Our story begins ten years ago when a show about a young woman who became a pregnant virgin debuted on the CW – Jane the Virgin. When she is 23 years old, Jane Gloriana Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez) ends up pregnant by what at first is assumed to be an act of God.
However, the truth is a little more complicated. You see, Jane is accidentally artificially inseminated with the sperm of her handsome millionaire boss and former crush, Rafael Solano (Justin Baldoni) who is in a tenuous marriage with the inscrutable Petra (Yael Groblas). Jane herself is engaged to “good guy” cop Michael Cordero (Brett Dier), who is investigating a dangerous drug lord who works out of Rafael’s hotel. And while she was raised by her loving mother Xiomara and abuela Alba (Andrea Navedo and Ivonne Coll, respectively), her long-lost father is international telenovela star, Rogelio De La Vega (Jaime Camil).
With this premise, we met a show about taking risks, letting plans become undone, and never falling into hopelessness. As Emily Nussbaum wrote for The New Yorker, Jane the Virgin leaps through genres that are regularly looked down upon (romance, telenovelas, melodrama), but it grounds viewers with a profound, genuine core.
What we didn’t know then that we see clearly now, a decade after its premiere, is how valuable Jane the Virgin was to the TV landscape. Jane the Virgin was one of the only CW shows that received wide acclaim, including a Golden Globe for Gina Rodriguez (making her just one of three Latinas to win Best Actress in a series, comedy or drama). Jane the Virgin’s staying power through five uninterrupted seasons is important, especially, as in recent years, the majority Latinx-led shows are being canceled left and right.
Jennie Snyder Urman’s (producer of Gilmore Girls, Charmed reboot, and other teen classics) path towards Jane the Virgin way was paved by the success of Desperate Housewives (2004-2012), namely the appeal Eva Longoria’s Gabrielle Solis garnered from U.S. Latinxs and of course, Ugly Betty (2006-2010) which introduced U.S. audiences to the telenovela format. These representations of Latinas on television have helped us make sense of who we are (and where we belong in a country that would rather silence us).
In a piece for The Atlantic, Diana Martinez writes, “Jane the Virgin doesn’t just make its Latino characters visible: It makes their point of view the dominant lens of the show and filters their stories through the socially aware telenovela format.” Jane (both the character and the show) exists in a world where her Latina-ness isn’t being measured. Instead, she can take the time to explore and try on various identities, which the show’s format playfully riffs on by having the title card of each episode switch through different versions – especially after she loses her virginity. Yes, she’s “Jane the Virgin” but she’s also “Jane the Disgusting Virgin,” “Jane the Happy Mom,” “Jane the Guilty Catholic,” “Jane the Super Stressed Mother-Wife-Writer,” “Jane the Published Freaking Author,” “Jane the Widow,” and “Jane the Daughter” just to mention a few. By having her fly through these varied versions of womanhood, the show makes it so that everyone can see themselves in Jane. However, Jane the Virgin remains rooted in its focus on Latinx culture, which allows it to fully flesh out the complexities of our identities – especially across generations.
Expanding upon traditions guided by family, the series makes us feel understood and comforted. It highlights something as simple as sitting alongside your mom and abuela on the couch watching telenovelas. This is the legacy of Jane the Virgin and the Villanueva women: fostering a sense of belonging for those of us in the diaspora who are so used to resisting.
Jane the Virgin never falters from this bottom line – it is always a story about three women bonded by an unshakable matrilineal bond. And it carries the Villanuevas through the conventions of a telenovela, a romance, a mystery, a comedy, and a musical at times. Within its tumult of characters and varying plotlines and scopes, at the end of the day, the show always brings us back to their porch swing – with Jane sitting between the two women who came before her.
Its use of the telenovela format further taps into a nostalgia that we are more than willing to indulge in. As Jane the Virgin is rooted in the world of telenovelas, the show’s preposterousness goes beyond just its melodramatic premise to its many plotlines. There are love triangles, baby kidnapping, amnesia, fake deaths, evil twins – you name it. It is the only way Jane the Virgin could have ever existed, the melodrama allowing the show to touch on subjects too hard to speak about with nuanced and real emotions in other TV shows.
This is a show that asks us to consider how we can view cliches in a new light. To look past the face-shifting crime lords, shady ex-boyfriends who sell hand grenades, and even the ridiculous conventional attractiveness of everyone on the show to see the struggles of being a new mother, getting a baby to sleep through the night, handling postpartum depression, trying to get into grad school and accomplish career goals. Through its interconnection of genres and tropes, Jane the Virgin finds a way to bring depth and distinction to the feelings we may see as too cheesy to say out loud.
At one point, Michael asks Jane what she likes about telenovelas and she tells him it’s something about the spark two people feel that can’t be denied. And the show holds that concept firmly through its 100-episode span. That even through the darkest times, while all else is falling apart, there are still moments that allow us to feel the sparks. That our lives are capable of being more incredible than anything we’ve romanticized – because amid its melodrama, plot twists, and cliffhangers, Jane the Virgin is ultimately about faith. Not about the kind people have in the divine, but instead the kind of faith we have in others and in ourselves.
Faith that even as life throws curveballs at you, there will still be something that holds you together. In one of the most beautiful episodes of the series, Jane stands in front of family and loved ones after Mateo’s (her son) baptism. She reads from a letter that her abuela wrote for Xiomara and that she in turn read for Jane’s baptism – a new tradition for a new country. We see the three generations of Villanueva women tell their child: “May you always let your faith be greater than your fear.” We see this mantra resonate not just with our leading ladies but with all the characters that weave in and out of their lives. Petra, leaning all the way in with someone who truly loves her. Rafael, standing up for his family time and time again, no matter what they’ve done. Rogelio, pouring his heart not just into his work but into growing a deeper bond with his daughter.
Jane the Virgin pushes us to believe that the best in us lies when our setbacks walk hand in hand with our joys. The show expands past stereotypes to create a world that is nuanced throughout. Discussing religion, sexuality, ethnicity, and motherhood, Jane the Virgin addresses it all with a sort of grace that’s only possible thanks to its titular character’s commitment to grow with faith in herself and the love of her family. Ten years later Jane the Virgin still reminds us that sometimes it pays off not to be practical and just to be brave.
