Women tackle crime and prejudice in Apple TV’s Women in Blue

Last week, Women in Blue (also broadcast as Las Azules) premiered on Apple TV’s streaming service. The series is based on true events in 1971, when four women defy ultra-conservative norms to join Mexico’s first female police force, only to discover it’s a publicity stunt to divert media attention from a serial killer. The series follows these women as they make a pact to bring the killer to justice while navigating their personal lives and the challenges of being working women.

Emmy-winning director Fernando Rovzar, along with the women in blue Maria (Bárbara Mori), Angeles (Ximena Sariñana), Valentina (Natalia Téllez) and Gabina (Amorita Rasgado), sat down with us to give the Daily Dot the inside scoop on the new series.

Daily Dot: How true is the show?

Fernando Rovzar: Most of what I researched is from them, like I got in touch with one, and then she got in touch with another, and then we were able to go to lunch, and we talked, and then she- we recorded and they told us their stories, you know, within the family and with their parents and a lot of them were teenagers when they joined the police.

DD: Describe the show using only emojis.

Natalia Tellez: Hearts, flowers, fire, lots of fire.

FR: I would put the little emojis of little, you know, little girls.

NT: Girls! Having these two girls, hand in hand, dancing.

Barbara Mori: Like an arm.

Ximena Sariñana: Yes exactly. Fire-arm. A plastic firearm. Yes of course.

BM: And blue, blue heart.

XS: And I would definitely think the one with the two girls holding hands

Amorita Rasgado: A surprised face to walk like that!

FR: Four blue hearts is also a fantastic way to represent the show. Whenever I text them, we have a chat with them and a lot of times we put four hearts together.

DD: If social media existed in the 70s, what do you think your character would be posting?

XS: I think my character would talk a lot about being on the autism spectrum, and I think she’d probably work a lot to make other people aware of that and, you know, tell a lot of facts, because, you know, she’s a very determined character.

BM: I think she’ll post, you know, recipes about being a mom, too. And you know, she joined the police, she started to change, she started to realize that she was more capable of doing so many things that she didn’t even think about.

DD: Why did female police officers have miniskirts as part of their uniform when they were allowed to wear pants during training?

FR: When these women joined the police force, they thought they would wear police uniforms, and when they graduated, just after graduation, they were given skirts and knee-high boots. And that was they made it impossible for them to run, they made it impossible for them, you know, to do a lot of police work. And that’s when they realized that the all-female police department in Mexico City was kind of a gimmick, like a window display by a government that wanted people to stop talking about the worst massacre of student protesters in history, which happened in 1968.

DD: What advice would you give to people who feel unappreciated at work?

NT: One of the most important premises of Las Azules of these women in blue is that they network. They make this connection between women who feel the same way and have the same goal.

DD: Why was this story important to tell?

EN: I am the son of a hardworking woman who raised us and worked at the same time. It’s important to me because I have two teenage daughters facing adulthood in Mexico City, in a country where 10 women are killed every day for being women; it’s important to me because nobody in Mexico knows that this group of policemen existed.

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