All in the Family
All in the Family was an offensively stereotypical sitcom in the 1970s which repeatedly referred to a housewife as a "dingbat" and has also been ranked as the 6th most racist old television show.[1] This show was created by the Leftist producer Norman Lear and heavily promoted by the liberal media for its airing on CBS from 1971 to 1979, and is still praised by liberals today despite its bigoted content. But 30 years after its airing there was relatively little interest in the show anymore, as Sony's attempt to resell it was discontinued. All in the Family was not completely original; rather, it was based on a British BBC sitcom Till Death Us Do Part, of which Lear was a fan.
All in the Family was degrading to women by portraying the housewife and mother, "Edith Bunker" (played by Jean Stapleton), as a senseless and unattractive nuisance called "dingbat" by her own husband. An episode of the show included an attempted rape of her by an intruder on her 50th birthday, which is omitted from the syndicated reruns.[2]
The late actor Carrol O'Connor played the central character, portrayed as a white bigot, Archie Bunker. Archie and Edith's daughter Gloria, was played by Sally Struthers, and Leftist Rob Reiner played the liberal son-in-law Michael “Mike” Stivic. The show's storylines featured Archie, inaccurately portrayed by Lear as a conservative bigot, engaging in constant arguments and debates with Mike (nicknamed "Meathead" by Archie), most especially regarding Archie's racist tendencies and stereotypes (depicted according to Lear's viewpoint).
All in the Family was notable at the time of its airing for being the first television show to specifically push a political agenda. This reflects the period during which there was an intense political battle over the Equal Rights Amendment throughout the 1970s. Hollywood's sharp turn to radical left-wing political themes in both film and television during the preceding era of the Vietnam War saw a shift from conservative TV shows featuring strong moral and family values (such as westerns like Bonanza and The Rifleman, dramas like Lassie and sitcoms like Leave It to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show and its sequel Mayberry RFD) towards liberal urban-set dramas and sitcoms, which also included Maude, The Jeffersons and Good Times (also created by Norman Lear).
While All in the Family is today considered to be a "groundbreaking" show in the history of television by the liberal media, it is a glaring reminder of Hollywood's unsuccessful attempt to demonize conservatives beginning in the early 1970s. Despite the promotion of liberal values by All in the Family, however, the Politically Incorrect Guide to the 1960s mentioned that audiences looked up to Archie Bunker largely because of his stubborn rejection of the counterculture, and his chair was even included as one of the most famous exhibits in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.[3]
All in the Family ended under its original name in 1979 and transitioned into a sequel series, Archie Bunker's Place, which was set primarily at a neighborhood bar in Queens which Archie had bought in the later seasons of All in the Family; under that name, it ran for four more seasons, ending in 1983. Jean Stapleton, who had played Edith in the original series and transitioned over to Archie Bunker's Place in a reduced role during its first season under its new name, left the show at the end of that season in 1980, with Edith being written out of the series as having died of a stroke prior to the second-season premiere, which Archie comes to grips with during that episode. Though it occurred after the original show ended, it was revealed in the spinoff Gloria that Mike left Gloria and their son Joey for another woman he met in college and moved with that woman to a nudist commune in California, thus displaying another case of poor family values.
Views
In most episodes of the show, the conservative blue collar Archie Bunker is depicted as the antagonist, while his hippie son-in-law Mike, who is unemployed most of the time and sponges off the Bunkers, is depicted as always "in the right".
In the fifth episode of the series "Judging Books by Covers", Archie thinks that one of Mike's friends (Roger) is homosexual due to his feminine personality, but Roger is discovered as not being homosexual at all. However, Archie learns that Steve, one of his high school friends that played for the NFL’s Chicago Bears for two years, is homosexual himself. 37th US President Richard Nixon saw the episode when it came out, and in his tapes, slammed the episode saying that it glorified homosexuality.
Notes and references
- ↑ https://www.therichest.com/most-shocking/10-old-shows-that-were-racist/
- ↑ https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/episodes-of-classic-tv-shows-out-of-syndication.338339/page-5
- ↑ The Politically Incorrect Guide to the 1960s by Johnathan Leaf, page 97.
Those Were the Days.
The show most people associate with the clash between the sixties counterculture and the older generation, All in the Family, did not premier until 1971. It is hailed by liberals today as a ground-breaking sitcom that "pushed the envelope" of acceptable fare for TV. In all the praise, however, it's forgotten that what made the show so beloved was the popularity of its main character, Archie Bunker. Although the character was supposed to be an unenlightened, illogical bigot, he became a hero to millions of Americans for his stubborn rejection of the counterculture. It is Archie Bunker's chair that has become one of the most famous exhibits in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Meanwhile, Bunker's counterculture antagonist is now mostly remembered for the derisive nickname Archie gave him: Meathead.
External links
- All in the Family at the Internet Movie Database
