Back in May of this year Cristela Alonzo, fresh from hearing the news that her ABC TV sitcom had been cancelled after just one season, tweeted that Norman Lear creator of the groundbreaking 70’s hit TV series All in the Family, had reached out to her. The following month at the Brea Improv she mentioned that she was in touch with Norman Lear and they were working on something. Last week Lear announced at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, that he is working on developing a Hispanic version based on his other hit show One Day at a Time. Could it be this is the project they are collaborating on?
Although it is still not certain that this project is going ahead, as Lear put it, “In a couple weeks I’ll let you know if it’s happening,” he did say that the re-vamp of One Day at A Time will revolve around a Latina single mother, her son and daughter and a grandmother. “I love the idea because I don’t see enough of that representation on the air,” said Lear, who was there to promote his participation in the PBS’ American Masters documentary planned for 2016.
Lear, has was always been been aware of the lack of Latino representation on TV. In 1985 he and Helen Hernandez, who worked for him at one point, went to meet with leaders of the National Conference for Community and Justice, a respected non-sectarian human relations organization committed to fighting prejudice and racial tensions and approached them to help with the co-founding of the Imagen Awards, an organization Hernandez has led since that date.
The year prior, in 1984, Lear had written the short lived sitcom A.K.A. Pablo which starred comedian Paul Rodriguez. Not since Chico and the Man, which had starred another Latino comedian Freddie Prinze Jr. from 1974-1977 had there been a sitcom about a Latino family on TV. So Lear is not one to be accused of jumping on the Latino bandwagan…he has been on it for decades.
Lear told the press at the TCA that he already knew the actors he would cast in in the sticom. We will go out on a limb and speculate that one of those would be Cristela. However we will not know the details as he is keeping mum, at least for two weeks untile they get the official greenlight.
It would be great to see his re-booted One Day at a Time with an all Latino family on the air and with hops it would join the impressive list of Lear’s TV hits, which if you look back on was pretty forward thinking.
All in The Family took on stereotypes, with The Jeffersons African-Americans moved “on up” to a new stature in society and Maude gave a liberal women a voice to speak her mind.
The timing is right for his next sitcom to break some Latino stereotypes, portraying an outspoken Latina who has moved “on up”. And a possible collaboration with Cristela will be the icing on the cake.
It will be interesting to see if the suits at the networks will give this type of show a chance to be seen. Lear will know in two weeks and so shall we.
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