#dr lopez

This is more headcanons since we didn't see enough of them in canon to analyze on its own.

The Lopez family - I see Santana as having a close relationship with her Abuela, before The Outing, and Alma being the one who basically raised her. I headcanon that both her parents worked a lot and that's why Alma acted as the primary parental figure. Santana's relationship with her parents isn't bad, as such, but I do see her growing a lot closer with her mom Maribel after she comes out and Alma disowns her. They talk through a lot of Santana's issues and Maribel makes more of a conscious effort to be there for her. Maribel's no-nonsense and she gives Santana a stern talking to when needed but she softens as their relationship grows. She realizes that Alma's toughness rubbed off on an impressionable young Santana in some not so good ways so she's more openly affectionate as Santana enters her twenties. I see Santana as needing words of affirmation as a love language, in all her relationships, so Maribel tries to meet that even though Santana never articulates that need.

As for Mr. Lopez? Anyone's guess, literally. Every interpretation I see of him differs because we get so little. Santana only mentions that he's a doctor once and then I suppose one could run with the implications in "Lights Out". Personally, I'd like to think Santana's dad isn't all that cold and distant but there's for sure a complicated dynamic there. He worked a lot, possibly only just finishing up med school after Santana was born, once again hence Alma raising her. He and Maribel both have a feeling from when Santana's young that there's something ~different~ about her, something queer. Mr. Lopez, based on his own upbringing, would rather pretend it isn't there. Santana internalizes this as there being something wrong with her and is absolutely mortified to be forced to come out to her parents.

But Mr. Lopez, having taken his sweet time, reassures her that there's nothing wrong with her and he and Maribel love her very much. It's just that he knew how cruel the world was and didn't want that for Santana, and didn't communicate how he'd accept her no matter what in the best of ways. He does some soul-searching after that and chews his mother out for disowning Santana. Like with Maribel, Santana's relationship with him is better after that but there's still work to do and imo they haven't done much by the wedding and it's mostly in Santana's later twenties and as Mr. Lopez begins to work less that they truly form a bond. There are many regrets but they both learn a thing or two about owning your feelings.

The Pierces - The Pierces are much more chill. They don't even register Brittany being bi as anything unusual. Whitney catches Brittana making out one day and just asks if Santana's staying for dinner. Both Whitney and Pierce are very open and loving with Brittany and maybe even a bit TMI. Sometimes it can be to Brittany's detriment because she has a harder time learning about ~normal~ social etiquette and what's appropriate but she's always encouraged to speak her mind. I am truly very sorry how comically short this is compared to the Lopez section but they really are just chill and somewhat odd.

As one big family - As mentioned, the Pierces (particularly Whitney) knows about Brittana and Britt's queerness long before the Lopez family or anyone else. She's cool with it to the point of not really registering it as anything differing from the norm. That kind of backfires when Santana's anxious around her after the interrupted makeout sesh, not knowing what Whitney thinks of her now. But they eventually have a big discussion and Whitney makes Santana sob with how much she loves and accepts her. Santana became a part of the Pierce household long before the wedding. (Ignore Pierce's joke from 6x06.)

Maribel found Brittany to be unnervingly odd at first but girl has a way of charming you so she was cool with Britt by the second or third time she came over after Cheerios practice. They have good conversations and Brittany always leaves with a shit ton of food made special for her. Mr. Lopez rarely interacts with her but just like with Santana, he makes more of an effort when they're engaged and married. They play chess together and rarely utter a word. It unnerves Santana and Maribel but both hate playing chess with their partners so it works out.

Whitney and Maribel have hilarious interactions at family dinners and gatherings. It starts out somewhat charged, from Maribel's end, but they both love their girls so much so really it's just playful banter by the time they're family. There's always arguments about where to spend the holidays so Santana and Brittany end up travelling to some random location on many occasions. One Thanksgiving they come home to find Whitney and Maribel wasted on the Lopez couch, apparently having had the time of their lives drinking together. Meanwhile, Alma is listening intently but with increasing concern to whatever Pierce is saying.

Anyway, I’m stuck in a loop and thought you might have an opinion on that particular performance as it relates to Santana’s family life? Maybe you don’t, but if you do I’d be interested in hearing it!

