like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: your haircuts really nice, and hey, do you want to
Speaker 1: go get some pizza with me? And like she's kind
Speaker 1: of calling the shots in a way that you don't
Speaker 1: often see women doing in media. It's all about like, oh,
Speaker 1: women have to you know, were expected to just sort
Speaker 1: of like sit idly by while the man pursues them.
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, go get it, Selena, Like
Speaker 1: I love that. I love it. I love it because
Speaker 1: she she you know, and again, she was the star
Speaker 1: and was already established in a name. And I think
Speaker 1: that genuinely, Chris Perez was intimidated entering into the family
Speaker 1: and entering into the band, you know, I think that genuinely.
Speaker 1: And she was the princess and the queen, you know,
Speaker 1: and the apple of everybody's eye, the center of attention.
Speaker 1: And I not that Chris Perez is like, you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't have a backbone, or didn't approach or didn't shoot
Speaker 1: his shot, because I also believe that, you know, they
Speaker 1: noticed each other. I think she knew that was her
Speaker 1: man's like, you know, for at first site day one,
Speaker 1: She's like, No, that's that's all me, that's my that's
Speaker 1: my man. Out of the way. Yeah, I do believe
Speaker 1: that that was probably true of her real life dynamic
Speaker 1: with him, that I was having the same like kind
Speaker 1: of brain because because you know, it's like, oh, every
Speaker 1: movie is gonna you know, shoehorn in ahead of a romance,
Speaker 1: but that's like it's not shoehorn in it. It's like
Speaker 1: that relationship if it works the way I mean also
Speaker 1: it obviously worked in real life, but like the way
Speaker 1: it's written is so cool, and it's like, why don't
Speaker 1: people just write relationships like this more frequently, where like
Speaker 1: the relationship means more to her than just this like
Speaker 1: abstract and like I'm a straight lady, so I have
Speaker 1: to want to get married right now. Like that's not
Speaker 1: what that relationship meant to her exclusively, Like she did
Speaker 1: want to marry him, but it also was like that
Speaker 1: relationship was like how she was kind of taking control
Speaker 1: of her life a little bit, and like he was
Speaker 1: supportive and he wasn't, Like I mean, it's it seems
Speaker 1: like there were people in Selena's family and in her
Speaker 1: life who were kind of like threatened by her being
Speaker 1: the center of attention and Chris wasn't. And he was like, no,
Speaker 1: I like to work with you, and I'm not threatened
Speaker 1: by you being you know, yourself, and so it was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess you just don't see healthy
Speaker 1: relationships on screen a lot, because I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a partnership where they are both like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're growing as people through I'm like getting emotional. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're they're like they're like growing together and you
Speaker 1: you know why they like each other and they just
Speaker 1: compliment each other and so and when it's written like that,
Speaker 1: then I don't know, I have no problem with it.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, this isn't just like I need to
Speaker 1: marry because of the because the movie is about to end. Like,
Speaker 1: that's not what it is at all. Right, It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, and I put Selena and Chris on part this.
Speaker 1: It's like some Romeo and Juliette levels of like legendary
Speaker 1: tragic romance. Honestly, and here's here's something too. You know,
Speaker 1: it really is very telling that it's no secret that
Speaker 1: there is a super tumultuous, unhealthy dynamic between the King
Speaker 1: Funnias and Chris Perez. You know, that unhealthy dynamic, the
Speaker 1: keeping him out an arm's length and not wanting him
Speaker 1: to be with Selena romantically, that kind of possessiveness. Abraham
Speaker 1: talks about it in his own way, and it's always
Speaker 1: been out there and it's sort of always been acknowledged.
Speaker 1: You know that he never trusted Chris. You never liked Chris.
Speaker 1: He's a bum musician from the streets on from the streets.
Speaker 1: I know, bum musicians from the streets. When I see
Speaker 1: one that that that that that that that you're young,
Speaker 1: you're beautiful, and you're rich, of course he's gonna love you.
Speaker 1: He's gonna take you away and make you stop performing,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna take you from your family and all
Speaker 1: these things, right, And you know, Chris is the ultimate
Speaker 1: gentleman and has never said anything bad about the family.
