Jennifer Lopez knows where it all started, and soon she will pay tribute to the woman who made her career possible. New York Daily News is reporting that Jlo will be back on stage as Selena Quintanilla, the Tejano star who was gunned down in Corpus Christi in 1995. The tribute, which airs live on Telemundo on April 30, is to honor he 20th anniversary of Selena’s death.
The movie Selena was packed with that spicy, Latino flair that people outside of Texas, New York, Florida and California were not accustomed to seeing. And let’s just say no one – absolutely no one could have imagined the kind of success the movie had, nor could they have imagined the impact that both Jennifer Lopez and the real Selena would have on pop culture for the next two decades.
Taking you back a bit.
Today, the Selena movie has somewhat of a cult following. White, Latino, and Black people all love this movie. Some have it on DVD, others say they watch the movie every single time it is shown on television.The Selena movie sort of slipped up on people. It took most by surprise. No one was anticipating the release of the movie except for Selena Y Los Dinos fans and some residents of Corpus Christi and Houston, Texas. It started out with a little controversy because Mexican people wanted a Mexican singer, not a Puerto Rican one. Nevertheless, Jennifer Lopez was chosen for the role.
The movie got a little bit more of a buzz once Jennifer Lopez started doing press to promote the movie. The Oprah Winfrey show was one of the first American shows to present Jennifer Lopez to the world. In that episode Jennifer Lopez appeared on the show with the entire cast of Selena . And get this. No one knew who Jennifer Lopez was, or at least they didn’t know that they knew her. They had no idea that she was one of the Fly Girl dancers on the tv show In Living Color , and they didn’t really recognize her from her prior movies.
But when she walked across Oprah Winfrey’s stage, and they began showing clips of the movie Selena . People were literally in shock to see this drop dead gorgeous, big booty , long-dark haired Latina dancing and gyrating her voluptuous hips to Tejano music.
Before the Kim Kardashian-Khloe Kardashian , butt injections era, people were used to seeing White, blonde women with big boobs and a more flat behind. Jennifer Lopez changed all of that. She changed it so much that people stood in store aisles gazing at the magazines featuring Lopez, while making statements such as “But, her butt is so big.”
The legendary Joan Rivers took one look at Jlo’s backside after interviewing her on the red carpet and made a statement along the lines of “yes, but her a*s is so big.” Even model Cindy Crawford stated that she would be ashamed to walk around with “that butt.”
Black women were wondering why Jlo was receiving all the attention for her ample bottom when there were so many African American actresses with the exact same shape.
Soon people began to understand that what made such an impact was that Jennifer Lopez and Selena presented to American culture a more exotic ethnic look, a different style of music, and a different style of dance. Today, butt and booty implants and injections are all the rage, and it’s all started because of Jennifer Lopez .
But, Lopez’ figure and Selena’s music were not the only things that impacted pop culture. American and English -speaking people also began to understand the magnitude that Selena’s tragic death had on the Spanish-speaking Latino population. It was a terribly sad story of a woman with so much talent who was about to be launched into American pop culture before her life was tragically cut short by a jealous co-worker, or a woman who was “in love with her,” some allege. Today, the killer, Yolanda Saldivar is still incarcerated in a Texas correctional facility for the murder of Selena Quintanilla Perez.
Don’t forget to watch the amazing tribute on Telemundo on April 30 at 7 p.m. central.
Before you go, check out some real footage here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Il2J7DGAc
[Photo Credit: Facebook ]