The Latina Identity in 'Jane the Virgin'

            In “Brain, Brow, and Booty” Isabel Molina and Angharad Valdivia write about icons, tropes and hybridity in relation to the Latina identity and culture, with a focus on Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek and Frida Kahlo. First, I want to explain how they define those terms and what they made me think of.

            An icon is a representational image that holds meaning beyond simply what the object is or who the person is. Icons are recognizable, and for people who are icons, accompany a certain level of celebrity. Molina and Valdivia explain that iconicity involves the interaction of three things: the image or cultural commodity, the method of receiving the image, and the practices surrounding the deliberate construction and production of the icon (157).

            A trope is a “recognizable and recurrent media theme, story-line, or image” (155). Molina and Valdivia identify three tropes in Latina representation: tropicalism, personality/mannerisms, and over sexualized bodies.  These tropes are constructed over and over in the media and are continually performed by Latina actresses to create a Latina identity. Molina and Valdivia further explain that “Latina beauty and sexuality is marked as other, yet it is that otherness that marks Latinas as desirable,” meaning that the identity is further desired because it is different than the dominant white identity (159).

            Hybridity refers to a “new and distinct culture or identity that emerges from the mixing of culture or identities” (155). When ethnic or racial identities are absent in the case of many movies Jennifer Lopez appears in or when the identity is “on the margins of whiteness” but “outside blackness,” hybridity creates a new space (160).

            Through discussion about Molina and Valdivia’s writing and the Latina identity, I immediately thought about the CW show, Jane the Virgin, and the ways the Latina identity is constructed in the show. Jane the Virgin is described as a telenovela starring Gina Rodriguez as a young Latina woman who grew up with her young, fiery mother and her very Catholic grandmother. Jane’s ‘abuela,’ Alba, speaks almost entirely in Spanish and is constantly reminding Jane of her commitment to save herself until marriage. Jane’s mother, Xiomara, had Jane when she was young, never married Jane’s father, Rogelio, and is constantly going on dates with new men or trying to get back together with Rogelio once they reconnect. Xiomara is hyper-sexualized in the show, shown wearing short skirts, high heels, tight and low cut shirts, and always with full makeup and perfect hair. As for Jane, she has goals of being a teacher and having a successful, happy life with her white, American boyfriend, Michael, when she is artificially inseminated during a ‘routine’ visit to the gynecologist. The insemination causes a long chain of intense drama, that continues through the three seasons of the show.

            In class we talked about how Sofia Vergara’s character, Gloria Pritchett, is constructed as Latina on the show Modern Family, and the women in Jane the Virgin are constructed in very similar ways. Vergara is shown as a fiery, boisterous woman who is constantly mispronouncing words in English, she is over sexualized and never shown without tight clothing and heels on, and provides comedic entertainment for the audience. Her character is always yelling at her husband and son, and her son is often clarifying what she has said to the dominantly white population around them. In Jane the Virgin, Jane’s grandmother, played by Ivonne Coll, communicates with her daughter and granddaughter in Spanish, dresses conservatively, and is always there to provide words of wisdom and act as a voice of reason. Her constructed identity performs the conservative Latina woman in a very clear way, giving the audience a counter point to the fiery Xiomara. Jane’s mother, played by Andrea Navedo, embodies the same characteristics as Sofia Vergara’s character in Modern Family; she wears shorts skirts, tight and low cut tops, high heels in every day interactions, flirts with the men around her, and had Jane at a young age. She worked hard to be a good mother for Jane, but was never able to find success in singing and fulfilling her own dreams. Jane is the one character that pushes against the constructed Latina identity, but her character stills draws on those characteristics. Jane does not want to repeat her mother’s mistakes and wants to reach her goals of being a teacher and getting married before starting a family, and when those goals are challenged, she only works harder. Jane grew up watching telenovelas with her grandmother and mother, and at many points in the show mentions to them that her life is becoming one as the drama unfolds.

            Alba and Xiomara are constructed through the tropes of Latina identity in the media, but Jane shows the beginnings of a hybrid identity with her college education, perfect English, relationship with Michael and desire to break free from the mold of her mother.