Tag: Comedy

Just based on the title alone, Jane The Virgin is an attention grabber of a show. This CW comedy-drama focuses on Jane Villanueva, a virgin (surprise, surprise), who finds herself at the center of numerous crazy developments that complicate her life and the lives of those around her at every turn. It was developed for an American audience by Jennie Snyder Urman and is loosely based on a Venezuelan telenovela called Juana La Virgen. The show itself is a pseudo-telenovela and pays a lot of tribute to the genre: its characters are predominantly Latino, dialogue is occasionally in Spanish, and a fictional telenovela regularly plays on the characters’ TV screens.

Jane (Gina Rodriguez) is young Latina woman going to school and waitressing in Miami, where she still lives at home with her flirtatious mother (Andrea Navedo) and devoutly religious ‘Abuelita’ (Ivonne Coll). In the series premiere, Jane finds herself artificially inseminated because of a mix-up at the gynecologist. This plays into the religious undertones of the show as Jane becomes pregnant despite still being a virgin (her purity is something her grandmother preached to her to protect when she was younger). The mis-applied sperm, it turns out, belongs to a man named Rafael (Justin Baldoni), who not only runs the hotel Jane works at but also happens to have been her first kiss five years earlier.

For Jane’s detective-boyfriend Michael (Brett Dier), learning that his virgin girlfriend has become pregnant inevitably puts some serious strain on their relationship. By the end of the premiere, the two decide to take their relationship to the next level by becoming engaged to be married. The symbolism is apparent in the final shot, where Michael knocks a white flower–symbol of Jane’s virginity–out of her hair and they embrace. This foreshadows what is in the imminent future for Jane, although when this moment of deflowering will come is a big mystery.

As with a typical telenovela and soap opera, if you thought this show couldn’t get any more complicated, you would be very wrong. Just to give you a taste of all the storylines in this show, here are some of the things that a viewer will have to follow. Rafael’s sperm (frozen before a bout of cancer left him infertile) had originally been intended for his devious and scheming wife Petra (Yael Grobglas) as a way to salvage their marriage. Despite this ploy, Petra is sleeping with Rafael’s best friend Zaz, who Michael just happens to be spying on because he is the last link to a missing drug dealer. Jane’s absentee father also happens to be the star of her favorite telenovela, but her mother can’t bring herself to tell this to Jane. Oh and the gynecologist who caused this mix-up? None other than Rafael’s sister Luisa, of course.

The white flower is a recurring symbol

This complex web of interconnecting stories is both a flaw and one of the appeals of Jane The Virgin. On the one hand, it keeps the speed of the show very fast-paced and there is never a dull scene. The music also plays into this process: a frequent use of background music conveys the sense that a scene is about to reach its climax (pun intended) and then snowball into the next big moment. This gives the show a rhythm that it complicates with every scene. On the other hand, the complex plot leads to there being anywhere from seven to fifteen legitimate and important story lines going on at all times. This can make the show seem scattered and hard to follow on occassion.

The writers do a really good job combating this complex narrative by having every event and person related to one another. Every single scene has larger implications and there is no wasted time in each episode. The writers also utilize a narrator to make sure the audience is keeping up with all the characters and their stories. He has a very jokey and omnipotent voice. He is in on all the jokes and aspects of the show that the audience can see but the characters cannot. Relatively frequent flashbacks also help tie the story together to explain both character motives and relationships between different people. Despite the high amount of turning wheels on the show, the writers are able to tie it all back together, providing a satisfying assurance to viewers that any confusing event will be explained in due time if they continue watching.

The directors of the episodes have a tendency to hint at a lot of things in the future. There is an incredible amount of foreshadowing, and part of the fun as a viewer is to catch the symbolism in what seem like otherwise mundane details. This gives the viewer a privileged view that is way above the characters themselves and can thus draw viewers back to see if their predictions turned out to be correct or if they misinterpreted the hidden message in a scene. The main example of this is the sort of ‘will they, won’t they’ feeling surrounding Jane and Rafael. They have a classic rich vs. poor, Romeo and Juliet dynamic between them. This becomes confounded by the fact that Jane and Michael really do care about each other as well, so it will be interesting to see how this unfolds on the screen.

