By Jenny Patiño –
Author’s Disclaimer: Don’t go killing anyone.  It doesn’t end well.  Not on television.  Not in real life.  Not even on television inspired by real life.

That being said, I am a connoisseur of televised murder. The “CSI” and “Law & Order” franchises, and “Criminal Minds,” with all their sexy and savvy detectives. Oxygen’s “Snapped” about real women who, you guessed it, snap and kill someone. They all horrify and intrigue me in equal measure.

A recently new contender to be on my regular bloody line up is the Spanish language “Mujeres Asesinas.” I thought it would be a Spanish version of “Snapped” and that I would have a feeling of watching something bootlegged. I was all prepared to watch “Mujeres Asesinas” and dislike it for various reasons.

But, girl…it’s so much better than “Snapped!”

So that you may understand the importance of that statement, let me elaborate on my love of the show “Snapped.”

Like “Mujeres Asesinas,” “Snapped” is based on the stories of everyday women who are pushed to their moral limits by grief and pain or greed and go off. Both shows tap into the female psyche making its largely female following ask themselves what, if anything, could push them to lose control and commit the ultimate crime?

It has made its way into the private jokes of my circle of girlfriends. When we are telling each other our soap opera chismes of jilted love or workplace suffering, one of us will invariably interrupt the story to interject the show’s title line by saying something like, “And that’s when 24 year old Columbia College student Jenny Patino….snapped!”

We laugh every time. Not because murder is funny but because it reminds us that whatever we’re dealing with isn’t worth killing for.

It is fascinating to wonder about what does push women to kill. Both societies in the U.S. and Latin America condone violence by men. Men committing murder, is sadly, no big deal. But violence in women? Que escandalo! This is the real reason we are drawn to these shows.

I was prepared to hate “Mujeres Asesinas” because I was accustomed to the documentary/interview style of “Snapped.” I thought it was an affront to have actresses portray these women’s stories instead of having the participants use their own voice.

I was all ready to spout-off about the unrealistic standards of beauty in both cultures. How the real, flawed women who lived these events were being hidden by perfectly manicured and groomed eye candy actresses. What a wonderful feminist rant that would have been. And after all, the intolerance of imperfections in women is probably one of the factors behind the use of professional actresses over interviews with the women the stories are based on.

My rant would have been very definitive and fiery if this were the only reason for the use of actresses. Instead, I find myself musing over the actresses themselves. Big names like Lucía Méndez, Daniela Romo,  Susana González and Daniela Castro. They are incredibly talented and immerse you in the story in a way that interviews never could. I watch the episodes, riveted, waiting for the height of their performance, that moment when these women “snap.” Through the actresses, you are transported into these women’s lives in a way that “Snapped” could only envy.

Now, about the actresses portraying murderesses….for the most part, they have one thing in common. They are older women.

You can say that their talent has ripened. They have more experience and therefore more captivating to watch than stumbling young ingénues. On the other hand, it is no secret that Latin America has a Madonna/whore complex, and this affects the roles actresses are limited to onscreen, especially with regards to age.

As a young actress in telenovelas, for example, you are limited to one of two roles that I like to call La Pendeja or La Hechada a Perder. The idiot and the spoiled girl. If you don’t know what I mean, then watch you some telenovelas and you’ll see. La Pendeja is the one who is either crying or widening her eyes like a porcelain doll saint. La Hechada a Perder is usually cackling or sleeping with someone. Older women in these telenovelas are divided along the saint/sinner lines as well, depending on whether their character helps La Pendeja or makes her suffer.

“Mujeres Asesinas” provides an opportunity to have juicier roles, especially for older actresses. The characters developed in each episode are not as easy to reduce in terms of good or evil. They are usually good women pushed by circumstance into doing evil things. The good girl pushed into doing wrong is not a new idea, however. Just think of Maria Felix in “Doña Diabla.” (If you haven’t seen this movie, stop reading right now and YouTube it. It’s a must see. But don’t forget to come back and finish reading.)

In “Tere, Desconfiada” Susana González, also known for having played La Pendeja in the telenovela “Entre el Amor y el Odio,” plays a woman whose husband is cheating on her with her bestfriend’s daughter, a young Hechada a Perder. She kills her husband with a pair of knitting needles and sewing scissors. Vicious! And how symbolic.

The older woman, rejected by society in the form of her husband sleeping with a younger woman lashes out by using markers of her femininity to bloody ends. That’ll teach any husbands watching the show not to cheat on their meek-looking wives with young things.

La Pendeja doesn’t always stay La Pendeja. The show serves as a double morality tale. Don’t kill. Don’t cheat. Tere is arrested for murder by “CSI” types, thereby making society safe from the powerful, violent older woman. As for the husband, well, he dies.

Now, the theme song of the show “Que Emane,” by Gloria Trevi is a bit problematic. The title translates to “let it emanate” or “let it flow.” Some of the lyrics conflate the emotions and blood flowing from wounds with the blood curse of Eve. Really? There’s no need to connect everything to the Madonna/whore complex. Does getting my period really have to connect me to murder, Trevi? Or maybe passing from youth into menopause makes me thirsty for blood in some way.

I feel connecting the show to Eve in any way dampens the moral complexity of these stories and ties into a misogynist view that all women are crazy by birthright. A better figure to connect to would be the Aztec goddess Coatlicue, who was beheaded by her daughter Coyolxauhqui and whose monolith stood at the top of the Templo Mayor demanding blood tribute. Serpents, representing blood fearsomely erupt from her neck. The truth is, we only go crazy when we’re pushed.

I’ve been resisting the crazy, Latina stereotype all my life. I guess it doesn’t help that I’m fascinated with shows about murder. But there is so much to learn about life from death. From shows like “Snapped” and “Mujeres Asesinas,” one learns about human limitations.

In short, “Mujeres Asesinas” has definitely made it into my crime show repertoire. With it’s blending of “CSI” type detectives, telenovela plot devices and real life drama, I cannot resist. This does not mean I am blind to its faults. On the contrary, I like to be as informed as possible about my guilty pleasures. “Mujeres Asesinas” is sensationalism wrapped in a cautionary tale. And if it is meant to teach anything, I hope that on some level, “Mujeres Asesinas” teaches men and women alike to fear transgressions against each other. Then maybe there would be a lot less real-life “snapping.”

Jenny Patiño is a student at Columbia College Chicago.