Sisters return to East L.A. in unique, tender drama.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 16+?
Any Positive Content?
Sex, Romance & Nudity
a lot
Expect strong sexual content such as a woman receiving oral sex from a man (we see her outstretched legs and his bobbing head), and then sex with moaning and thrusting, while the bare backside of the man is visible at length. No one talks about using a condom, and the man is cheating on his fiance, and in an alleyway at a funeral, to boot.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.
Cursing "bulls--t," "f--k," "hell," "s--t," "c—t," women call each other "bitch." There’s also language related to being LGBT (“carpet muncher,” “tortillera”) and relating to ethnic identity, like when a Mexican woman calls a white woman a “Becky” and says she’s going to “Columbus” the traditionally Latino neighborhood, and calls two Latina women “pinches gringas” (a pejorative term for white women) and is then called a “chola.”
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.
Characters work at a bar -- expect to see people drinking, sometimes to excess. One character in particular drinks and then gets sloppy, emotional, and violent. A main character smokes cigarettes, another man vapes something out of an e-pipe.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
Violence is infrequent but upsetting: In one early scene, a woman gets a nosebleed and then falls to the floor of her bathroom, dead, while a pool of blood spreads beneath her head. We then see her friends and loved ones reacting to her death: grieving, crying.
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Despite some homophobic language (“carpet muncher,” “tortilleras”) that’s called out for being homophobic, this drama sends a strong pro-LGBT message, with relationships both hetero- and homosexual taken seriously and given weight and dignity. There are also complex messages about ethnicity and background, with many proud Latino characters who talk about nuanced subjects like gentrification and whether it’s important to speak Spanish as a Latin American.
Positive Role Models
some
The characters in Vida are complex and varied, presenting an unusual-for-TV picture of a low-income neighborhood with characters who have dignity and agency. Many characters have both good and bad sides to them -- they make mistakes and grow over the course of the series.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Vida is a complex, mature drama about two women who return to their old neighborhood when it's going through changes. Sexual content is strong, with implied oral sex and intercourse with thrusting, moaning, and an extended view of a man's bare backside; expect to see same- and opposite-sex coupling. Violence is infrequent but emotional: a mother dies onscreen (we see her fall to the floor and blood pooling beneath her head) and her bereaved loved ones cry, scream, and otherwise grieve visibly at length. Language includes cursing ("bulls--t," "f--k," "hell," "s--t," "c--t," "bitch"), racial language (characters are called "chola," "gringas," a "Warby Parker bitch" and other epithets), and homophobic language ("carpet muncher"). However, LGBT relationships are central and given respect and dignity, sending a strong message of diversity. Much of the drama in this show centers on nuanced issues such as gentrification, language, racial/ethnic identity, sexuality; watching may spark conversations about deep topics. Characters drink alcohol, especially one who drinks heavily and becomes emotional and/or violent. A main character smokes cigarettes.
Latinos are the largest minority group in America, and are vastly underrepresented in media - which is why I was so excited when I heard about this show. What a BUMMER. The constant nudity and explicit sex scenes here make Game of Thrones look like a Disney Junior show. They detracted from the story, chipping away at it instead of adding credibility , making it feel more like soft core porn. I couldn’t make it past the first three episodes - super disappointing.
This entire series is only skin deep pun all meanings apply, it’s sexually depravity in the series is in edifying and not pleasing, the story line attempts to manipulate emotions all while failing to puncture the skin past an annoying flesh wound!
What's the Story?
When they get the call that their mom has suddenly died, VIDA's daughters Emma (Mishel Prada) and Lyn (Melissa Barrera) return to East L.A.'s Boyle Heights to wrap up what's left of her life. But instead of a tidy estate, they find Vidalia's wife Eddy (Ser Anzoategui) operating the run-down bar inside the building they just inherited, and a neighborhood in flux -- hipsters film food reviews in front of Mexican restaurants, and a scammy real estate fixer quickly offers to hook Emma up with a nice group of real estate developers who can sell off that run-down old building for her (which means kicking the undocumented tenants of the building out of their homes, of course). Suddenly, everything's unclear, in particular what the sisters owe to their old neighborhood and the people who live there. They say you can't go home again. But when you must, what happens next?
Engrossing and very cool, this drama's interesting setting -- a rapidly gentrifying lower-income Latin neighborhood in East L.A. -- gives it a unique sense of place. Not that Emma and Lyn appreciate it, at least at first. Emma, whose always-in-place carmine-red lipstick is an emblem for her put-together life, has a heavy job with a demanding boss in Chicaco; Lyn's been chasing a bohemian life in San Francisco, with a gringo boyfriend who likes her enough to invest in her line of Aztec lotions. Both of them are surprised to find themselves back home again, quickly embroiled in the neighborhood politics they became a part of as soon as they inherited their mom's building (which is half-filled with undocumented immigrants, Lyn tells us in Vida's first episode).
But while in lesser shows the people in the neighborhood would be types mouthing slogans, these residents quickly emerge as real, complex people -- hot-tempered young Mari (Chelsea Rendon), who's fighting her neighborhood's gentrification in YouTube videos and on the streets, Vidalia's widow, (played sympathetically by non-binary actor Anzoategui), so bereft at her wife's passing that she screams silently in the bathtub in one scene. Emma and Lyn may have tried to escape their pasts. But their lives are woven into the neighborhood -- there's no escape. Not that anyone, even conflicted Emma, would want to get far from this fascinating and complex show.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about family relationships. How are they depicted in Vida? How does family help you cope with the ups and downs of life? Are there times when a family member's input is more important than a friend's? How does our need for family change as our life situations change?
Does it surprise you that this show's creator, Tanya Saracho, was born in Mexico? How does our background influence the subjects we take on and the stories we tell? Is it important that different types of people get to tell their stories on TV? Why?
Vida doesn't subtitle many of its Spanish words and phrases. Why? Do you speak Spanish? Do you understand the Spanish slang, or do you have to figure out or look up what it means? Does learning the slang give you more of an appreciation for this drama or its characters?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
By Joyce Slaton
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
