SEARCHING FOR SELENA
Early episodes of new series focus less on the young Tejano superstar and more on her family
Early episodes of new series focus less on the young Tejano superstar and more on her family.
Every pop-culture superstar deserves a good origin story, and Selena Quintanilla had a saga for the ages. The little Texas girl with the big voice went from singing in her family’s Mexican restaurant to becoming the queen of Tejano music. Backed by a band featuring her brother and sister, the teenage Selena toured the roadhouse and county fair circuit in a bus with no seats, heat or air conditioning and ended up topping Billboard magazine’s Latin charts and becoming the first female Tejano artist to win a Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American Album.
But on March 31, 1995, triumph turned to tragedy, when Selena was shot and killed by Yolanda Saldívar, the founder of the singer’s fan club. Selena was just 23 years old.
It is a story of sweat, grit and stunning natural talent starring an ebullient young woman with a huge smile, a weakness for sequins and a warmth that made fans feel like family. If you think the Selena story sounds like it was made for TV, you would be right.
After being the subject of the 1997 biopic
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that made a star out of Jennifer Lopez, Selena’s short life is now the subject of a new Netf lix series. But in the first few episodes of “Selena: The Series,” the star of the show is not the star of her story. Instead, creator Moisés Zamora focuses on Selena’s father, Abraham, a former musician who throws himself and his dreams into giving Selena and her siblings (but mostly Selena) the career he never had.
If you think this is not the Selena-centric series you signed up for, you would be right about that, too.
This is not always a bad thing. Because the series is split into two parts, with the first nine-episode chunk taking us from Selena’s birth in 1971 to the release of her second album in 1990, Zamora has plenty of time to delve into the family dynamics and musical inf luences that helped turn a non-Spanish-speaking girl from small-town Texas into a Latin music supernova.
In these small, revealing moments, we see Abraham (Ricardo Chavira of “Desperate Housewives”) helping the 8-year-old Selena (Madison Taylor Baez) understand what it means to sing from the heart. We hear him explain to his reluctant children that playing music is a privilege. When Selena’s older sister, Suzette (Noemí Gonzalez), balks at playing drums in the family band, Abraham tells her that the drummer is the “heartbeat of the band,” a role that Suzette grows into over time.
When a famous songwriter reneges on his promise to give the band first crack at two of his songs, Abraham tells his bassplaying son, A.B. (Gabriel Chavarria), that he’ll just have to suck it up and write some songs himself. Then we get to see A.B. analyzing other Tejano hits to figure out what makes them work. And when Abraham sees a county fair crowd going nuts over a Tejano band, he tells the English-speaking Selena that she needs to trade her Jody Watley pop tunes for “La Bamba.” Now.
We also see the family struggles that turned Selena and her siblings into road warriors at such a young age. After losing their restaurant and their home during the 1980s recession, the Quintanillas depend on food stamps and the kindness of Abraham’s family in Corpus Christi. When the family band books a wedding gig, Abraham and A.B. go dumpster diving for the food cans they will use for their jury-rigged lighting setup.
As Selena y Los Dinos record an album with a small label and start selling out venues, mother Marcella (Seidy López) sews the costumes, A.B. writes songs, and Abraham books the gigs and drives the bus. And Selena? She is looking at fashion magazines, dreaming about clothes and experimenting with her hair.
Once we get into the teen years, Selena is played by Christian Serratos (“The Walking Dead”), who brings so much joy and charisma to the table, you won’t notice or care that she is usually lip-syncing to Selena’s vocals. Onstage, Serratos’ Selena is a human sunbeam bathing her audiences is heat, light and boundless cheer. Offstage, she is more of a supporting character, happy to giggle over boys with Suzette and learn Spanish by watching telenovelas.
Chavira does an admirable job of showing the proud, loving father lurking behind the stage-dad bluster, and the sisterly bond between Selena and Suzette feels lived-in and real. But as much as I appreciate that there is more to “Selena: The Series” than Selena, these early episodes have an empty space where their heart should be. By the fourth episode — which seems to be one endless, aimless bus trip — I was more than ready for Selena to step up and speak out.
Does she feel the pressure that comes with being the family meal ticket? Does she mind the endless grind of the road? Did Abraham push her too hard too early? She looks so happy onstage, and she probably is. But what is going on behind that big smile? Anything?
I have watched only the first four installments of this nine-episode season, so there is still plenty of time for character growth. Given Serratos’ considerable charms and Selena’s dramatic story, it would be a shame if the woman at the center of this well-crafted series remains a mystery.
We know Selena has a voice. Here’s hoping “Selena: The Series” lets her use it.