Oh same, always. And I always have opinions on everything Santana says, does and sings 😌

I'm always on the fence about Mr/Dr Lopez and the general Lopez family dynamic myself. Like yeah, we never see him and Lights Out has a few hints at a more strained relationship, but do I think Glee was just lazy and didn't bother casting him and that's why he wasn't at the wedding for example? Yeah. And even things like him being a doctor were mentioned exactly once, and who knows is the writers even remembered that half as well as the fandom does. I doubt they did. So most of what we have is At the Ballet. Gorgeous beautiful performance btw and deserves more credit. The vocals, the dress, the Pezberry long note? Exquisite.

I'm with you because I'd love the angst and it is the most we have to go on, but I also kinda don't want the lyrics to be entirely representative, to be literal? Like yeah I love angst, but do I want her dad to be like that? :/ My personal interpretation is to not take the words Santana's singing literally but to keep in mind, like, the general vibe of it. Like you say, the context is about ballet being an escape and Santana remembering a time, the first time, when performing was a happy place. So stands to reason it'd be a happy place and escape from something, right?

The way I like to think about At the Ballet and negotiate it with Santana's family life is to take the general feeling it conveys. I also like to think it might be a case of the unreliable narrator? With good reason, because Santana is expressing childhood memories where how she felt might not have 100% reflected reality but was valid nonetheless because that's just how she felt. So what I mean is that maybe Dr Lopez never cheated on Maribel and wasn't as cold and generally a shitty dad as the song would imply. But maybe he was a bit distant. Maybe he didn't know how to best express to Santana, or Maribel for that matter, that he cared about them. Maybe he studied/worked a lot and maybe he wasn't too emotionally open and vulnerable. No surprise, if Alma was indeed Santana's paternal grandmother. That would fit with how I headcanon him anyway.

So I think it's possible for the lyrics not to be taken literally but, simultaneously, for the general feelings to be taken seriously. Maybe he cared more than came across to Santana and I think that matters in the long run because they could have a better relationship once she's an adult. But it also doesn't change the fact that, growing up, Santana didn't exactly feel close to him and that “I was such a tomboy and it really pissed my dad off” comment doesn’t bode well. I’d like to imagine Dr Lopez as someone who wanted to but didn’t know how to even try with his daughter. I think there’s a theme of noncomformity with the Lopez family - how could there not be, what with Santana’s story being a fundamentally queer one.

It’s apparent in the way Alma rejects Santana, not even for being a lesbian as such but for not repressing it. The sin is in the scandal. So I’m side-tracking a bit but I think Dr Lopez didn’t want his daughter to be all that different, to be the Other, as a misguided attempt to protect her from the world and it resulted in a distance between the two. Maybe even in Santana feeling like she couldn’t be herself at home. And then there’s an interesting tension there because it also resulted in ballet and dancing, which Santana says made her feel “not different”. So it reinforces that conformity her family wanted for her, but it’s also an early creative outlet that made her feel safe and like she was a part of something. And that very thing is what later makes Glee special and leads her to become more herself, more open and vulnerable.

But going back to the Lopez family, maybe the parts of the song about her parents’ relationship could also express that Maribel embraced Santana’s nonconformity more from the beginning, as it’s implied during the Breadstix Goodbye scene. And I could see convos about that between the parents coming off to a child in a way that’s expressed in the song. Like her dad thought he was above her mom, stuff like that. It’s not necessarily what happened but kids overhear arguments and misinterpret them all the time, or internalize them in ways that don’t reflect reality. All of this is pure speculation based on the song and what I think of the Lopez family dynamic, of course. Just trying to fit into the non-existent Glee canon. But the bottom line is that I wouldn’t take At the Ballett literally but do think there’s an emotional truth to it. Even if Dr Lopez wasn’t actually like that, it’s how he came across to his daughter and that stuff matters, no matter his intentions.

Santana mentioning during Lights Out that her being a tomboy as a kid really pissed her Dad off.

The general impression that he’s an absent Father, given Santana seems to have spent a lot of time with her Abuela growing up.

The Pezberry bathroom scene in 5x13 where Rachel offers Santana the lead in 10 FG shows as a peace offering. She says something like “your Mom can come, or your Abuela.” Why not “your parents?” Rachel lived with Santana for months. Does she know something we don’t?

His absence from the wedding (definitely a casting issue, but also technically canon, so…)

I’m adding two and two together and coming up with twenty eight here, but that’s pretty much what all of us do when it comes to Glee, so I don’t care. The pieces kind of fit together to indicate quite a rocky childhood for Santana, and her Dad maybe being the cause of a lot of that? He clearly accepted her sexuality when she came out though, so I don’t think he was evil or anything. Just maybe a little careless, (to borrow from Taylor lol)?

