Third Core Post

In January, the second season of One Day at a Time, a Netflix original sitcom produced in part by Norman Lear, premiered on the streaming platform. I binged the first season, but haven't been sure about starting the second. The sitcom style is not one I prefer, but I did find myself moved by many of the storylines of the show. The show is based on the original sitcom from the 1970s, updated to be about a multigenerational Cuban-American working-class family. In many ways, One Day at a Time is antiquated; it has the ubiquitous laugh track and multi-camera setup, a lot of corny jokes, and everyone is always in the living room?? But it is also refreshing; it has a majority Latinx cast, a Latina producer/writer, and it touches on topics ranging from mental illness and coming out, to white-passing privilege and gentrification.

I thought about this show when reading the articles for this week, and Lipsitz in particular. Although his argument doesn’t completely align with a show that has no commercials and a less obvious call to consumerism, his exploration into the tensions and contradictions that these sitcoms showcase reflects many of those found in One Day at a Time. As he states: “Urban ethnic working-class situation comedies provided one means of addressing the anxieties and contradictions emanating from the clash between the consumer present of the 1950s and collective social memory about the 1930s and 1940s” (358). I would replace here the 1950s with the 2010s and I think there isn’t as much of a collective social memory about the past, but rather a specific memory to a homeland (in this case Cuba) as the collective origins of the family. Lipsitz comments on this as well, stating how: “Representation of generational and gender tensions undercut the legitimating authority of the televised traditional working-class family by demonstrating the chasm between memories of yesterday and the realities of today.” This is especially clear in the moments in the show when the grandmother (Rita Moreno) clashes with her daughter, granddaughter, and grandson about their mental health issues, sexual identity, and how they do (or don’t) connect with their Cuban roots, respectively.

The show exposes tensions not just within this particular family, but also those they face living in the United States. There is a clear attempt from the show to demonstrate the challenges that Latinx immigrants and US citizens must contend with, while at the same time showing how they intersect with working-class struggles. In a similar way to Life with Luigi and The Goldbergs, One Day at a Time reflects ideas about belonging, citizenship, class, and race that exist in American society today. My doubts about the second season stem from questioning how the sitcom format functions to showcase these. The show stands unmistakably against the values of the current administration in the US, while acknowledging how Latinx families contend with their history, privilege, and struggles. I want to see more of it, but I also want to see less of this shrouded in humor. I question, as Lipsitz does, whether the artifice of television diminishes the critiques a show like this might make or the realities it represents, or “whether they build affirmative communities in dialogue with the needs and desires of others.”