Speaker 1: But uh, we all know, because it's a matter of
Speaker 1: a very kind of public conversation that there has been
Speaker 1: litigation the Kingthenias are very litigious. You know, a ton
Speaker 1: of people. I mean, it's it was actually hilarious how
Speaker 1: many text messages I got from my friends and people
Speaker 1: who are in the creative space in the fandom and
Speaker 1: have their own businesses, And I didn't even realize how
Speaker 1: many of them have gotten cease and desist letters from
Speaker 1: the Kienias for creating Selena fand Merge. I mean, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I knew a certain number of people had gotten cease
Speaker 1: and desists, like Selena impersonators and tribute artists that I've
Speaker 1: seen perform in the end, that I know and that
Speaker 1: I know of, but then people that I didn't even
Speaker 1: realize how how far it had gone. And this is
Speaker 1: just I'm one person in my little you know sphere
Speaker 1: here in outlet. But Chris, having written his book you
Speaker 1: Know to Selena with Love, he wanted to do his
Speaker 1: own series about Selena, and the Kienias have been extremely
Speaker 1: litigious with him and have shut things down and have
Speaker 1: been really not nice um historically and continenuously. So it's
Speaker 1: this battle over which of the men in her life
Speaker 1: gets to tell her story and gets to control her
Speaker 1: narrative and her dad. It's it's her dad, and her
Speaker 1: dad does Oh that's a frustrating because it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, you you you can never have a
Speaker 1: full picture of a person, but it's like it sounds
Speaker 1: like Chris knew a lot of parts of Selena, like
Speaker 1: in a lot of sides of her personality that her
Speaker 1: dad would never like you just can't. Right. That makes
Speaker 1: me sad. I hope that he's able to someday, because well,
Speaker 1: he does say in the movie, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to let you go, and it's like, well, try a
Speaker 1: little bit, literally, try try it all for a little bit,
Speaker 1: for one day, for one minute, make anny attempt at all. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break and then we will come
Speaker 1: right back and we're back. Uh. Speaking of Abraham, the
Speaker 1: scenes the scenes with Abraham in this movie that I
Speaker 1: thought were pretty effective, both in just like the themes
Speaker 1: of Selena's life and also to contextualize I mean, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that it's maybe a little bit overly generous
Speaker 1: to him, but the just contextualizing where he's coming from
Speaker 1: was I felt like it was pretty clear that to
Speaker 1: an extent, he's like projecting his dreams onto his daughter,
Speaker 1: which is not a I don't know if if I
Speaker 1: were a parent that had been like, oh, I wasn't
Speaker 1: able to achieve my dreams, so now you're going to
Speaker 1: I would not be excited to see that on screen
Speaker 1: because it doesn't It's not the best look in the world.
Speaker 1: And I liked that there were a few scenes with
Speaker 1: them together where he was talking about being Mexican American
Speaker 1: and how that factored into what he wanted for Selena.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to talk about those scenes and your
Speaker 1: opinions on those scenes well, because they were they were
Speaker 1: um as far as like Abraham Selena scenes that were
Speaker 1: like definitely stuck out to me. Yeah, I really love
Speaker 1: all those scenes in the movie as well, because I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the things that the movie does
Speaker 1: really really well is delve into that very classic, very
Speaker 1: now well known conversation about bi cultural identity and neither
Speaker 1: aki nida yeah right, neither from here nor from there,
Speaker 1: um that Mexican Americans and Chicanos have talked about, written about.
Speaker 1: It really engaged with for some time now as far
Speaker 1: as understanding our identity development and our place like racially
Speaker 1: and culturally in the United States. And I think it's
Speaker 1: a very sort of accessible and relatable conversation that a
Speaker 1: lot of our parents have had with us in one
Speaker 1: way or another, depending on you know, when your family
Speaker 1: got here, if your family immigrated at all, right, or
Speaker 1: if you are one of those families that has been
Speaker 1: here for generations on generations on generations in the American Southwest.
Speaker 1: And I also do think that there is a ton
Speaker 1: of very relatable conversations where yeah, you can see the
Speaker 1: projection happening, where you know, Abraham is like, it is
Speaker 1: very clear that this is a passion of his And
Speaker 1: in some of the dialogue in the movie, like in
Speaker 1: her conversation with Chris where he's talking about how his
Speaker 1: parents wanted him to be a doctor, so he became
Speaker 1: a musician. If you are my family and my dad
Speaker 1: would have loved you. We hated rehearsing, right, um in rehearsing,
Speaker 1: And I keep talking about this podcast Anything for Selena
Speaker 1: by um Maria Garcia. But this brings up another piece
Speaker 1: where even as a child, Selena was doing these press
Speaker 1: junkets and she was doing interviews, and um Maria Garcia
Speaker 1: play some of Selena's interviews, and she has a lot
Speaker 1: of interviews online you can watch as an adult, but
Speaker 1: even as a kid, some of her audio where people
Speaker 1: ask her, she gets asked all over the place, you
Speaker 1: know how she feels about having performed for so many
Speaker 1: years and spending so much of her childhood on a bus,
Speaker 1: and spending so much of her childhood with her family
Speaker 1: and on stage and working. And they asked her what
Speaker 1: do you like about performing? Why do you like it?
Speaker 1: And a very young Selena says it's good money, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, and older Selena says, um, I'm I know.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a traditional childhood. Yes, I did school
Speaker 1: by mail, but it was for a good reason. It
Speaker 1: was for a good cause because I was supporting my family.
