Like most Mexican American women, I grew up idolizing Selena Quintanilla-Perez, always singing along and dancing around my grandparents’ house to her music—to this day, you can still catch me in my kitchen doing the “washing machine” while singing along to “La Carcacha” and reveling in the power that was Selena’s voice. It’s because of this that I often feel so protective of her and the way her story gets told. So much of who I am is because of Selena’s confidence, the way she was so unapologetically passionate and perfectionistic with all her performances and creative endeavors.
While the cast is made up of entirely Latinx actors, they are whiter than both the Quintanilla family and the cast of the film, pointing to a larger conversation of colorism in Latinx casting. Additionally, Serratos’s performance of Selena often fell flat. Though she did manage to capture some of her wide-eyed hopefulness and passion, she failed to personify her overall essence and starpower—something Selena never lacked, especially when she performed. Selena was known (and still is known) for her electric performances, and Serratos’s dancing and botched lip synching did not deliver. Each episode contains several performances throughout, and all of them felt like a parody, with Serratos looking more like she was doing an impression than attempting to embody Selena’s moves.
