Old shows that need more love.
Dec 16, 2016 11:51:39 GMT -5
Post by llj on Dec 16, 2016 11:51:39 GMT -5
All in the Family is such a trip now.
Old timer republican (trump supporter) who loves casual racism and calling kids slurs for liberals. Some things don't change, do they? :\
All in the Family was most definitely written by left-leaning writers. There are tons of interviews with the staff of the show out there if people care to look.
It was a groundbreaking show in its era, and you know, it would probably be a hot-button show if it were airing today too. It touched on themes rape, homophobia, miscarriages, racial tensions...many episodes were MEANT to be a mixture of comedy and hot-button disturbance. Most shows would rather AVOID touching those themes. Heck, some states today that still air the show refuse to rerun a few of the more "choice" episodes (Edith's near-rape is one).
I didn't always think the balance worked. Some themes were just too heavy to be funny. But people just watching it now and thinking it was a show "representative of the times" is greatly misunderstanding the show. It was not representative of ANY show during its time and there still haven't been many sitcoms that have pushed the envelope as much as this show. It's amazing it's as iconic as it's become given how political it actually was, although I don't doubt that a lot of the social commentary went right over most people's heads back in those days, and considering the reaction many "progressive" millennials have to it, perhaps even younger viewers today don't always pick up on what the show was really trying to do too. That's one of the things that made it special, it wasn't always overt with its progressive propaganda; in some cases it just presented the issues as is and just let the characters sort it out themselves, and sometimes things didn't always turn out to viewers' personal satisfaction. I wish more writers today would do that, instead of letting the "Hand of the Author" enforce the message they desire on the audience.
I don't think the show was making fun of Archie, although many jokes were at his expense. They were just portraying an unvarnished portrait of a guy struggling with changing times. In that sense it was more nuanced than how most liberal writers would portray an old-timey bigot today.