Speaker 1: And so her real life interviews you hear a lot
Speaker 1: of her talking about this as a job and working
Speaker 1: towards a greater good and doing something that is going
Speaker 1: to benefit and support her family financially, and and in
Speaker 1: the film you have these little snippets of that as well.
Speaker 1: So I think that that's an interesting piece of it too,
Speaker 1: And just to zoom out a little bit and kind
Speaker 1: of just look at the grand scope of American Hollywood,
Speaker 1: main stream cinema, Like those conversations between Selena and Abraham.
Speaker 1: There's one when she's a young girl and he's like,
Speaker 1: you should learn how to sing in Spanish because your
Speaker 1: Mexican and that's beautiful and you know, never forget who
Speaker 1: you are. And like just that initial conversation about identity,
Speaker 1: which the ground work is laid for that in a
Speaker 1: very early scene where Abraham is a part of Lostinos
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, I like to sing do op,
Speaker 1: but I can't do that in like Tahano club because
Speaker 1: that's not the type of music they want to hear.
Speaker 1: But I can't do it at a white club because
Speaker 1: everyone's racist. So like just this like push and pull
Speaker 1: of his identity. And then like he's like, well, I
Speaker 1: want to make sure Selena like understands her roots and
Speaker 1: like is is that's a part of her cultural identity
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And then there's that scene later
Speaker 1: on in the bus where he's saying how exhausting it
Speaker 1: is to be a Mexican American because you know, you
Speaker 1: have to be twice as perfect as everyone else. You
Speaker 1: have to speak Spanish perfectly, you have to speak English perfectly.
Speaker 1: And just this again, the whole push and pull of
Speaker 1: identity and the fact that that conversation gets had Like
Speaker 1: most mainstream American movies like don't feature a conversation like that,
Speaker 1: So just to have that be present in this movie,
Speaker 1: I was just like that was that was a very
Speaker 1: powerful thing to hear and too just have in the movie. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: super powerful, And it's a really good reminder without explicitly
Speaker 1: saying it it's a reminder that like Abraham was a
Speaker 1: Mexican American, like born in the fifties in South Texas
Speaker 1: and was growing up in a like during the times
Speaker 1: of racial segregation, like probably attended racially segregated schools. His
Speaker 1: family was probably only allowed to buy and live in
Speaker 1: certain neighborhoods, and they probably you know, did racialized work.
Speaker 1: My dad was born in nine in Bakersville, California. Segregation
Speaker 1: was still a thing, signs on storefront windows, dogs or
Speaker 1: Mexicans allowed. He picked cotton and grapes in the fields.
Speaker 1: He was a child laborer, you know, like multiple generations
Speaker 1: of farm workers in the family. And and it's important
Speaker 1: to recognize that Selena is a general one generation removed
Speaker 1: from that as the daughter, so she is the product
Speaker 1: of somebody who survived that's sort of very specific South
Speaker 1: Texas anti Mexican racism. Doing what she's doing and crossing
Speaker 1: over into Mexico and it's like a reclamation, you know.
Speaker 1: And this is how we're going to be successful, is
Speaker 1: by appealing to our people and not necessarily white people,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't white folks filling the Houston Astrodome and
Speaker 1: buying her records and bringing her to stardom. It's it's
Speaker 1: there was a point being proven as well, like no,
Speaker 1: we we can also do this by being ourselves, which
Speaker 1: gets talked about in the movie too. Was like her
Speaker 1: mother being like women are not successful into Hanno music,
Speaker 1: like this is a male dominated genre, just you know,
Speaker 1: saying like I'm not so sure this is going to
Speaker 1: work out because patriarchy, and like, against all odds, Selena
Speaker 1: transcends that and becomes a hugely popular star in that
Speaker 1: genre and also then crosses over with her English album
Speaker 1: and like appeals to a wider audience and just yeah,
Speaker 1: the other the I love I love that scene where
Speaker 1: there on the bus and and the scene we were
Speaker 1: just talking about, and I especially love I just I
Speaker 1: don't know, I feel like it's really rare to see
Speaker 1: like a scene written where different generations are interacting in
Speaker 1: kind of a realistic way, because it's like the younger
Speaker 1: person is always going to be like yeah, I get it,
Speaker 1: but like shut up, like there and I just I just,
Speaker 1: I just I loved how Abraham's kids are interacting with
Speaker 1: him in that scene because they clearly like they know
Speaker 1: he's right, they're taking what he's saying seriously, but they're
Speaker 1: still like okay, but shut up, Like I just I
Speaker 1: don't know the way that the generational divide is made
Speaker 1: clear and that that seems hit. It was really good
Speaker 1: when she's like a good thing we have like tortillas
Speaker 1: and minuto to like keep our strength up, like well
Speaker 1: we used for this oppression, giving him ship the way
Speaker 1: anyone gives their dad ship when he goes on about
Speaker 1: or like I don't know, knowing the words to your
Speaker 1: dad's speech, you can probably right like here we go.
