What Selena’s murder says about our fascination with death

Selena may be long gone from this earth, but in 2025, she is far from absent. Her face and signature appear on countless products, ranging from dolls and makeup to an ethically murky AI-powered album. Her story, both inspirational and tragic, has been told in film, television, salacious docuseries and in-depth documentaries, including the forthcoming “Selena y Los Dinos” film, which premiered at the recent South by Southwest.

Killed by Yolanda Saldívar, the president of her fan club, on March 31, 1995, the Tejano star has been sanctified among Latinos as a folk hero and figure of eternal reverence. But the brutality of her death has undoubtedly fueled a never-ending stream of Selena content that audiences have been fed.

It’s been argued that these products exploit her memory for the personal gain of the Quintanilla family, who owns her estate. Yet the fact that there’s a market for these products among Latinos says something about our own relationship to death.

(Natalia Agatte / For De Los)

Why is it that one of the most lasting legends shared among our community is one of a woman who was violently murdered? Inversely, why is it the story many Latinos seem to consume most, creating a market from a person who isn’t alive to benefit from it?

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Our community’s simultaneous obsession and fear of death — to the point of wanting to distance ourselves from it and concurrently conquer it — is one reason.

“To me, the question is, what stories about [death] stick and why?” posed Diana York Blaine, a professor at USC’s department of gender and sexuality studies. “I can almost always explain it.”

A researcher of how death is represented in media, York Blaine says that, much like other celebrities who died a violent or tragic death — such as Tupac Shakur, Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana — Selena presents both a perfect story and even a perfect victimhood.

In her research, York Blaine has created death categories that explain how a celebrity’s death carries meaning within culture. She places Selena’s death in various categories: unnatural (meaning they did not die of a natural cause), female, eroticized (a figure with sexual appeal), and sentimental (a story that provokes sadness, wistfulness or even pity).

The 23-year-old was young, immensely talented, sexy but not overtly sexual, plus her death was unnatural. “We like sentimental deaths, where we can go, ‘Oh, she was so beautiful, so young, so tragic, so sad,’ right?” said York Blaine — who added that in her research on JonBenet Ramsey’s death, she found that people enjoy feeling bad. Selena elicits a similar reaction.

And yet, her death holds a higher symbolism for Latinos in particular. Selena was on the cusp of mega-stardom. Her dreams of success as an American pop star singing in her more native English were soon to be realized, catapulting a young Mexican American woman into a celebrity no one like her had attained before, by crossing over to “the mainstream” (i.e., to white audiences). Her story exemplifies the American dream sold to all Latinos in America: if you work hard enough, anything is possible.

“As soon as [a death is] a story, we’ve entered the realm of the symbolic,” explained York Blaine. “So it’s no longer merely interesting; it has become culturally significant.”

Additionally, Selena, in death, has become the epitome of what could have been, and the gripping morbidness of her murder adds to the sensationalism and fascinating nature of her story — especially in a world obsessed with true crime. Though most true-crime podcasts and series focus on white women, a study by Pew Research found that listeners of these type of podcasts are largely Black and Latino women. So it’s unsurprising that a story like Selena’s would garner Latinos’ fascination. Her story merits space in a white-centric industry, and she is a figure who they can see themselves in.

This makes her an ideal and especially exploitable figure in death.

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A widespread fear of death also contributes to Selena’s overexposure. As York Blaine explained, her death being unnatural “permits us to have a distance, a kind of power over death” in different ways.

(Natalia Agatte / For De Los)

Selena’s death presents death itself as a matter of extraordinary circumstance. However, death is common and inescapable, no matter how many wealthy men try to engineer themselves out of it. But in her story, we can fantasize about death as a spatial occurrence, as well as about who she was and the life she could have had. We can enjoy a fantastic representation of death, be entertained by it, feel emotional about it, but also detach from it. As a result, it allows us to view death as impermanent.

“She is reassuring proof to us that life goes on after death,” said York Blaine. “When you say she’s become sanctified, it offers us a sense of something greater than us and greater than the material world. I think of a star literally is up in heaven, and so our stars are bigger than life, so celebrities, particularly when they’re dead, can become proof of the Divine, making us feel better about a tragic death.”

In our culture, we have been conditioned to avert our eyes from death. We run from it because of what its finality means. But we can also become fascinated by it; crave any piece of intel about someone’s death.

Yet Selena is more than just her death. She was a full person with quirks, faults, viewpoints and feelings. In understanding our fascination with her death, we can understand our own anxieties and perhaps show greater respect to the dead.