"familia"

Diving into Latinx family dynamics, this show explores how our relationship with family influences our relationships outside of that loyal bubble.

All of these characters deserved more hype this year, and I hope you decide to meet a few yourself. From drama leads, to sarcastic queens, here’s a list of some of my favorite female characters from new shows in 2021.

I quit my job and dedicated the next two years of my life, together with my mother, to writing her and our family’s life story — centered around generational trauma and the beauty of breaking cycles and healing.

I consider la familia one of the most important and confusing parts of being a Latina, so I appreciated the 2021 Latinx movie ‘No One Gets Out Alive’ for navigating this complicated territory inside the classic horror genre. But in the journey of killing off the mother and fighting the pressures of being a good Latina daughter, the movie ends up reinforcing established power dynamics that leaves the Latina with no escape, just death.

There was nothing quite like hearing Ana Morales say, “I am a brown lesbian woman” in the middle of a corporate boardroom in Gentefied’s second season.

Gentefied season two heals Morales’ family trauma. Their triggers bounce around, shared between family members. Their heavy burdens are gently observed.

‘Gentefied’ asks: what does it mean to be part of a culture? It means honoring and defending the people no matter where we fall on the Latinx spectrum.

Over the years, I’ve noticed television shows being the place where female friendship has flourished on screen. There has been a liberation of new topics and taboos that weren’t ever shown before, giving us more room for representation, and new role models to aspire and relate to.

To call Brooklyn 99 a “good” cop show isn’t as simple as it seems. After the murder of George Floyd, cops and the shows that portrayed them faced a lot of well-earned scrutiny. Brooklyn 99 was just one of many series to experience an identity crisis during its latest (and for B99, its last) season.

If I made a list of this year’s most underrated films, Summertime (2021) would fill the top three spots. Directed by Mexican-American filmmaker Carlos López Estrada (also the director of Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon) and executive produced by Kelly Marie Tran, the film interweaves the stories of 25 extraordinary people over the course of one summer day in Los Angeles.