(a harried Gabriel Chavarria), overloading the young man with tasks that range from songwriting to scouting guitarists. Abraham leans on Selena’s older brother and bassist A.B. Meanwhile, in what often feels like a family dramedy, we spend time on the road with the Quintanillas and get to know their dynamic. Selena, a thoroughly American girl raised on pop and disco, has to start singing in Spanish before she’s even learned the language.īy episode 2, she’s a beautiful and bubbly teenage frontwoman (played by Christian Serratos of The Walking Dead) serenading ever-bigger Tejano nightclub crowds in the early stages of a slow climb to awards recognition, major-label money, stadium performances and all the other trappings of top-tier stardom. Beset by financial woes, Abraham notices that local Tejano acts never fail to draw a crowd and reinvents the band as Selena y Los Dinos. The Quintanilla kids perform as the Southern Pearl, entertaining wedding guests, nursing-home residents and diners at their parents’ short-lived Mexican restaurant with sentimental English-language covers like “Feelings” and “Why Do Fools Fall in Love.” But they never gain the momentum necessary to take off. 4, the first half of a planned two-part series charts the singer’s rise, beginning when Abraham (Ricardo Chavira) discovers his youngest child Selena’s (Madison Taylor Baez, adorable) knockout voice and recruits her two older siblings for a family band.

So maybe it was inevitable that Netflix’s Selena: The Series, which covers much of the same material as the movie, would disappoint. It seems pretty bold, then, to attempt another onscreen recreation of this iconic life. While its screenplay wasn’t anything special, the combination of an emotional performance from Lopez that captured the singer’s electric charisma and Gregory Nava’s kinetic, music-video-style direction made for a powerful tribute. It also gave birth to another category-defying Latina star in Jennifer Lopez, a former In Living Color Fly Girl whose acclaimed portrayal of Selena elevated her to A-list status as both an actor and a recording artist.

Along with a posthumous bilingual album that broke Latin-pop sales records, the biopic belatedly introduced the singer’s music to new fans around the world. If there was a silver lining to be found amid so much grief, it was Selena’s symbolic resurrection in 1997’s Selena: The Movie.

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