Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

2-2025

Document Type

Capstone Project

Degree Name

M.A.

Program

Liberal Studies

Advisor

Paul Julian Smith

Subject Categories

Film and Media Studies

Keywords

Nuyorican Cinema, Puerto Rican Cinema, Puerto Rican diasporic films, Latino films, Independent films, Diasporic films

Abstract

Rivera’s Women, the Capstone, is a TV segment I produced for the CUNY-TV show Latinas that first aired June 27, 2023 (Pride). It grew out of an hour-long interview I conducted with playwright and screenwriter José Rivera as part of my research on Nuyorican Cinema, the films of the Puerto Rican Diaspora.

An unknown part of U.S. independent cinema, these diasporic films destabilize the way independent films continue to be categorized through gender, race, ethnicity, and language. Using the Capstone as a guide, I examine two of Rivera’s recent screen works that situate him within Nuyorican Cinema because of his practice of centering women interacting with diverse characters.

Regional, collegiate, and community theaters afford Rivera the artistic freedom he thrives on, making his practice of writing leading roles for women possible, unlike the commercial film and television productions that have been primarily work-for-hire, limiting his creative control. Nonetheless, Rivera’s focus on women is finding its way into his film and television work. As stated in the Capstone, he recently adapted One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez into a television series for Netflix and found it necessary to “give the women some agency” (Rivera’s Women). In Takeover, his latest screenplay based on the documentary of the same title by Emma Francis-Snyder, he invents a young female character and her family that frame a 1970 historical event, the Young Lords’ occupation of Lincoln Hospital.

This accompanying white paper is divided into four sections: Information about Nuyorican Cinema, including a definition of the term “Nuyorican,” followed by a summary of Rivera’s major theater, film, and television work in which elements of Nuyorican Cinema can be traced. A comparison between the Takeover screenplay and documentary explores how they blur distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. Lastly, I examine the process of adapting One Hundred Years of Solitude into a television series by contrasting the first episode of the series with the opening chapters of the novel. Season One of the Netflix series is scheduled for release at the end of this year. Takeover is scheduled to go into production next year.

Comments

Online component: The television segment (11:51- 16:05) for the CUNY-TV show Latinas. https://tv.cuny.edu/show/latinas/PR2011542

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