Apple TV+’s Women In Blue is inspired by Mexico City’s female police officers in the 70s: what’s the true story, and who’s the serial killer?
Some stories get lost in time, especially those that happened before the birth of the Internet. Finding the right sources becomes pretty impossible, and understanding how things went requires a specific effort: you would need to talk with the real protagonists and read what the newspapers said back then. That’s why the new series that landed on Apple TV+ in 2024 triggered so many curiosities: what is the true story behind Women In Blue? Was there really a group of female police officers in Mexico City in the 70s?
If you spent some time looking for answers on the Internet, you probably didn’t find complete answers. You may even stumble into articles claiming that Apple TV+’s Women In Blue is mainly made up. However, both the series’s creators and the cast were in touch with the real female officers who first joined Mexico City’s police in the 70s. Yes, Women In Blue is inspired by a true story: Mexico City’s police really started to involve a small group of female officers in those years, as a sign of cultural modernization.
The first presence of female police officers in the Secretariat of Citizen Security of Mexico City (the so-called SSC, “Secretaría de Seguridad Ciudadana” in Spanish) actually goes back to the 1930s: it was an extraordinary experiment for those days, and you can still find some information about it in this article on SciELO Mexico, the Scientific Electronic Library online. It was an initiative of the then Chief of Police, Valente Quintana, and was eventually composed of up to 50 female gendarmes who were characterized, among other things, by the use of a badge and a baton: you can even see some photos of those police women in that article.
The official female division of Mexico City’s police was founded in 1972. As you can imagine, being a policewoman in those days was particularly complicated, as that was considered a male job. If you can read Spanish, you will enjoy this recent interview published on Milenio, where you can read the personal experience of one of the oldest female police officers in that division, Chief of Police Adalberta Narcisa Peláez Juárez. As she explains in that interview, during her career, she had to face many disrespectful comments from citizens who considered police a “job designated for men,” but that only increased her motivation to prove them wrong.
So the series Women In Blue on Apple TV+ is really inspired by the true story of the female officers who joined Mexico City’s police in the 70s, in a context of skepticism about their abilities in that role. What’s not based on actual events is the serial killer (the “Undresser”), which is the part created for fictional purposes: the idea of those fresh policewomen dealing with a series of murders that shocked the community works perfectly, mixing the true story with one of those investigation cases that are always so successful in modern TV shows. If you were among those who started watching the series and wanted to know more about what was real behind it, now you are aware: it’s a unique piece of Mexico’s history, brought to light by the creator, Fernando Rovzar. Enjoy!
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