by Diego de los Reyes | May 11, 2015 | Television
I’ve never been to an IKEA. I think I know what it’s like: full of furniture with weird names and impossible-to-assemble desks. IKEA is the place where the sitcom dad goes to find something to do in a C-story. I know this from context in TV shows. I had to learn it. There’s a moment in the second episode of Jane the Virgin (which concludes its first season tonight) where Abuela Alba namechecks Catalina Creel, a telenovela villain from 1986. When I saw that, I had to pause the episode, go to my mother’s room, and show her the pilot. We binged the other eight available episodes that day. Now, I’ve never seen that telenovela. I actually have never seen a telenovela, and that’s the official statement I’m putting out on the internet, no more questions, thank you. But it was the first time, in my long history of watching TV, that I instinctively *got* a specific cultural reference. Which leads me to the first of many reasons I love Jane the Virgin. Representation Look, I know. Maybe you’re Deadline. Or maybe you say that you don’t really pay attention to diversity, you only care if the show is good or not. I’ve used that argument before. That doesn’t change the fact that television is, mostly, straight white males creating shows with straight white males as leads. Jane the Virgin was created by Jennie Snyder Urman, and stars Gina Rodriguez and other actors of latin descent. When was the last time you saw a show with two latino regulars? Or when was the last time you saw a hispanic character not playing a...
