Created by Fernando Rovzar and Pablo Aramen, the new Mexican series, Women in Blue (Las Azules in the original Spanish) is inspired by true events, if only vaguely so. In 1971, when a serial killer was terrorising Mexico City, the newly appointed police chief decided to open up the force to women, more as a PR exercise than any desire to dismantle sexism in law enforcement. In an ultra conservative society, this causes a stir, but also gets a lot of media attention. The very same sensation-hungry media that has named the serial killer The Undresser, because he strips his victims.
Nobody expects a large number of women to register or for the project to last. Women are expected to go right back home to the kitchen after the brief display of independence. Of the many women who turn up for training, 16 make it, and the show focuses on four, who are assigned together in a group – Maria ( Barbara Mori) who is angry at her husband’s infidelity, her free-spirited sister Valentina (Natalia Téllez), the religious Angeles (Ximena Sariñana) whose parents had been murdered when she was a child, and Gabina (Amorita Rasgado), whose father and brothers are cops and resist her attempt at joining the force. The man assigned to train them — Octavio Romandía (Miguel Rodarte)– is the only one willing, because he was suspended from the job and wants to be reinstated.
After their rigorous training, the women are given blue uniforms comprising mini skirts, jackets and high heeled go go boots—which make them look like airline stewardesses. Adding to the insult, they are each given a whistle and a coin purse (to call the ‘real’ police from a pay phone) and not even assigned a squad car. On the first day, patrolling a park and looking for a child’s lost dog, they stumble upon a victim of the serial killer.
On observing the detectives on the case and over-hearing conversations, Maria realizes that her colleagues caught and probably killed the wrong man – a mentally disturbed gardener—to take the pressure off their own heads. The women, however, are more sympathetic towards the victims and their families, and see or hear what the corrupt and apathetic men ignore.
Maria has the toughest time of them all, because she is married and a mother, and neglecting her home leaves her with guilt, though she does tell her unfaithful husband complaining about her absence at dinner time, that the family had several meals without him. Her own mother, who comes over to cook and mind the kids, disapproves of her daughter’s career. The casual misogyny of a deeply patriarchal society leads to the women being constantly disparaged and diminished. Men and even women are unused to seeing females in non-traditional roles and their first response towards this women’s cop squad is hostility, In Maria’s home, her daughter is thrilled about her mother’s job, but the son whines that he won’t eat anything but his mother’s cooking. Gabina can dismantle and reassemble a pistol blindfolded, faster than her brother, but she is told to stop it and go help her mother in the kitchen.
Women In Blue is watchable not just as a crime-solving show, but as a social comment on women breaking out of cocoons they were forced into and discovering themselves. the show’s feminism may be simplistic, but the hunt-for-killer aspect is complex and thrilling.The first two episodes out of ten are out on AppleTV+ and new ones will drop every week.
Women in Blue
Created by : Pablo Aramendi & Fernando Rovzar
Cast: With Bárbara Mori, Ximena Sariñana, Natalia Téllez, Amorita Rasgado and others
