It’s no secret that I love television. I legit love it. I don’t have a lot of ways to escape. Little kids, busy life. Television is my escape and I embrace it. ‘Jane the Virgin’ is pure escapism. Or at least it is on first glance.
Beautiful people, gorgeous Miami setting, and wild story lines. It’s all you can ask for in a television show where you just want to escape. It’s a whole lot more than that though. It’s a story about going after your dreams even if it means doing it slowly, one step at a time. Even if it means needing to be reminded about your devotion to your dream over and over again. It’s a story about fresh starts and the need to constantly evaluate what it is important. It’s a love story. Sure it’s a love story between Jane and many suitors and Petra and her suitors but it’s also a love story between Jane and her mother and her grandmother.
The three Villanueva women are the heart of the show. And as much as I get caught up in the love stories and yes I have my favorites (#teamrafael always and forever) the story is about family. It’s about getting lost and coming home to your family. It’s about families evolving and people being added to families. It’s about families about by blood and families by love.
And lets not forget that this family tackles cancer, bisexuality, addiction and most central to the show, immigration head on. It does not shy away but expects more from the characters and the audience.
This show is important on another level. Its one of the first shows I’ve watched where my white self is not the target audience. This is a show about a Latino family and what its like to be a Latino family in America. But its also just a show about what its like to be a family in America. It’s a show about what its like to be a working class family but it’s not a show that focuses on how hard that is, although it acknowledges concerns about money and work.
As fake and wild as this telenovella is it is real. This family gives me hope.
So its an escape, but not to an imagined world instead its an escape to a world where I want it to be.