For all the narrative trickery and complexity, however, it is the characters who are the real driving force behind the show. At first glance, they all may seem very one-dimensional. Their basic personalities, for instance, are established very quickly from the moment they are first on screen, and it seems at first that they are all extremely easy to figure out. However, as the show progresses, all of the characters are shown to have much more going on. And in due time they become much more multifaceted. This is a really crucial part of the show because it complicates a lot of the decisions that characters have to make, since all of them are dealing with internal struggles.

Though the writing helps, the depth and attraction of all the characters is mainly due to the performances of the actors. Rodriguez is really the backbone of the whole cast. She plays all her characters’ emotions to the fullest and is asked to do so across a large spectrum in every episode. She shines brightest in the tougher, dramatic scenes but is still able to hold her own with the comedic scenes. She was deservedly recognized for her abilities when she won the Golden Globe for best actress in a TV comedy this year.

Navedo, who plays her mother, heavily supports Rodriguez’s rollercoaster of highs and lows. Early on, she is presented as a ditzy, young, carefree mother going from man to man. But she is capable of much deeper scenes when she is put in a position to showcase her nurturing side and take care of Jane. The same could be said for Baldoni, who is able to portray the difficulty and complications within his character with just his face and posture when necessary. Additionally Grobglas does a fantastic job keeping the audience guessing as to her motives and what side she is really on, utilizing very emotional performances that can turn on a dime through expert use of a very sly grin. Some of the supporting roles are more caricatures, with the overbearing grandmother, backstabbing best friend, and clueless/self-indulged television star, but they all do a great job holding up the rest of the show and bringing it together.

Andrea Navadeo (left) as Jane’s mother and Ivonne Coll (right) as her abuelita

For what it’s worth, the show is also pretty progressive. The large majority of the central roles are Latino characters, which is somewhat revolutionary for U.S. television today. This is important for the show, because it is an ode to telenovelas and it is showing that Latino actors and characters can lead, carry, and tell a very compelling story to an American audience that is typically drawn to predominantly white shows like Everybody Loves Raymond, The Middle, and Modern Family. However it is interesting to note that while a lot of the characters have accents or Latino names, they are not actually all Latino, and the exact ethnicity of any person on the show cannot be determined. Rodriguez, Navedo, and Coll are all of Puerto Rican descent in real life but the show is situated in Miami, a very Cuban city. Surprisingly enough, given their accents, at times, and appearance, Baldoni and Grobglas are not Latino in the least. Baldoni’s parents were of Jewish and Italian descent, while Groblas grew up in Israel and her parents are from France and Austria (though her ethnicity on the show is even harder to tell than the others). This is a testament to their acting abilities; however, it also brings into question why actual Latino actors were not used for more of the roles, as they are an underrepresented acting group in network television.

Additionally the show deals with a lot of heavier issues in society. Examples of this is whether or not Jane should get an abortion and the decision over when to lose her virginity, in addition to a lesbian relationship with one of the recurring characters. These are topics that other shows might shy away from for fear of controversy and Jane The Virgin should be commended for tackling them head-on.

Ultimately, Jane The Virgin is a delightfully charming show that still possesses the ability to put amazing emotional scenes at its core. This charm makes sense given that it is on a network station and marketed towards a younger audience than more conventional network shows. It is quite action-packed and complex to say the least, yet because of the foreshadowing and narrator, a viewer could miss an episode or two and still have a strong grasp of the majority of what was going on. The whole show also has a very fantastical feel, which a viewer needs to accept given some of the ridiculous things that happen. This magical feel is conveyed through the intertwining stories being told, the music and narrator, and the utilization of very vibrant colors.

It is hard to categorize this show into one genre as it has elements of comedy, romance, drama, and even mystery. It may sound like a lot to comprehend in one show, but Jane The Virgin is quite brilliantly constructed to have everything eventually tie together. This is not a laugh-out-loud show per say, as the humor typical arises from situations of classic misunderstandings that drive the plot forward. The jokes have a playful feel to them, toeing a line between childish and mature so both adolescents and young adults can find it enjoyable. This has been highly recognized among a large variety of people as the show was nominated for a Golden Globe for best TV comedy series this year, despite its airing on a relatively smaller network. Jane The Virgin is a show with such an incredible amount going on that it can be intimidating, but it does a really good job balancing the funny with the heart wrenching, the absurd with the relatable, and even addressing contemporary issues.