There’s No Reason Anyone Should Sleep on ‘Jane The Virgin’

Jane the Virgin is one of the most multifaceted shows on TV. This show is so meta, referencing and making fun of the dramatic culture of telenovelas while being a modern telenovela in itself. For those who don’t know, telenovelas are the Latinx version of soap operas, and even that description doesn’t give ‘novelas justice because they have their own flare and over-the-top storylines which are a category of their own. I myself was skeptical at first, specifically on the optics of the show: a Latina woman with “Jane the Virgin” plastered across the ad campaigns. I was like, of course, Latinx, it has to be about sex… jeez — it reminded me of how I felt when I first saw Kerry Washington’s face with “Scandal” written across it. A Black woman with red letters… Scandal. Now though, 5 seasons deep into Scandal I am reminded how you definitely cannot judge a book by its cover, as goes for Jane the Virgin as well. Actually, I was not about it until the actress who plays Jane Villanueva, Gina Rodriguez, received a Golden Globe after season one. That was when I conceded, OK, let’s see what this is all about.

Jane lives with her mother and her grandmother in Miami, Florida and works as a waitress at the Marbella hotel. She has never met her father because her mom had her when she was 16 and (as she was told by her mother) the father did not want anything to do with them. Spoilers: we find out later this was a lie and her father is actually a super famous telenovela star! The first th…