When Gente-fied: The Digital Series premiered back at Sundance in 2017 it broke new ground. Here was a bilingual web series with big names attached (it was executive produced by and starred America Ferrera) that handily and funnily tackled everything from gentrification in Boyle Heights and bicultural identity, to artistic integrity, queer intimacy, and even social media virality in short eight-minute episodes. It had Thalía jokes and plenty of cringe-worthy white boy come-on lines like, “I would love to be the mayonnaise in that carne asada torta.” Produced by MACRO, created by Marvin Lemus, and written by both Lemus and Linda Yvette Chavez, the web series they first described as “High Maintenance meets Do The Right Thing” is now being developed as a half-hour Netflix series under showrunner Monica Macer, with its first season consisting of 10 episodes.
And its synopsis has us hankering for a show that’ll stand rightly alongside the likes of Vida, Jane the Virgin, One Day at a Time and East Los High: three Mexican-American cousins struggle to chase the American Dream, even while that same dream threatens the things they hold most dear: their neighborhood, their immigrant grandfather, and the family taco shop. Set in a rapidly changing Los Angeles, the Spanglish dramedy will navigate important themes like identity, class, and balancing insta-fame with translating memes for their parents. But most importantly, Gentefied will settle once and for all how to pronounce Latinx. A love letter to the Latino and Boyle Heights communities, Lemus and Chavez hope Gentefied will let their little cousins rocking adidas, hoops, and big dreams see themselves on the small screen in ways they only dreamed of when growing up.
So while we wait for the half-hour Netflix version of the show to hit our screens (no premiere date announced so far), watch the trailer for the OG web series below.