![]() Elena and her grandmother disagree about the wearing of makeup: For Lydia, the stuff is a symbol of empowered femininity for Elena, it’s a tool of oppression. And then they embrace, literally and otherwise. It’s a theme that gets repeated throughout the episodes of One Day at a Time: Characters see the world differently they clash they talk they come to understand each other. Arguing is temporary, after all family is forever. This initial drag-out disagreement ends in the time-honored sitcomic manner: Each woman validated, each one listened to by the other, they hug it out. Their exchange continues for several rounds, ending first with Penelope ceding-“I hear you, and you don’t have to have a quinces,” she tells her daughter-and then with Elena agreeing, finally, to the party, the planning of which will occupy the family until the season’s final episode. Penelope and Elena throw themselves into their debate, to great comedic effect. Viewers are, to be clear, at this point mere minutes into the first episode of the One Day at a Time revival. “I once successfully argued against gravity, so.” “You mean a Lincoln-Douglas debate, my speciality?” Elena, who has been newly named the head of her school’s debate team, scoffs at this suggestion. And so the trio find themselves at an impasse-until Penelope suggests that she and Elena debate the matter … from each others’ perspectives. In that she chafes both against her grandmother, Lydia (Rita Moreno), who is fiercely protective of the family’s Cuban heritage-and constantly worried that her Americanized grandchildren will forget their roots-and against her mother, who imagines that a celebration of her daughter will be, at the same time, a celebration of the sacrifices she has made to ensure Elena’s success.Įach woman is correct. Elena is an outspoken feminist and a budding activist, and she resents the patriarchal implications of such a gendered coming-out party. The show’s premiere episode begins, appropriately, with an argument the family is debating whether Elena (Isabella Gomez), the matriarch Penelope’s 14-year-old daughter, will be marking her upcoming birthday with a quinceañera. And, just as importantly: It is also a show about making up. One Day at a Time is a show that is, in the best ways, about fighting. But the show’s revival is great for another reason, too: It makes arguments about argument itself. The revived One Day at a Time is fantastic in part because of all the things that will typically make a sitcom fantastic: sharp, witty writing charming, multi-faceted characters plot lines that, in their seamless synthesis of the wacky and the serious, suggest life in all its messy complexity. ![]() The show that is, both as entertainment and as cultural commentary, exceptionally good. The show that centers, this time around, on the Alvarezes, a Cuban-American family, headed by a single mother (Justina Machado), living in Los Angeles. ![]() Yes, the remake of Norman Lear’s classic ’70s sitcom that premiered this month, with a full 13-episode season, on Netflix. I mention that-bear with me for a moment-because of One Day at a Time. We despair-because, while democracy demands debate, what the American version may not have anticipated is that debating is a skill as much as it is a pastime. Our discussions quickly veer into harassment. Recent years, though, have swapped that fear for another anxiety: that we have become bad not just at conversing, but, against all odds, at arguing. We are forgetting how to talk to each other, the warnings went we are forgetting how to listen to each other. ![]() Not too long ago, it was fashionable to fear that Americans are losing the fine art of conversation.
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