Speaker 1: God he's given before. And I love those moments with
Speaker 1: her in a b I love those moments that they
Speaker 1: have throughout the film where it's like, okay, you know
Speaker 1: how Dad is, like you know Dad, I got it.
Speaker 1: I'll handle Dad. You know Dad. Dad is very strong.
Speaker 1: Dad is a force. But they also have their power
Speaker 1: in their way like as siblings or is or in
Speaker 1: relation to their mom or in relation to each other.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, Dad has been and bad, but we
Speaker 1: also know which or his strings in which are his buttons,
Speaker 1: and just we know how to work with Dad. Just chill,
Speaker 1: it's fine, we'll do it. We'll get it done. And
Speaker 1: I love at Yeah, I wanted to ask what your
Speaker 1: thoughts because I believe you've spoken about this as well
Speaker 1: in the same article that we were referencing earlier, just
Speaker 1: the general kind of whitewashing of the casting of Selena
Speaker 1: and sort of your thoughts on the actors who have
Speaker 1: been chosen to play her, because to be clear, even
Speaker 1: though Jennifer Lopez and the actor who's cast as Selena
Speaker 1: for the series, Christian Seratos, uh, they are both Latina women,
Speaker 1: there is still an element of erasure happening here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been so interesting, like um, having this conversation like
Speaker 1: in one on the internet, because literally everyone we can
Speaker 1: weigh in, and that is both a terrible and wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: So going back to the very real, historic, well documented,
Speaker 1: well understood, well known history of racism that her family
Speaker 1: experienced as brown people, as people of color, as people
Speaker 1: of Mexican and which meaning for them indigenous descent, right,
Speaker 1: it was a fact of their reality that they were
Speaker 1: non white, racialized people and impacted by that historically. In
Speaker 1: talking about the whitewashing, that is really important to me
Speaker 1: because it's not a separate or imagined part of her story.
Speaker 1: It's very integral and the whitewashing is very subtle, and
Speaker 1: it's multifaceted because it's not just about the skin color
Speaker 1: of the actresses. It's all about the It's also about
Speaker 1: the featurism, right with facial features, especially Selena's like nose
Speaker 1: and lips and her indigenous features. And I hate feeling
Speaker 1: like I'm kind of like, you know, breaking her up
Speaker 1: into body parts and things. But this is what happens.
Speaker 1: And nowhere is that more obvious than in the casting
Speaker 1: where the casting has brought us with Slaris to the
Speaker 1: point where speaking of compartmentalizing and breaking her down to
Speaker 1: body parts, they hired an actress that are so thin
Speaker 1: unfortunately for the character that she was attempting to realize
Speaker 1: on screen that she's wearing extremely obvious button hit padding.
Speaker 1: You know, that is super obvious and a superclown looked
Speaker 1: clownish right in its appearance, and it's very weird and bad.
Speaker 1: Bad costume, bad costume, not a good way. And we've
Speaker 1: all rocked a Selena costume, and a lot of us
Speaker 1: can rock a very convincing Selena and and and the
Speaker 1: butt padding is very insulting because I consider that part
Speaker 1: of the futurism and part of the whitewashing, and you
Speaker 1: can see over time how you have Selena, who's someone
Speaker 1: very undeniably brown and of Native descent, and then j
Speaker 1: Loo has a much slimmer nose and a much smaller
Speaker 1: like button nose, and she's just a wee bit lighter.
Speaker 1: And then the actress now cast per Selena the series,
Speaker 1: her nose is even more slender and she's even lighter
Speaker 1: than j Lo, and I acknowledge that Selena was a technically,
Speaker 1: you know, a light brown, a light skinned woman, but
Speaker 1: brown nonetheless, And again it was brown and Mexican people
Speaker 1: who are filling the seats and going to her shows
Speaker 1: and supporting her and seeing themselves into her, not white people,
Speaker 1: not factually actually factually right. And in watching like Selena
Speaker 1: the series, in real life, Selena, besides her costumes, she
Speaker 1: didn't stand out glaringly from the demographic of her crowd.
Speaker 1: She looked like her crowd. You see now like Selena series,
Speaker 1: and she looks very foreign and different from her crowd.
