Review of Selena (1997) by Nashalie%20 R — 19 Dec 2017

The Queen of Tejano Music: Selena.

On March 31st, 1995, in Corpus Christi, Texas former singer and songwriter Selena Quintanilla was shot to death by her fan club manager and "best friend" Yolanda Saldivar. The 23 year old Mexican-American idol was one of the most inspiring and biggest influences of the decade. Her tragic death affected thousands of fans across the world, specially the ones from the Latino community. After one of the biggest casting calls of the time (about 22,000 girls auditioned to play Selena's role in the movie), the film was released on March 21st, 1997 with Jennifer López as the lead actress playing Selena Quintanilla.

Showing a brief part of her father's unsuccessful story in the business, Selena starts by letting us all know how passionate her father Abraham Quintanilla was about music and embracing their Mexican-American heritage. His band, called Los Dinos, struggled throughout their career because of their mixed racial traditions. This situation in particular was pointed at later on in the movie, when he was explaining Selena and her brother AB Quintanilla how difficult it was to be Mexican-American: "...We gotta be MORE Mexican than the Mexicans, and MORE American than the Americans; both at the same time! It is exhausting!...". Selena's carer started very early in her childhood, at 7 years of age to be exact; Abraham noticed she had a great voice and natural talent so he pushed her and her siblings to form a band. Selena Y Los Dinos debuted at a young age, she being the lead singer, AB played the bass, and Suzette played the drums. Even though they didn't have the best start to their career (playing in their family's weddings and their father's restaurant), later on they became one of the most successful bands in the history of tejano music.

Jennifer López moved in with Suzette Quintanilla, in order to gain knowledge and learn how things were done, and most importantly: how Selena made everything happen. She learned how to dance, speak, smile and acquired all the physical characteristics possible to look and act like the singer. The movie has a little bit of everything, from huge drama to an amazing, sparkling and unconditional love story. JLo's performance was beyond belief; even Selena's father admitted that he felt Selena was alive sometimes, and that Jennifer made an awesome job. Selena was a huge inspiration for a lot of people, including López, since her acting debut happened with the movie, and from that point Selena's influece encourage her to persue a singing, acting and dancing career. Even though the movie was produced in order to show Selena's journey, not everything in the movie happened like real life. Selena's husband Chris Perez made an statement saying that the movie missed some important scenes but besides that, it was a great and very realistic production.

Although Jlo had to sing and dance for the auditions, the movie used Selena's singing voice since the beginning, except for a scene where JLo sang only three words belonging to Selena's song "Como La Flor". López became became the highest-paid Latina at the time, earning one million dollars for her role. However, not many people were happy about the role being hers, since a lot of the fans thought that a Puerto Rican was not the best option to play the role of the Mexican-American idol.

Selena was produced by the singer's father Abraham Quintanilla, Moctesuma Esparza and Robert Kratz. Written and directed by Gregory Nava, the crew wanted to celebrate the singer's life rather than focusing on her tragic story. Even though it was a little "sugar-coated", the movie shows the struggles they had before being successful, their father's strong and strict character, and how Selena surpassed a lot of sexism and obstacles put on her way just because she was a woman in the music business. It holds a story filled with ups and downs, but it also shows how they kept their unity as a family and perseverance as artists.

Personally, Selena's movie was a huge eye opener in my life. Amazing talent, a fearless woman, someone who owned who she was. She had such a graceful way to embrace culture, how inspiring it was to watch how it was possible for her to set new standards and records one after the other. Every step she took in her short journey was done with class, dignity and success.