Parents' Guide to

Vida

By Joyce Slaton, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Sisters return to East L.A. in unique, tender drama.

TV Starz Drama 2018
Vida Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

  • Vida TV Series: Closeup of a woman's face -- she is wearing deep purple lipstick, wearing big earrings and speaking emphatically right into the camera.
  • Vida TV Series: Two women stand together at a funeral; behind them is a painted portrait of their mother.
  • Vida TV Series: Two women sit together at a table at a Mexican restaurant; one is eating a taco, the other has no food and is looking down at her hands.

Community Reviews

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age 18+

Based on 3 parent reviews

Zee324
Zee324 Parent of 11-year-old
June 23, 2021
age 18+

Soft core porn

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.
EliteMovieCritic
EliteMovieCritic Adult
May 8, 2020
age 18+

Disturbing and unwholesome

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!
See all 3 parent reviews

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?

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (3 ):
Kids say (2 ):

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?

TV Details

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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 suggesting a diversity update.

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