Speaker 1: It looks like Madonna doing her crossover tour in Mexico,
Speaker 1: you know, it looks like Reeba doing her crossover tour
Speaker 1: in Mexico. And some of those scenes, right, which is
Speaker 1: jarring and noticeable. I think that another place where whitewashing
Speaker 1: has happened with casting is with the dancing and the
Speaker 1: lack of dancing in the series. Right. I think one
Speaker 1: of the amazing things about the movie is that they
Speaker 1: were able to find an actress and a performer in
Speaker 1: j Lo who could execute the dancing, the Columbia and
Speaker 1: the disco and all the other influences, you know, that
Speaker 1: the hand influences and everything else that Selena brought into
Speaker 1: her movement. And I think that's one of the great
Speaker 1: victories and great successes of the film, is casting a
Speaker 1: dancer who could execute and bring the music, the style,
Speaker 1: and the culture and the flavor to life. Um. It's
Speaker 1: one of the pieces that is missing from the series. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I know that there's been a lot written about it,
Speaker 1: but it was it. It does seem like, in general,
Speaker 1: this series almost regresses from the problems that were already
Speaker 1: you know, well publicized and when well talked about when
Speaker 1: the movie's casting was released. You know, there was pretty
Speaker 1: significant backlash when j Low's casting was announced in the
Speaker 1: first place. Um, for many of the reasons you describe.
Speaker 1: But then instead of course correcting years later, making not
Speaker 1: even the same mistake, you know, kind of an escalated
Speaker 1: version of the same mistake. And what I want to
Speaker 1: push against is this notion that well Selena was white.
Speaker 1: I've literally seen people tweet this. I've seen people write
Speaker 1: this and like send tweet and it's the most preposterous,
Speaker 1: a historical, ridiculous thing I have ever gained to read
Speaker 1: in my life because just the lie, the inaccuracy, and
Speaker 1: there's so much video photo documentation of Selena it's really
Speaker 1: not up for to day, it's really that. So then
Speaker 1: to see the rewriting of history, well, this is what
Speaker 1: she looked like, and this is what this what she
Speaker 1: looked like. It it's like, that's not what she looks like,
Speaker 1: and it's important to remember what she looks like because
Speaker 1: we really haven't had another one since her. And part
Speaker 1: of it is like we have our pop stars, but
Speaker 1: they're very white looking Latin people, super white looking Latin people,
Speaker 1: and it's even as light skinned to Selina was. That's
Speaker 1: how colorist and white supremacist Hollywood and Mexican media is
Speaker 1: that they couldn't even prop up another brown skin girl
Speaker 1: like the real thing. You know, we keep it j
Speaker 1: low and whiter always and we just got a Yalizza
Speaker 1: Barrisio recently, you know, in the last couple few years.
Speaker 1: Um So, the the indigenous and brown representation, even within
Speaker 1: the Mexican communities for women on screen is just not there,
Speaker 1: and it's a crying shame and it's sucked up. And
Speaker 1: I also blame the men in their involvement because I
Speaker 1: think they have very whitewashed um beauty standard goggles that
Speaker 1: they look through. Absolutely. Yeah, well that's a a problem
Speaker 1: that we talk about a lot, just kind of adhering
Speaker 1: to Western beauty standards, and Hollywood has as a terrible
Speaker 1: history of whitewashing or erasing I mean again kind of
Speaker 1: zooming out a little bit. As far as Latin X
Speaker 1: representation in mainstream American movies, the representation has either been
Speaker 1: non existent or they're but full of reductive stereotypes or
Speaker 1: whitewashed with I think pretty commonly white actors playing in
Speaker 1: like British people from England playing Miss Katherine Zeta, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: our favorite Mexican crews are other favorite Mexican Yeah, so
Speaker 1: just like European people playing Latin X characters. I have
Speaker 1: a just a quick list here of some examples. Ben
Speaker 1: Affle plays a real life Mexican American man Antonio J.
Speaker 1: Mendez and Argo Umize I have not seen Argo um
Speaker 1: Al Pacino plays a Puerto Rican character in Carlt's Way.
Speaker 1: Juliette Binoche plays uh Maria Segovia, a real life Chilean
Speaker 1: woman in the movie The thirty Three. Jennifer Connelly plays
Speaker 1: a real life Salvadorian woman in Beautiful Mind. Alicia Nash
Speaker 1: Charlton Heston god This plays a Mexican character in Touch
Speaker 1: of Evil um Unfortunately, our King Alfred Molina has trade
Speaker 1: a real life Mexican artist, Diego Rivera, of course in Frida.
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of these examples. It's just all
Speaker 1: too common. And to see a version of this happening
Speaker 1: in the casting of projects about Lena, where they are
Speaker 1: erasing real life Selena's indigenous roots and features is like
Speaker 1: there's just no excuse for it. And the racism in
Speaker 1: the casting and in Latin American media is like, does
Speaker 1: a couple of things so it will replace like what
Speaker 1: we would refer to as a mess pisa, right, like
Speaker 1: I would be a mestiza, Selena be messisa like of
Speaker 1: indigenous and European and honestly for many Mexicans that we
Speaker 1: don't always acknowledge or talk about. There's there's also a
Speaker 1: lot of Afro Indigenous and Afro Missisa heritage and communities
Speaker 1: out there. I've seen people tweet that Selena was white.
