Even as a certified cynic of all things romance-related, I’ll admit: I’m addicted. The bizarre plot alone makes Jane the Virgin binge-worthy. (#Crushed it’s ending after season 5.) But it’s also a rare gem in the world of representation. Jane (usually) passes the Bechdel Test with flying colours — and the narrator even pokes fun at scenes that don’t.
For the uninitiated:
In this parody telenovela, our heroin is a 23-year-old Venezuelan-American virgin, Jane. Her accidental artificial insemination — and resulting pregnancy — lands her at the apex of a love triangle with her married boss, Rafael, whose baby she’s now carrying and her dorky loser nerdy-but-sweet fiancée (I’m clearly not invested). Rafael’s psycho ex former wife, Petra, desperately tries to turn the love triangle into a square (is that a thing? 🤔) and inseminates herself with the rest of his sample to try to win him back. Oh, and Rafael’s step-mother splits her time trying to seduce his sister — who happens to be the same alcoholic doctor responsible for the accidental insemination situation — and heading up a drug ring that could get them all arrested or killed at any moment.
Sounds like a soap opera if I’ve ever heard one. But as outlandish as its plot may be, Jane’s got a real-world-worthy point about women and mothers: no two are exactly alike.
Look at Jane’s deeply religious grandmother, Alba, and her sexually adventurous daughter, Xiomara. These two characters represent age-old archetypes of motherhood: the Virgin Madonna and the Whore. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud is often credited with inventing this idea. He said some of his male patients saw women in one of two ways: they were either pure and chaste or debased and depraved. There's no middle ground.
Alba and Xiomara are good examples of this Madonna/Whore dichotomy. With her stuffy clothing, ever-present rosary, and lectures about the sanctity of marriage, Alba is a model Madonna. Xiomara’s the exact opposite: she’s a seductress who isn’t afraid to show off her curves. They share their different outlooks on sex in the very first scene of Jane the Virgin:
Jane gets boxed into the Virgin category when she shows her fascination with Alba’s exercise, telling her mom to be quiet and crumpling the flower in her palm.
So, in scene one of episode one, Alba and Xiomara are cast as the Madonna and the Whore of Jane the Virgin. Plenty of media — especially old films — have been criticized for boxing female characters into these categories. Jane the Virgin stands out because it questions this dichotomy and gives us alternatives. Take Petra: Jane’s frenemy, and Rafael’s first wife. Petra’s certainly sexy; the narrator introduces her as a “man-eater” after we watch her trying to help her husband “relax.” But as the show progresses, we start to see Petra’s soft side: she becomes a single mom of twins, struggles with post-partum depression, and learns how to make motherhood work for her. All the while, she’s clawing her way up the corporate ladder and struggling to shake her troubled past.
There’s also Jane. No one fits the Madonna archetype better than a pregnant virgin. Yet Jane’s desire for not one, but two men shows us that even the most innocent, naïve-looking women have sex drives too. Like Petra, Jane refuses to let motherhood steamroll her career. She overcomes countless obstacles to writing her novel and even pursues grad school, all with her baby boy Mateo in tow.
So, Jane the Virgin does play into the Madonna/Whore dichotomy, like so many shows before it. But it also depicts female characters who don’t fit these stereotypes. As Jane and Petra show, there’s more to mothers than their chastity or promiscuity. Mothers can also have jobs, relationships, goals, work ethics, and lives. In sum, the show validates many different kinds of mothers, each with their own values, challenges, and parenting strategies. What it does not do is preach an ideal of what a mother “should” be.
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