Essay On Selena Quintanilla

You are walking out of your dressing room to the stage set up in the middle of the Astrodome for your final performance. The crowd is cheering your name because you captured their hearts as their favorite Tejano music artist in the business. Your whole career starting from your father forcing you and your siblings into a band of children. While the years go on and he continues to push you to be better. From the start, he tells you he can sense there is something in you that no other artist has, something special. He was right because it is said that women are not likely to succeed in that style of music business, but you proved them wrong because you became number one but success comes with its own problems. The one person who you trusted with all the funds, backstabs you, by stealing from you and then shoots you.

Selena Quintanilla-Perez is best known as the Queen of Tejano Music.

At the age of ten, she became the lead singer in her family’s band “Selena Y Los Dinos.” The band features her brother Abie on the bass guitar and her sister Suzette on the drums. Her father managed and produced for the group and taught her to sing in Spanish as well. At first, she learned the lyrics phonetically then she learned to speak Spanish fluently. After her career took off, Selena gained many fans and with that, she needed to have someone to help her manage her fan club. Yolanda Saldivar was the head of the fan club, but she ended up murdering her because Selena caught on that Yolanda was stealing from her fans. The fact that she had been very influential on her fans, gave Gregory Nava the idea to make a movie on her essence. Due to how well the actors capture the lives of each character and how they contribute to the essence of Selena. Make the believability of the movie fitting because they truly delve into the character they are portraying. Selena is the only movie that holds true to the life events of Selena

Quintanilla-Perez.
In 1997, Selena’s life was captured in a dramatic biopic. The movie is a sequence of events of Selena’s life, from her childhood to her fame and fortune. It begins with Selena’s (Jennifer Lopez) final performance in the Astrodome in front of thousands of her fans cheering her name. Then backtracks to when her father teaches her two siblings and her how to be in a band and play music. After that is how that band helps her career take off and she is one of the most successful women in the music industry. However, the film ends with her fans holding a tribute to the late singer while her song “Dreaming of you” plays in the background to commemorate her memory.
A mere summary of the movie does not give it justice to how truly inspiring her life was. Due to the full commitment of the actors to Selena, they were able to capture the spirit of her. These characters are represented to be about how the fame of Quintanilla family starts --- dad starts the band, mom is not happy about the idea but is there for moral support, and kids are against the idea but oblige anyways. Lopez’s performance in this movie evokes the magic and the talent of the young woman.
The way Jennifer Lopez brings Selena back to life through her acting especially in the scene where Selena is confronting Yolanda about her missing money. The way that her voice cracks when she says “How could you do this to me,” proves that it takes a talented actor to force themselves to break a little to make the scene seem more real. Also, the other actors that help bring the movie to life, contributed to making up the rest of the cast play an equally important role in bringing the movie to life. They not only showed they could delve into their character with the happy aspects of the movie, but they were also able to make themselves cry to show that they were the Quintanilla family themselves when they found out about the news that Selena had been killed. The family was waiting for the doctor to give them news about Selena’s condition but when he came out and told them that she did not make it they turned to each other and cried. Suzette held Chris’s head on her chest while he cried because he lost the love of his life. Marcela (mom) cried into Abraham’s chest while he stood there stunned by the news. The way each actor was able to show real emotion about the death of the star proves how well they were able to capture the essence of the family and make the movie a hit.
However the movie does not only depend on the actor's to make it successful, the director also has to write a script well, that makes it succeed. Edward Guthmann from the San Francisco Chronicle writes, “Nava, who started his feature-film career with El Norte, is a good director who invariably finds a strong rapport with his actors. He's not much of a writer, though, and he should think twice about creating dialogue for his future projects” (Rotten Tomatoes). By saying this Guthmann is saying that Nava is a good writer for movies, but he needs help when creating dialogue to put into the scripts because he lacks in knowledge in that department. Unlike Nava, the director of La Bamba made the movie more believable because it accurately delved into the life of Ritchie Valens. Cathy Burke from the United Press International writes, “This is a movie about music and it is the Valens sound, a unique blending of Latin rhythm and rock beat, that prevents La Bamba from being just another example of Hollywood hero worship” (Rotten Tomatoes). La Bamba is a biopic about Valens success just like Selena’s but his movies’ rate is better than what hers was. Despite the harsh criticism Selena received, I think it is an equally well put together movie as the one about Ritchie Valens. Both movies show the love of music each star possessed and how they became successful at young ages. Sadly they also share death at young ages. Each movie is enjoyable but from personal preferences Selena is the movie I would choose to watch, because it was not common for women to thrive in the music industry in that time.
Selena is a movie that relives her essence and stays true to who she was as an artist and a person. From the actors who played each member of the Quintanilla family so well that the movie was a huge success after Selena’s death. To emotion, the movie sets out to the audience showing her upbring to being a star and her death; how it took a toll on the fans who loved her dearly. Then again Selena was indeed a good movie but the critics who watched the movie directed by Gregory Nava say he could have done a better job at creating dialogue in the script. Overall the movie about the Mexican Madonna was an inspiration to many people proving her memory will live on, even after death.