Speaker 1: I've also seen people tweet that Selena looks Afro Indigenous
Speaker 1: to them, you know, and that a light skinned black
Speaker 1: actress could have played Selena um And it's so it's
Speaker 1: extremely interesting to see the range of how we interpret
Speaker 1: her today. But what happens is the racism as such
Speaker 1: that even a light skin Latina mestiza like Selena gets
Speaker 1: cast by like non Mexican and super white looking people.
Speaker 1: And then you have a ton of Afro Latinos historically
Speaker 1: acting in Hollywood. The racism is such that they never
Speaker 1: are cast as Latino characters ever, and they're not acknowledged
Speaker 1: and celebrated as Latin Latino actors and actresses. Gina Torres
Speaker 1: has is you know, uh after Latino actors, and she
Speaker 1: has been very vocal historically about her racier and exclusion
Speaker 1: from Latin American media spaces, and so she plays like
Speaker 1: black American characters a lot of after Latino actors musicians
Speaker 1: are embraced in black Hollywood and playing Black American African
Speaker 1: American characters, but Latin media's against so racists that they're
Speaker 1: not even seen or recognized at all anywhere. The space
Speaker 1: is not even present for them, right, And so it's
Speaker 1: it's this is how the whitewashing is done of real
Speaker 1: life POC. You know, they're just getting replaced with white
Speaker 1: people are being rejected from the space completely. They cannot
Speaker 1: pass as wid or they were not you know, light enough,
Speaker 1: or if they were black in real life m O
Speaker 1: levels level. I mean, there was even I I saw
Speaker 1: in it may have been from scholarly journal Wikipedia, but
Speaker 1: that there were white actresses in the running to play
Speaker 1: Selena in in nineties seven, like and that Hollywood was like,
Speaker 1: well you should you know, here's j Lo is not white,
Speaker 1: as if that is as if that is a representation,
Speaker 1: when like, it's just so maddening. But it did seem
Speaker 1: like from what I was able to find that at
Speaker 1: least in the early stages of production, there were white
Speaker 1: actresses in the running to to play Selena, which is
Speaker 1: just yeah, and the question that I always have, and
Speaker 1: especially when we're talking about real life people, you know,
Speaker 1: casting as a choice, a lot of people weighing on
Speaker 1: and if we can choose to go lighter and dinner
Speaker 1: and more euro why aren't Why can't we choose to
Speaker 1: go darker and more indigenous? Why can't we go browner?
Speaker 1: Why can't we go fuller? Figured? These choices are made,
Speaker 1: but it's always in the same direction, and it's problematic.
Speaker 1: And look, there are so many Selena tribute artists who
Speaker 1: are of appropriate age. And I don't like to judge
Speaker 1: actresses based on their age, because if you can act,
Speaker 1: you connect and you can overcome age in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways on screen, but also when you're playing like
Speaker 1: a literal fifteen year old and you're thirty, like things
Speaker 1: happen with that, with with it on screen, just things
Speaker 1: happen with that, you know. And um, I have that
Speaker 1: group with Selena the series and and even with Selena
Speaker 1: the movie. You know, the girls are out there, the
Speaker 1: South Texas girls are out there, and I want to
Speaker 1: come back to Selena was exceptionally talented, but she wasn't
Speaker 1: exceptional as far as her look. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: beautiful girls who look like Selena. A lot of beautiful
Speaker 1: girls who look like Selena and they're out there, so
Speaker 1: you know, I want that to be part of the
Speaker 1: narrative to that these are choices that are made, but
Speaker 1: not for lack of options exactly. Hell yeah, Is there
Speaker 1: was there anything else, um that either of you wanted
Speaker 1: to hit on? I think that that's about everything I have.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of really quick things. One we
Speaker 1: see a makeover montage, but this time it's a man over.
Speaker 1: I love the hair cutting bats unsceen love it the
Speaker 1: cutting of the like punk bracelets off with like wire
Speaker 1: cutters or whatever. That is good. Love that because we
Speaker 1: always talk about you know, makeover montages being reserved mostly
Speaker 1: for women and that being done too like better appeal
Speaker 1: to a man um. Now I feel like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this for Selena, it's it's the total opposite where that's
Speaker 1: like one of the few areas of self expression that
Speaker 1: she gets to, you know, really curate for herself. She
Speaker 1: doesn't need a makeover. She's like she's got the instinct,
Speaker 1: like she's got the style. Yeah right right. Um. I
Speaker 1: also just wanted to shout out Suzette for kind of
Speaker 1: breaking barriers as a woman drummer, which I wish got
Speaker 1: touched on in the movie a little bit more. They do.
