Vida tackles gentrification in a fresh, new way

Vulture

The Starz drama about Mexican-American sisters that is staffed by a writers room of exclusively Latinx writers "doesn’t address gentrification through a single story line, episode, or a few lines of dialogue," says Jen Chaney, "it’s embedded in the premise of the whole series and in the identities of the characters it thoughtfully portrays." She adds: "Scripted TV has tackled the subject of gentrification a lot in the recent past. Search Party, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, She’s Gotta Have It, Girls, the web series The North Pole, BoJack Horseman, The Last O.G., High Maintenance: In ways large and small, all of these shows and others have shed light on what the transformation of American cities (mostly New York and L.A.) looks like, from the perspective of the young people doing the gentrifying and the neighborhood old-timers watching their communities get whited out. But even in this environment, the new Starz series Vida feels like something new."

ALSO:

• Vida has a so-so family tale, but it delves effortlessly into the compelling drama of gentrification
• Vida is able to able to avoid centering its stories of otherness, migration, and gentrification on whiteness
• Vida gives short shrift to issues that trouble Mexican-American culture
• Starz approached creator Tanya Saracho with the basic idea for Vida: "They wanted a female millennial show about gentefication, which is the gentrification of a Latinx space"