Vida creator reflects on its legacy: "When we get to tell our messy, raw, not ideal story, it complicates our image, which humanizes us more"

ETonline

"I have been thinking about legacy a lot, especially in quarantine. Right now, I'm able to look at Vida that way," Tanya Saracho tells ET of her groundbreaking Starz Latinx series, which ended on Starz Sunday after three seasons and 22 episodes. Vida, she says, was "one of the first prime cable Latinx shows. The first to be able to do these complicated, 'ugly' (stories). I think these ladies were ugly sometimes. Like 'feaitas' -- not feaitas, obviously my girls are gorgeous -- but Lyn, first season you're like, 'Ugh.' (Latinx) haven't been allowed to be the anti-hero a lot in Latinx culture because most of the time the dominant culture has been telling our stories. It hasn't been Latinx showrunners or writers or directors telling our story. But when we get to tell our messy, raw, not ideal story, it complicates our image, which humanizes us more. Historically, for the last few decades when we have been portrayed, we're maids and cholos and that's their version of us, which we are domestic workers. We are criminals sometimes too. But we are so many more things. We're everything. And these girls are not some archetype. They're just living their lives in this neighborhood that is very real, dealing with very real problems. But also real desires that sometimes are ugly and petty. Or real fears and doubts that sometimes they can't get over…I want people to take the fullness of these characters and the realness of who they were in this time and place. Hopefully they will be like, 'Oh, that's what it was to be a brown queer in Boyle Heights.'" ALSO: Saracho says she "went for a more cinematic indie film ending that is a mood, it’s an essence, more than, like, wait, what happened?"