Speaker 1: Like there's a couple moments where Suzette as a child
Speaker 1: is like, girls don't play drums, and she's like really
Speaker 1: resentful that she got stuck with the drums until she
Speaker 1: realized she was a pioneer. Right. Um, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I love you know, women as drummers representation, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I agree. And and being you know, like a plus
Speaker 1: size girl and they plus size the actress and I
Speaker 1: appreciate they They were really um excellent with that casting choice.
Speaker 1: I think as Susette she was great. Yeah, I wish
Speaker 1: she was I wish she had more to do. And
Speaker 1: I loved all her girls and her hats. I loved
Speaker 1: all her also iconic looks that Suzette is delivering. Should
Speaker 1: talk about those as well. Uh. And I think my
Speaker 1: final just little thing was um, women eating on screen representation.
Speaker 1: You have that scene where the pizza She's like, I
Speaker 1: can eat a whole medium pizza by myself and I
Speaker 1: love Pepperoni, and I I scarf to Rito's, and that
Speaker 1: you actually see her eat and not just like talk
Speaker 1: because sometimes we'll have there will be seen. Like I
Speaker 1: always think of there's something about Mary, where Cameron Diaz
Speaker 1: is like, I love going to the baseball game and
Speaker 1: having a corn dog and drinking a bunch of beers.
Speaker 1: She's saying this while at lunch with her girlfriends. They
Speaker 1: all have salads in front of them, and none of
Speaker 1: the characters even eat the salad. That's just like, I think,
Speaker 1: maybe the most um iconic, least feminist moments committed to film.
Speaker 1: That is, like, I'm not like other girls. I'm starving
Speaker 1: like the horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible right she was, And
Speaker 1: I mean I think about it too. She probably ate
Speaker 1: a lot, because that's a lot of calories, a lot
Speaker 1: of performing, letter rehearsing, probably constantly eating. Love that for her.
Speaker 1: She eats the chips, she steals susettees Dorito's. That's feminist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is there anything else you wanted to touch on? Mala? No,
Speaker 1: I think that was very thorough. I think we got
Speaker 1: all I think we got all of it. I feel
Speaker 1: great about what we've done here today. Yeah. Well, with
Speaker 1: that in mind, does this movie pass the Bechdel Test? Yes? Yeah,
Speaker 1: another win, another another win. Yeah, we have we do see,
Speaker 1: even though I wish there were more than we do.
Speaker 1: See scenes where Selena and Suzette talked to each other
Speaker 1: about you know, music or other things that aren't a
Speaker 1: man Selena and her mother Marcella, which brings us to
Speaker 1: our nipple scale, which is our metric where we rate
Speaker 1: a movie from zero to five nipples based on an
Speaker 1: intersectional feminist examination of the movie, and based on I
Speaker 1: wasn't quite sure where I would land. I think like
Speaker 1: we need, I like needed our conversation to happen to
Speaker 1: to really, um make me figure out what my rating
Speaker 1: was going to be. I want to rate it highly.
Speaker 1: But we also, you know, so many good points were
Speaker 1: brought up about there needs to be more Latin X
Speaker 1: representation in mainstream Hollywood media that is not about the
Speaker 1: same person over and over again. Um, there just needs
Speaker 1: to be a wider scope of stories and people being explored.
Speaker 1: The white washing of Selena in the casting. But then
Speaker 1: you know, at the same time, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I think we're handled really well, the conversations
Speaker 1: about identity, the the relations the romantic relationship. But then
Speaker 1: kind of like on the flip side of that, I'm
Speaker 1: just like, well, I wish there hadn't been so much
Speaker 1: focus on Selena's relationships with these two men in her life,
Speaker 1: her father and and Chris, and that it wasn't so
Speaker 1: filtered through the lens of like Abraham king Toniaz. I
Speaker 1: wish like we could explore other kind of people's perspectives
Speaker 1: of her life, so it wasn't just like filtered through
Speaker 1: his kind of control and lens. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm well, I think I'm going to give it a
Speaker 1: four nipples, and I will give two of them to Selena.
Speaker 1: I will give one to Suzette, and I will give
Speaker 1: one to Suzette's drum. Set'll go, I'll go for as well. Um,
Speaker 1: I think that there there are certainly, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Especially, I think that I'm coming from a
Speaker 1: slightly biased place, having like watched the movie in a
Speaker 1: series pretty close together and greatly preferring the movie to
Speaker 1: this series. But even even I mean, all things considered,
Speaker 1: I think that the discussion about colorism should continue to
Speaker 1: be had, and as it pertains to this movie and
Speaker 1: to the casting of Selena in particular, because it's like
Speaker 1: how we curate and present our icons over the course
Speaker 1: of years does make a huge, huge, huge difference, And
Speaker 1: I feel like that's you know, just something that is
Speaker 1: always going to warrant further discussion, um, especially because an
Speaker 1: icon is so kind of malleable, and and you should
Speaker 1: you know, as time goes on, you should be getting
Speaker 1: better at representing them, not worse. Um. But in terms
Speaker 1: of how um Selena is written and kind of honored
Speaker 1: in this movie. You know, I'm not a Selena expert,
Speaker 1: but but as far as she's presented, I mean, she's amazing.
