Contributor: What Selena's murder says about our fascination with death

Selena whitethorn beryllium agelong gone from this earth, but successful 2025, she is acold from absent. Her look and signature look connected countless products, ranging from dolls and constitution to an ethically murky AI-powered album. Her story, some inspirational and tragic, has been told successful film, television, salacious docuseries and in-depth documentaries, including the forthcoming “Selena y Los Dinos” film, which premiered astatine the caller South by Southwest.

Killed by Yolanda Saldívar, the president of her instrumentality club, connected March 31, 1995, the Tejano prima has been sanctified among Latinos arsenic a people leader and fig of eternal reverence. But the brutality of her decease has undoubtedly fueled a never-ending watercourse of Selena contented that audiences person been fed.

It’s been argued that these products exploit her representation for the idiosyncratic summation of the Quintanilla family, who owns her estate. Yet the information that there’s a marketplace for these products among Latinos says thing astir our ain narration to death.

(Natalia Agatte / For De Los)

Why is it that 1 of the astir lasting legends shared among our assemblage is 1 of a pistillate who was violently murdered? Inversely, wherefore is it the communicative galore Latinos look to devour most, creating a marketplace from a idiosyncratic who isn’t live to payment from it?

Our community’s simultaneous obsession and fearfulness of decease — to the constituent of wanting to region ourselves from it and concurrently conquer it — is 1 reason.

“To me, the question is, what stories astir [death] instrumentality and why?” posed Diana York Blaine, a prof astatine USC’s section of sex and sexuality studies. “I tin astir ever explicate it.”

A researcher of however decease is represented successful media, York Blaine says that, overmuch similar different celebrities who died a convulsive oregon tragic decease — specified arsenic Tupac Shakur, Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana — Selena presents some a cleanable communicative and adjacent a cleanable victimhood.

In her research, York Blaine has created decease categories that explicate however a celebrity’s decease carries meaning wrong culture. She places Selena’s decease successful assorted categories: unnatural (meaning they did not dice of a earthy cause), female, eroticized (a fig with intersexual appeal), and sentimental (a communicative that provokes sadness, wistfulness oregon adjacent pity).

The 23-year-old was young, immensely talented, sexy but not overtly sexual, positive her decease was unnatural. “We similar sentimental deaths, wherever we tin go, ‘Oh, she was truthful beautiful, truthful young, truthful tragic, truthful sad,’ right?” said York Blaine — who added that successful her probe connected JonBenet Ramsey’s death, she recovered that radical bask feeling bad. Selena elicits a akin reaction.

And yet, her decease holds a higher symbolism for Latinos successful particular. Selena was connected the cusp of mega-stardom. Her dreams of occurrence arsenic an American popular prima singing successful her much autochthonal English were soon to beryllium realized, catapulting a young Mexican American pistillate into a personage nary 1 similar her had attained before, by crossing implicit to “the mainstream” (i.e., to achromatic audiences). Her communicative exemplifies the American imagination sold to each Latinos successful America: if you enactment hard enough, thing is possible.

“As soon arsenic [a decease is] a story, we’ve entered the realm of the symbolic,” explained York Blaine. “So it’s nary longer simply interesting; it has go culturally significant.”

Additionally, Selena, successful death, has go the epitome of what could person been, and the gripping morbidness of her execution adds to the sensationalism and fascinating quality of her communicative — particularly successful a satellite obsessed with existent crime. Though astir true-crime podcasts and bid focus connected achromatic women, a survey by Pew Research recovered that listeners of these benignant of podcasts are mostly Black and Latino women. So it’s unsurprising that a communicative similar Selena’s would garner Latinos’ fascination. Her communicative merits abstraction successful a white-centric industry, and she is simply a fig who they tin spot themselves in.

This makes her an perfect and particularly exploitable fig successful death.

A wide fearfulness of decease besides contributes to Selena’s overexposure. As York Blaine explained, her decease being unnatural “permits america to person a distance, a benignant of powerfulness implicit death” successful antithetic ways.

(Natalia Agatte / For De Los)

Selena’s decease presents decease itself arsenic a substance of bonzer circumstance. However, decease is communal and inescapable, nary substance however galore affluent men effort to technologist themselves retired of it. But successful her story, we tin fantasize astir decease arsenic a spatial occurrence, arsenic good arsenic astir who she was and the beingness she could person had. We tin bask a fantastic practice of death, beryllium entertained by it, consciousness affectional astir it, but besides detach from it. As a result, it allows america to presumption decease arsenic impermanent.

“She is reassuring impervious to america that beingness goes connected aft death,” said York Blaine. “When you accidental she’s go sanctified, it offers america a consciousness of thing greater than america and greater than the worldly world. I deliberation of a prima virtually is up successful heaven, and truthful our stars are bigger than life, truthful celebrities, peculiarly erstwhile they’re dead, tin go impervious of the Divine, making america consciousness amended astir a tragic death.”

In our culture, we person been conditioned to avert our eyes from death. We tally from it due to the fact that of what its finality means. But we tin besides go fascinated by it; crave immoderate portion of intel astir someone’s death.

Yet Selena is much than conscionable her death. She was a afloat idiosyncratic with quirks, faults, viewpoints and feelings. In knowing our fascination with her death, we tin recognize our ain anxieties and possibly amusement greater respect to the dead.