"You Don't See Me"

Welcome back, PepSi peeps! It's Fall 2010, and that means it's time for a brand new year of PepSi studies here at good 'ol PepSi U. I know, I know. You're wondering what we could possibly be able to talk about given that the show ended in May. Well, PepSi technically ended over a year ago when Silvia met her tragic end, yet we still gathered to discuss PepSi and LHdP during S9, so I think that shows that we've got a few more ideas left in us here at the uni.

To prove my point, I have a brand new lecture series for your enjoyment. But before we begin, I need to give proper credit to the inspirations behind this idea. First, apparently an anonymous commenter made the following statement on my last lecture, "Without You":

"[The] reality is that Pepa as a character was not sufficiently developed to stand on her own without Silvia. That character was brought on LHdP *as* Silvia's love interest. Pepa never developed as one of 'Paco's men'. She was primarily on the show, Silvia's girlfriend. About 90% of Pepa's storylines involved chasing Silvia, seducing Silvia, supporting and taking care of Silvia, making out with Silvia, making up with Silvia, etc. etc."

This observation - an excellent one by the way, so well done "Anonymous July 24, 2010 5:15 PM", whoever you are - led to this post on LiveJournal by pepsifangirl, in which she made some more good points and observations about the show. And as I was thinking about Pepa's role (or lack thereof) on LHdP, I began to think about the other female characters on the show, which brings me back to this new lecture series. Basically, I'm going to be examining the female characters and the extent to which they were developed (or underdeveloped for that matter) on LHdP. In other words, I'm going to take a look at exactly how badly the female characters got fucked over by Alex Pina & Co.

Lecture 1: "Hey! Stripper!"

I'm going to start this lecture series off with our favorite cop who dreamed of going undercover as a prostitute and, IMO, the most overlooked character on the show: Rita Peláez. I think Alex Pina & Co. blew several opportunities when it came to Rita's character, but I'm going to focus specifically on two missed opportunities in particular.

Technically, of all the female characters that showed up on LHdP, Rita was the only one who was a "hombre". This is most clearly evidenced by the fact that she's the only female included amongst all the boys in the opening shot of the credits. While Silvia saved their asses with her forensic expertise, she was Paco's superior, not a member of his team. Pepa was an elite agent and specialized in covert ops, but that just means she spent her time pursuing and dating Silvia. Sara was briefly assigned to Paco's team, but she was never really a hombre (or an official agent for that matter), and Lola, Bernarda, and Mama Concha were all civilians. So that left us with Rita.


To me, having one female cop amongst a bunch of guys seems like a great opportunity to showcase the various differences between male and female officers, but sadly, Rita's role on the show was never really utilized in this way. Rita was simply the comic foil, and even in that capacity her role was greatly reduced, as her only "thing" was her obsession with her appearance. Pove, Curtis and Kike were the Three Stooges of LHdP, and although Rita would occasionally join them in their shenanigans, she was pretty much absent on the show. Because of this, I feel like the writers really missed out on an opportunity by failing to inject more of Rita (and a female dynamic) into the group scenes with the hombres.

The other missed opportunity I want to focus on stems from Rita's role as a mother. Before Reyes showed up in S9, Rita was the only female cop who was also a mother. Her daughter, Sabina, created the perfect opportunity for the writers put a dramedy spin on the struggles that single, working mothers have to deal with. After all, a large part of LHdP dealt with Paco's struggle to balance his family life with his job, and whenever those two paths crossed, hilarity often ensued (see Ep. 68, "Miranda al natural"). I understand that Rita wasn't a main character on the show, but still, I don't think it would've hurt to create storylines that would remind viewers that she was mother. I mean, they showed so little of Sabina over the years that if you weren't a regular viewer of LHdP, you may not have known that Rita even had a daughter.


I believe that Ep. 64, "La ratonera", sums up Alex Pina & Co.'s attitude towards Rita on the show. To refresh your memories, this is the episode where PepSi eye shagged each other during an autopsy. Before that, everyone was helping Lola out by participating in a commercial shoot for Los Cachis (aka the hangout that existed before Leo turned it into Lizarran and then promptly disappeared into the LHdP black hole). The director didn't want to shoot the commercial with "the Munster family", which included "the old guy (Don Lorenzo), the 'fro' (Curtis), the fat guy (Mariano), the gay guy (Kike), 'Mr. Beard' (Paco), and 'the teeth' (Rita)" and Pve. He proceeded to place them in the back room under the premise that he was going to shoot them later in a more "classy atmosphere." In reality, he simply intended to shoot the commercial with the "more attractive" people, which included PepSi.


Similar to that commercial, Rita was always placed in the "back room" on LHdP. She was never given any significant storylines, her relationships with others were rarely shown (if at all), and they even failed to properly utilize her in a comedic aspect to enhance the groups' dynamic. Maybe Alex Pina & Co. didn't think Neus Sanz was "pretty enough" to warrant more screentime, which is a shame IMO, because Neus made Rita quite the lovable character. Maybe they thought audiences wouldn't want to see stories about a single, working mother. And maybe the name of the show explains it all: Los hombres de Paco. Perhaps it didn't matter how funny Rita was, how much potential her character had, or that she was, in fact a member of Paco's team, because simply put, she wasn't a man.

kalike

*The title for this lecture series is based on lyrics from the song "3 Libras" by A Perfect Circle.
**The title for this lecture is based on the song "Stripper" by Sohodolls.