Speaker 1: She is like extremely motivated. She is navigating her identity,
Speaker 1: whether that means culturally or as a woman, or just
Speaker 1: as a fucking person who wants some control over their
Speaker 1: own life. And yeah, I mean I'm always going to
Speaker 1: wish that you get the other sides of her. And um,
Speaker 1: I don't know that the telling this that her legacy
Speaker 1: is still kind of a tug of war between two
Speaker 1: male figures in her life is like, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: always going to be the thing, right, is Like you
Speaker 1: just wish that she she could have lived to tell
Speaker 1: her own story. But as as far as this adaptation goes, like,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's you get more of a sense
Speaker 1: of her like spirit and her life and the complications
Speaker 1: of who she was. And I love it, and I've
Speaker 1: watched it more times than I needed to to get ready,
Speaker 1: I watched it four times. It's just because it's a
Speaker 1: really good movie. On top of everything we've talked about,
Speaker 1: it's just a goodass movie. So um so yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: give it four nipples, uh two to Selena and complete
Speaker 1: the set, and then I'll give one to Marcella, and
Speaker 1: then I'll give one to a friend that's at the
Speaker 1: house a lot. She I love it. I think I wanna.
Speaker 1: I mean, because it's Selena. I want I always want
Speaker 1: to give a perfect score, a plus five stars, you know,
Speaker 1: so just off of her name. Off the strength of
Speaker 1: her name and her legacy alone made the film good
Speaker 1: because the source material was so good. It's hard to
Speaker 1: funk up excellent source material, right to funk up excellent
Speaker 1: source material, which is part of my gripe. But the
Speaker 1: movie right like it was true to the material, so
Speaker 1: it was good. So I want to give it five.
Speaker 1: I want to give five nipples and I want to
Speaker 1: get I want to give three nipples to Selena. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give t nipples to Selena though, because I
Speaker 1: want to give one to Marcella because she doesn't get enough.
Speaker 1: I want to susatte and I want to honestly give
Speaker 1: a nipple to Chris Perez because I think that Chris
Speaker 1: Perez was like an advocate for her and still is
Speaker 1: and like very on her side in an empowering sort
Speaker 1: of way. Because I think he as he as a musician,
Speaker 1: could appreciate the artist that she was and the individual
Speaker 1: that she was. So I want to give Chris a
Speaker 1: little shout out because they give him a hard time.
Speaker 1: M I love it, Chris, I mean even the way
Speaker 1: the movie shows him. Chris Perez male feminist certified daddy.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well mama, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: This has been incredible. Yeah, this was fun. Thank you
Speaker 1: for having me and let me know what gress out.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear it. Oh my gosh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and come back anytime. Okay, I have you back. Um,
Speaker 1: where can people check out your stuff? Follow you online,
Speaker 1: check out your podcast? Tell us everything? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So if you want to leten to my podcast, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm one half of lookal Radio a Radiola, which is
Speaker 1: just a very extra way of saying a podcast posted
Speaker 1: with my good friend and co producer Thesa FM. So
Speaker 1: you can find look at what our radio across streaming
Speaker 1: platforms were online. Follow us on Instagram, on Twitter, TikTok
Speaker 1: look at Underscore radio. If you want to follow me
Speaker 1: as an individual, I'm at Mala Underscore monos on all
Speaker 1: socials and I'm also not only fans, so subscribe to
Speaker 1: my only fans awesome. You can check us out on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram at bechtel Cast. You can subscribe to
Speaker 1: our patreon ak Matreon. It's five dollars a month and
Speaker 1: it gets you access to two bonus episodes every single month.
Speaker 1: Imagine imagine that plus the entire back catalog, which is
Speaker 1: somewhere around like seventy or eighty episodes. Now, so too many,
Speaker 1: There's a lot. I'd say, actually not enough, but there
Speaker 1: you go. Okay, so that is that is the half
Speaker 1: full energy we do need to be bringing. I was
Speaker 1: like still living going how you can also get us
Speaker 1: smirch on t felic dot com, slash the back Pelcast indeed,
Speaker 1: and um, you know. To close out, I would just
Speaker 1: like to say bitty bitty bum bum bye bye bye baby,
Speaker 1: bye bye