Selena could also be lengthy gone from this earth, however in 2025, she is much from absent. Her face and signature seem on numerous merchandise, starting from dolls and make-up to an ethically murky AI-powered album. Her story, each inspirational and tragic, has been instructed in movie, tv, salacious docuseries and in-depth documentaries, together with the forthcoming “Selena y Los Dinos” movie, which premiered on the current South by Southwest.
Killed by Yolanda Saldívar, the president of her fan membership, on March 31, 1995, the Tejano star has been sanctified amongst Latinos as a folks hero and determine of everlasting reverence. However the brutality of her demise has undoubtedly fueled a endless stream of Selena content material that audiences have been fed.
It’s been argued that these merchandise exploit her reminiscence for the private acquire of the Quintanilla household, who owns her property. But the truth that there’s a marketplace for these merchandise amongst Latinos says one thing about our personal relationship to demise.
(Natalia Agatte / For De Los)
Why is it that probably the most lasting legends shared amongst our group is one in every of a girl who was violently murdered? Inversely, why is it the story many Latinos appear to eat most, making a market from an individual who isn’t alive to learn from it?
Our group’s simultaneous obsession and worry of demise — to the purpose of eager to distance ourselves from it and concurrently conquer it — is one cause.
“To me, the question is, what stories about [death] stick and why?” posed Diana York Blaine, a professor at USC’s division of gender and sexuality research. “I can almost always explain it.”
A researcher of how demise is represented in media, York Blaine says that, very like different celebrities who died a violent or tragic demise — corresponding to Tupac Shakur, Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana — Selena presents each an ideal story and even an ideal victimhood.
In her analysis, York Blaine has created demise classes that designate how a celeb’s demise carries which means inside tradition. She locations Selena’s demise in numerous classes: unnatural (which means they didn’t die of a pure trigger), feminine, eroticized (a determine with sexual attraction), and mawkish (a narrative that provokes disappointment, wistfulness and even pity).
The 23-year-old was younger, immensely proficient, attractive however not overtly sexual, plus her demise was unnatural. “We like sentimental deaths, where we can go, ‘Oh, she was so beautiful, so young, so tragic, so sad,’ right?” stated York Blaine — who added that in her analysis on JonBenet Ramsey’s demise, she discovered that folks get pleasure from feeling unhealthy. Selena elicits an analogous response.
And but, her demise holds the next symbolism for Latinos specifically. Selena was on the cusp of mega-stardom. Her desires of success as an American pop star singing in her extra native English have been quickly to be realized, catapulting a younger Mexican American lady into a celeb nobody like her had attained earlier than, by crossing over to “the mainstream” (i.e., to white audiences). Her story exemplifies the American dream bought to all Latinos in America: for those who work laborious sufficient, something is feasible.
“As soon as [a death is] a story, we’ve entered the realm of the symbolic,” defined York Blaine. “So it’s no longer merely interesting; it has become culturally significant.”
Moreover, Selena, in demise, has turn out to be the epitome of what might have been, and the gripping morbidness of her homicide provides to the sensationalism and engaging nature of her story — particularly in a world obsessive about true crime. Although most true-crime podcasts and sequence deal with white ladies, a examine by Pew Analysis discovered that listeners of those kind of podcasts are largely Black and Latino ladies. So it’s unsurprising {that a} story like Selena’s would garner Latinos’ fascination. Her story deserves area in a white-centric business, and she or he is a determine who they’ll see themselves in.
This makes her a super and particularly exploitable determine in demise.
A widespread worry of demise additionally contributes to Selena’s overexposure. As York Blaine defined, her demise being unnatural “permits us to have a distance, a kind of power over death” in several methods.
(Natalia Agatte / For De Los)
Selena’s demise presents demise itself as a matter of extraordinary circumstance. Nonetheless, demise is frequent and inescapable, regardless of what number of rich males attempt to engineer themselves out of it. However in her story, we will fantasize about demise as a spatial incidence, in addition to about who she was and the life she might have had. We are able to get pleasure from a unbelievable illustration of demise, be entertained by it, really feel emotional about it, but in addition detach from it. Consequently, it permits us to view demise as impermanent.
“She is reassuring proof to us that life goes on after death,” stated York Blaine. “When you say she’s become sanctified, it offers us a sense of something greater than us and greater than the material world. I think of a star literally is up in heaven, and so our stars are bigger than life, so celebrities, particularly when they’re dead, can become proof of the Divine, making us feel better about a tragic death.”
In our tradition, we now have been conditioned to avert our eyes from demise. We run from it due to what its finality means. However we will additionally turn out to be fascinated by it; crave any piece of intel about somebody’s demise.
But Selena is extra than simply her demise. She was a full particular person with quirks, faults, viewpoints and emotions. In understanding our fascination together with her demise, we will perceive our personal anxieties and maybe present higher respect to the lifeless.
