Pantaya is close to making a splash at the runway with the full season of Spanish-language seriesSeñorita 89coming to its catalog. The highly anticipated thriller series chronicles what went on at backstage at a “boot camp” in preparation for a Miss Mexico pageant in the 1980s. Even though it wasn’t that long ago, this was a different era in which women barely had a voice to speak out against all sorts of terrible things that happened during these kinds of events, and Collider is excited to premiere an exclusive featurette discussing the themes of the series, featuring starsNatasha Dupeyrón,Bárbara López, andCoty Camacho.
In the new featurette, audiences can get a closer look at what the series is about, as well as understand its themes. It is revealed, for example, that the decision to make an “innocent” pageant story into a thriller was to showcase how normal it was for women to suffer all kinds of violence at that time. Of course, we haven’t made a ton of progress since then, but at least we acknowledge it — which was something unthinkable just a few decades ago.
The cast also reveals through interviews that the idea ofSeñorita 89is to shock viewers and make us feel impressed and uncomfortable at how cruel society could and can be towards several groups of people. The series covers a lot of absurd territory when it comes to objectification of women’s bodies – and, of course, there is no better place to satirize this than at a beauty pageant.
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Señorita 89is directed and written byLucia Puenzo, who previously wrote and directed critically acclaimed movieXXY, and, most recently, Prime Video’sLa Jauría. When talking aboutSeñorita 89, Puenzo shared everything she aims to tackle with the story:
“Everything that scandalizes us today, in 1989 was allowed… the reification of women’s bodies, sexual harassment in the workplace, the abuse of power relations by men and the idea of thinking of women as someone else’s property, with all the implications that this has. Framed in the bestial back room of beauty pageants, ‘Señorita 89’ comes to talk about the women who began to shake that world… and to blow it up from within.”
The series also starsIlse Salas,Ximena Romo,Leidi Gutiérrez,Edwarda Gurrola,Marcelo Alonso,Juan Manuel Bernal,Luis Ernesto Franco,Ianis Guerrero, andAri Brickman. The series is also executive produced bySpencerdirectorPablo Larrainand his brother Academy Award winnerJuan de Dios Larrain.
All episodes ofSeñorita 89will be available to stream on April 10 at the Pantaya streaming platform. Check out the exclusive featurette below:
And check out the show’s official synopsis here:
SEÑORITA 89 is a sophisticated dramatic thriller from visionary Lucia Puenzo (LA JAURIA), is set in the glamour of 80’s Mexico. It follows Concepción (Ilse Salas), the matriarch of the most important beauty pageant in the country, who, together with a team of expert makeup artists, trainers, and even surgeons, welcomes the 32 finalists to her estate, La Encantada. There, the contestants will experience a 3-month hard training until they reach the Miss Mexico pageant. The truth is that underneath the appearances, the clothes, and the makeup, there is a dark world and, in the end, the contestants will empower each other and unite forces to leave the contest alive.
