Focuses on family life, cultural impact
Everybody knows Selena Quintanilla-Perez for her iconic red lips, dazzling outfits, graceful spins and captivating voice, but a lot of people don’t know about the life that made her the soul we continue to love today. With Netflix’s new documentary, “Selena y Los Dinos: A Family’s Legacy,” we get a closer look into the upbringing of Selena’s career and her family life. Director Isabel Castro was hand picked by the Quintanilla family to tell the story of Selena and trusted with the personal archives of the family including never before seen home videos and interviews.
Isabel Castro is a Mexican-American filmmaker and a five time Emmy nominee who is best known for her storytelling. She took a very empathetic side of Selena’s story by showing the very human side of her through home videos. Throughout the documentary, you watch Selena grow up into the talented, optimistic person 23 year old she was.
The truth is that behind the star, Selena was just a girl like everyone else with dreams and favorite things. She had a strong team of family and friends behind her and being on the road all the time, they were really close. Through their stories and home videos, you get a sense of the real Selena and it really helps the audience to connect with her on a personal level.
Selena was and still is a symbol of feminism. She was very open about how much harder it is for a woman to succeed in the music industry and she was easily breaking standards in that field. She was not ashamed of putting men in their place with songs like “Que Creias” and Si Una Vez.”
“Mi papá tenía muchos problemas, eh, tener shows o presentaciones. La razón fue porque hay muchos hombres que no piensan que la mujer puede agarrar a la gente o al público así como un hombre. Pero, (My dad had a lot of problems when it came to having shows or presentations. The reason was because there are many men who do not think that women can grab people or the public, as well as a man. But,) wrong,” Selena said in an interview.
Along with childhood and family life, Selena also had an iconic love story with her husband Chris Perez. We’ve all seen the movie and heard the story. What started out as forbidden love turned into a romantic dream for the rest of her life. Chris talks about his experience with her and tells some stories of their short lived love. One of my favorite moments in this documentary is the moment present day Chris Perez scratches his eyebrow after getting emotional about his former lover, only for it to suddenly cut to a home video of Selena scratching the same spot on her eyebrow. It’s a subtle shot that conveys the connection between them.
Though Selena’s tragic end is inevitably mentioned, the ending of the documentary focuses on the legacy she left behind and the impact she still has on Mexican-American culture and women in general. It’s no coincidence that this documentary was created by a Mexican-American woman and Selena would be proud knowing her story is being told by a girl who followed her dreams as she preached so often when she was here.
I have and always will be proud to be named after such an inspiring, Mexican-American woman. She’s paved the way for girls of all ages and continues to do so 30 years after being gone. We will continue to watch the home videos, listen to her music and follow her advice to dream that the impossible is always possible.