Go! Live Your Way
Like a lot of people who constantly stream shows, I have several beefs (beeves?) with Netflix. The beef of the week is this: Netflix’s Spanish language catalogue is surprisingly small. If you’re looking for something that isn’t TV-MA, that catalogue becomes practically microscopic.
This week, I tried out one of Netflix’s few family-friendly shows that’s in the Spanish Language: Go! Live Your Way. For the purposes of this review, I watched the show with English subtitles and the original, Spanish audio (even though the settings default to an English dub, and try to switch back to the dub every episode. The dub isn’t horrible, but it isn’t great, either).
Go! Live Your Way centers around a snobby boarding school known for its competitive performing arts program. Mía, an ultra-sweet orphan, dreams of getting into the school on a scholarship, but Lupe, the daughter of the school’s owners, wants to sabotage her at every turn. Álvaro (Lupe’s brother), and Juanma (Lupe’s boyfriend), clash over who will become the captain of the school’s basketball team. Basically, Go! Live Your Way is if a telenovela and High School Musical had a baby.
That being said, the music in High School Musical is good (and yes, I am prepared to fight anyone who disagrees). While all of the performers in Go! Live Your Way (at least, so far) are clearly able to sing really well, the songs often happen in contrived, awkward ways. We also hear the same few songs over and over again. Some of them are fine but wear out after a while, and others… well, here are the lyrics of one of the songs:
“Online hey
Online hey
Online hey
Uh uh uh uh
Online hey
Online hey
Online hey
Ah ah ah ah”
This song has been stuck in my head for days. I’m so sorry, Puffin Rock theme song, I never should have complained about you.
The show is from the Disney Channel school of maximalism in terms of costuming and set design. I thought the aesthetic would grate on me, but it actually keeps the show from taking itself too seriously. The look of the show, combined with some comedic side characters and plots, helps keep all of the drama (which takes time to advance, as soaps tend to do) from becoming a slog.
The one character that I can’t bring myself to feel anything about is Mía. She’s nice, which is pretty much her only trait. As of the first few episodes, the writers don’t really let her have any flaws, which means her character doesn’t really have anywhere to go. She mainly exists to teach other characters how to be better people. This is disappointing because it means every other character has a more interesting internal life than the protagonist.
I took a while to warm to Go! Live Your Way, but it has its charms. While not the best of its kind (either as a musical or as a telenovela), it’s cute, and its flaws aren’t offensive. It’s a very theater kid kind of show -- vibrant, over-the-top, and unabashedly corny.
Detailed Content Advisory for Go! Live Your Way
(Note: I have only seen the first three episodes)
Language:
A boy refers to another boy as “the idiot” (el imbécil).
Violence:
Some shoving.
Sexual content:
There’s virtually no overt sexual content in this show so far. It’s very tame for a teen romance.
Mía’s dance for an audition, while not very sexual, contains a few moves that are definitely age-inappropriate. Some of the boys at the school watch this dance in a way that I interpreted as leering, which definitely makes the whole scenario feel more uncomfortable.
One of the boys in this scenario has a girlfriend, and that girlfriend blames Mía for her boyfriend’s emotional infidelity. I think the viewer is supposed to see this is wrong and that the boy is responsible for his own actions, but I’m not sure what message this plotline will ultimately send.
A girl refers to another girl’s outfit as a “pathetic attention grab” (I assume she’s talking about getting the attention of boys, even though the outfit is fairly generic and not risque).
An adult man asks an adult woman on a date. When she declines, he interrupts her and says (completely seriously) “I can’t accept no for an answer.” It’s portrayed as charming.
Questionable content:
Strobing/flashing lights.
A character “spread[s] lies about having mental health problems” so that people will leave her alone.
Some of the hairstyles might be considered cultural appropriation by some.
A man and a woman discuss ordering drinks (presumably wine), but it’s not shown.
