Netflix’s latest hit Who Killed Sara? or ¿Quién Mató a Sara? centers around the Lazcano family’s murder cover-up of a young girl named Sara. The rich family framed Alex Guzman, Sara’s brother, for her murder when he was a teen and he was sentenced to 30 years of jail time. After his early release, Alex plans to ruin the Lazcano family legacy and seeks revenge on his sister’s killer. The ten-episode series, which was created and written by Chilean screenwriter José Ignacio Valenzuela, looks into the Lazcano family’s dark past.

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While the series is all about solving the murder mystery, it also shines a light on Latin America’s issue with homophobia and violence. The patriarch of the family, César Lazcano is bluntly homophobic by denying his own gay son and repeatedly making derogatory statements about him not being man enough. Interestingly enough, César’s character does not hide his homophobia and finds his power in being the male figure in the family. Recently in Mexico, there has been an uptick in violence towards LGBTQ+ people. According to Reuters, “Mexico is seeing a surge of extreme violence toward LGBT+ people in its deadliest year in half a decade, a leading rights group said on Friday, citing cases of victims brutally stabbed and brazenly killed in public. In 2019, 117 lesbian, gay, bi and trans people were killed in Mexico, up almost a third compared with 2018 and the highest number since 2015, according to LGBTQ+ advocacy group Letra S.”

The show also centers on the rise in femicide seen in Latina America. Ignacio’s screenwriting puts Latin America’s history of violence against LGBTQ+ community and women at the forefront of his Netflix show. Although the show is not based on a real family, the show’s themes are very much relevant to today’s current crisis. Countries like Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador, all deal with this “cultural issue”.

Since the start of the pandemic, individuals and families have stayed home to reduce the spread of covid-19. The stay-at-home orders chillingly saw an increase in domestic violence in countries like Colombian and Mexico. According to Quartz, “Within the first three weeks of Colombia’s national quarantine due to Covid-19, calls to the government’s domestic violence hotline increased 142%. In 2019, 571 women in Colombia were murdered in femicides. Despite a 2015 law meant to impose harsher punishments on men who have murdered women, just 13% of cases end in a conviction. In Mexico, 10 women are killed violently each day, the highest rate of femicide in Latin America. By the end of April this year, 163 Mexican women had been killed in femicides during quarantine.”

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We cannot ignore the reoccurring themes of homophobia and femicide within the series. Whether or not it was the screenwriter’s intention to spotlight these issues, this is the crude reality many women and the LGBTQ+ community still face. There is a lot of work to be done and talking about these issues is just the start. ‘Who Killed Sara’ is available on Netflix and has been renewed for season 2.