Vida

When Vida showrunner Tanya Saracho was first approached by Starz, the cable network wanted a story about formidable Mexican-American millennials from LA’s east side. 

Saracho, a playwright who had never created her own series before, pulled inspiration from her time working on the HBO comedy Looking as she took on this new challenge. Most importantly, she told Mashable, “I knew I wanted to tell an honest story that mattered.” 

In only 16 half-hour episodes, Vida, now in its second season, has broken barriers with its representation of complex Latinx and queer protagonists and established a strong foundation for the characters and culture whose stories it is telling. 

“I knew I wanted to tell an honest story that mattered.” 

The first step to achieving this authentic world was to get a writing team who looked like the characters and could lend their real-world experiences to the stories we would see in the show.

Vida is staffed with mostly women writers, several of whom are queer (this was also the case for Looking). Every episode of Season 2,  which premiered on May 26, is directed by women of color. Even the editing room is comprised of women. This doesn’t just make for good optics. The impact of these decisions flows through the characters of Vida. 

Season 1 introduced us to estranged sisters Emma and Lyn Hernandez (a fierce Mishel Prada and bare-it-all Melissa Barrera, respectively), who face a barrage of challenges when they return home to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles after the death of their mother Vidalia aka Vida. 

The show’s portrayal of grief, the sisters’ shaky relationship with each other, and their confused senses of self are deftly interwoven with larger issues like gentrification and LGBTQ identities. But what makes Vida‘s handling of these issues special is that it’s they’re seen from the perspectives of people within those communities, digging deep into matters that impact their world.

A goal-oriented and successful Emma decides to run the bar her late mother owned by the Season 1 finale. It’s now sorely in debt but used to be a safe haven for the community at one point. In Season 2, both sisters struggle to revitalize it to that status despite Emma’s strained relationship with Vidalia, who kicked her out when she was younger for being queer. 

Her efforts parallel to save the bar her inner conflict as she deals with a hard truth — her mother married a woman, Eddy, later in life without telling her daughters. Ironically, Vidalia’s home and bar is where Emma starts shedding her icy demeanor, gains more confidence in her pansexuality, and opens herself to love. 

In the third episode of Season 2, she ventures out of her comfort zone to meet girlfriend Cruz’s friends at a gay wedding. Most of them are polite enough but because she isn’t dressed like them, doesn’t love PDA, and doesn’t explicitly telegraph her sexuality, they call her a “baby queer” and “tourist.” The scene ends with Emma checking their dated assumptions about binary labels. 

Saracho said the storyline resulted in heated discussions in the writer’s room. “A lot of these stories come from our experiences. I have had arguments and I have been called a ‘tourist’ myself. When I introduced that to the room, which consists of married and partnered up women, things got polemic and it lasted for days,” she added. “That was interesting so I knew we had to explore it in conversation in Vida.” 

A strong writing team of queer women of color help form the finer details of the show, like when two female characters are about to engage sexually but put a condom on the vibrator first. “I have seen femme queer scenes handled by men and they look a certain way but these little moments are for us, moments of accurate representation that are in fact small but true.”

Vida airs on Starz, so like its cable counterpart Outlander, it has vivid sex scenes. But they aren’t here for show. They purposefully further the narrative, fueling our interpretation of what a character is going through or leading up to in that moment. Season 2 opens up with a shot of Lyn engaged in an orgy but before the opening credits roll, Barrera does a fantastic shift of expression to let us know Lyn is over this hedonistic lifestyle and wants to do better (reader, she mostly does, and it is a goddamn delight to watch).

The one sex scene that will stand out the most from Season 2 is that of Emma and her love interest Nico finally hooking up in the finale in a bathroom stall. You’ll need to fan yourself after because it is sexy, graphic, and beautifully shot. Saracho, who directed the episode, strove to feature their romance authentically.

“I wanted both the actors to feel safe and comfortable. We rehearsed it and workshopped it beat by beat before shooting. It all went into a contract. And all of it made such a difference,” she said. 

It’s an ordinary scene made extraordinary “because we haven’t seen it through the brown, female, and Latinx gaze before,” noted Saracho. “That’s why it might seem awkward at first because this has never been the dominant gaze. It says a lot about the state of this country, I guess?”

Vida doesn’t indulge heavily in politics yet — though there is one ingenious scene involving a Donald Trump piñata — but Saracho wants to change that in its third season, which was recently greenlit by Starz. In many ways, however, the show itself is a radical stance against the current administration’s politics. 

An overarching theme of the show is also “gentefication,” which is when young, educated Latinos return to their neighborhoods and start modern businesses. Emma and Lyn bring in new energy in the form of young musical artists and a brand new mural that replaces the familiar old one. 

These changes don’t sit right with local activist group Vigilantes, including members Marisol “Mari” Sanchez and Yoli. This comes to head in a major way in the Season 2 finale when Yoli throws detergent on Lyn’s face to show her as a whitewashed Latina. 

“This is what we’ve been building towards for the entire show,” Saracho said. This entire arc had real-life significance for her because Vida itself was met with similar protests from IRL activists in Boyle Heights. “Some people aren’t content with what we’re doing and I understand them. It’s not an easy subject. When we gentrify our own neighborhoods, it’s not a black-and-white situation. It’s very complicated.” 

All these major issues are looked at through the lens of those it impacts the most.

Vida strives to offer a nuanced look at multiple facets of stories like these. Major issues are considered through the lens of those it impacts the most, whether it’s the Latina community of Boyle Heights or the varied perspectives of the queer members talking about labels. 

The show stands out all the more because the actors, Barrera and Prada especially, have unstoppable energy as the bring the words to life with every scene. The former gets to break down in the closing moments of the finale and you can feel her emotions through the screen heavily. (For those who’d like to see more of Barrera, she will next appear in Lin Manuel-Miranda’s In The Heights adaptation.)

“Most of these actors on this show don’t have a lot of prior experience but they came ready to bring Vida to life. It just shows we’re ready to tell our stories. We are ready!” Saracho exclaimed.

Vida Seasons 1-2 are now streaming on the STARZ on-demand app; Season 2 also airs every Thursday on STARZ.