Have you ever felt like you have to act a certain way because you saw something on TV? Many shows portray women stereotypically and enforces the concepts of gender roles. The entertainment industry has also displayed homophobic actions in their shows. The entertainment industry's representation of cultural gender roles and sexual orientation are depicted in the show One Day At Time as it follows a second generation Cuban-American family battling against modern challenges. Elena Alverez, a freshman in high school struggles with fitting into the cultural norms that are put on women. Throughout the show One Day at a Time produced by Brent Miller, Elena fights gender roles and homophobia by wanting an untraditional quinceanera and expressing …show more content…
Elena eventually tells her very traditional grandmother that she is not comfortable wearing a quince dress. This makes her grandmother exclaim, “Of course, you are not comfortable. It's called being a woman.” (One Day at a Time). Elena had a different perspective than her grandmother, as when she meant uncomfortable, she meant she considers it confining because the dress fails to represent anything about her. Due to the pressure of her culture and family, she feels that she needs to do her quince the “right” way to make sure everything goes perfect. As her family prepares to have a perfect quince, she decides to come out to her father about liking the same sex. She has not had a good time to talk to him as he lives in a different place than her due to her parents getting a divorce. As they were practicing the father daughter dance, she comes out to him and he reacts in an unsupportive way as he says, “No, I'm not mad. You're just confused. I mean, you're 15. You don't know what the hell you're talking about.” (One Day at Time). Elena’s father does not attempt to understand how she feels in the moment and goes straight into thinking she is joking although she repeatedly told him it was a serious matter. Not only was he not