Honestly, this isn’t even an ask I just ended up rambling haha. But if you have any thoughts on how Mine might relate to Santana’s family life at all (which I suspect you do), I’d enjoy reading them, as always.

Tumblr just deleted half my answer which... this hellsite underestimates my willingness to go on and on about Santana Lopez, I shall not be stopped. So here we go again!

Mr/Dr Lopez is an interesting case because Glee never cared to actually give him anything but there's much to speculate. I think, we had to choose, I'd read more in At the Ballet just on the basis of diegesis but at the same time there isn't a single second in the Mine scene I'm not obsessed with so of course we can also take that into consideration.

There's no reason we couldn't put two and two together and come up with twenty eight. Based on what canon gives us, Santana's relationship with her dad could easily be quite strained and distant. I think his absence from the wedding is something I can't quite, like, take at face value, just because his only(? lmao) daughter's wedding is such a huge thing to miss when even his homophobic mother was there and he's supposedly cool with the lesbian daughter thing. So I think just for me personally I'll elect to ignore the fact that he was nowhere to be seen the same way that I don't accept the absence of Quinn. We could make it work logically but every variation makes me sad lol.

When it comes to Mine, there are two bits that are relevant here: “careless man’s careful daughter”, of course, and this:

You learn my secrets and you figure out why I'm guarded You say we'll never make my parents' mistakes

I love this first line from a Brittana perspective (and the way Naya sings it, forever sobbing) but Brittana aside, “parents’ mistakes” implies a lot here. If we put it into the context of the implied cheating in At the Ballet and what Santana says right after singing Mine, there’s a case to be made here. Based on everything, it’s not wild to assume Dr. Lopez cheated on Maribel and they might still be married and technically together because that’s how they roll but not actually a couple anymore. I think Santana’s breakup speech substantiates that, what with her letting Brittany go only to prevent an even bigger heartbreak “when someone eventually cheats” - telling words here. And yes, we can also contextualize this within the episode because she’s talking about long-distance relationships here and possibly talking about the other two breakups but the Mine and At the Ballet lyrics both support this.

Not to turn this into a “Santana’s complicated relationship with the concept of cheating” post (which I’ll inevitably write anyway as soon as someone reminds me to) but her mature decision in Mine could easily be interpreted as a lesson she learned from her parents’ mistakes. So she breaks both her and Brittany’s hearts now in order to protect themselves from an even bigger potential pain in the future, perhaps one she experienced as a kid when Dr. Lopez cheated. Honestly this would just add yet another layer to the Mine scene which I already adore every second of. It fits with careless man’s careful daughter, too, because like you say maybe Dr. Lopez isn’t evil or anything but careless with how his actions affected his family and so Santana grew to become careful in the sense that she keeps her heart guarded. And affected her own attitudes towards cheating but, another post. I’ve also read interpretations where Mine is a narrative switcharoo and it’s actually referring to Brittany and Pierce, him being the careless man. But that’s just a btw and a whole other interpretation.

So the thing is, I fully went into this post wanting to say that there is a reading of Mine (and everything else) where Dr. Lopez cheated but stating that I personally choose not to look at it that way. But then I wrote all this down twice so now I’m like, maybe I convinced myself? Him being sorta distant but also trying and not actually a bad guy has always been reading of Dr. Lopez and even in the At the Ballet post I said that the cheating could just be an emotional truth rather than what actually happened. But now that you made me think about Mine I’m gonna run with yeah, he probably had an affair or two and it caused him to have a strained relationship with both Maribel and, inevitably, Santana. But I still maintain that in her young adult years/twenties they reconnect and find a way to make their dynamic work because Dr. Lopez might be a careless man in some ways but, and this really is just a HC, I think he’d learn to make an effort with his daughter. They stay together with Maribel and he as well as Alma do a lot of growing.

MUSIC: Dr Lopez @showbizlopez – I NO GO GREE (Unacceptable)

Dr Lopez @showbizlopez is a Nigerian from the Niger Delta Region (an Urhobo to be precise) in his mid twenties who does R&B, Funk, Hip Hop and Afro beat. He is not only a performing artist but a song writer and a graphic artist. He is also a professional photographer. (more…)