Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and in this household, that means doing skincare, eating chocolate and watching comfort shows. One of them happens to be “Jane the Virgin.”

This rom-com has been a favorite of mine for a few years now. The show premiered in 2014, and as usual with me, I started watching it in 2020 – six years later. I started watching it around the time the pandemic started, so it was one of the shows I binged during quarantine. 

The twists and turns of the story captivated me. Though some twists were easy to predict, others that were not. The emotion in this show also spoke to me and moved me to tears; that’s not hard, as I’m a very emotional person. 

I also enjoyed how this show spoke out on certain issues, such as immigration, LGBTQIA+ rights, etc. It was — and still is — nice to see that real-world issues are discussed in TV shows and advocated for. There is also representation of many groups of people. One of these representations is that one main character, Petra Solano, is bisexual. This was amazing for me, as someone who is also bisexual and hadn’t seen a lot of this representation in media.

One of the main points of internal conflict is the topic of virginity and how purity has been so deeply woven into it. Jane Villanueva, one of the main characters of the show, was told at a young age by her abuela that once she has crumpled her flower — the symbol of virginity in the series — it will never be the same again. This message has presented as a significant internal struggle for Jane; however, in later episodes, this struggle is conquered. The series drives the message of disconnecting purity from virginity home, which I’m sure is important to many people who have had similar struggles. 

“Jane the Virgin” also shed light on not only the joys of motherhood, but the struggles as well. These hardships were not sugarcoated and were shown realistically. For example, Mateo, Jane’s son, was diagnosed with ADHD. The show demonstrates the emotions and struggles that not only Jane and Rafael, Mateo’s father, felt and went through, but Mateo as well. It was relieving to see ADHD depicted realistically and not stereotypically. 

Overall, this series has been and will continue to be one of my favorite comfort shows of all time. Though I only covered a few parts that I enjoyed about it, there are numerous other aspects that I loved. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves rom-coms and has not watched it yet. It is most certainly a great Valentine’s Day watch. 

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