My post in this other thread is the idea behind this thread. According to common belief, most American sitcoms during the 60’s were mostly bland, inoffensive, intellectually unchallenging, silly, and uncontroversial fare that frequently depended upon outlandish and/or fantastic premises. Shows like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Munsters, The Addams Family, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan’s Island, Mr. Ed, Green Acres, and the short-lived (and infamous)* My Mother, the Car* were all supposed to be escapist programs that gave viewers the chance to turn off their brains and–for 30 minutes–forget about the ugly and discomforting reality of assassinations, riots, the Cold War, Vietnam, the generation gap, racial tensions, and other unpleasantness. Whatever you saw on Walter Cronkite or Huntley/Brinkley earlier that night was unlikely to be seen or mentioned during prime time.
However, for the sake of argument, I’m going to state that ain’t necessarily so.
Creative people like TV writers (and I realize I’m probably using the term “creative” very loosely in this case), when faced with a media market that’s either being heavily censored or deathly afraid of offending anyone by bringing up anything even remotely controversial, often have to resort to subtext to comment on some real world issue. Thus, Bewitched may appear to be a wacky sitcom about a witch married to a mortal in 60’s suburbia or, as I suggest, may really be about the clash between people of upper class and middle/working class backgrounds. The Munsters could be just a goofy show about the misadventures a family of monsters or it could be a way to address racism and prejudice without making the sponsors nervous or ticking off the Southern affiliates (All in the Family and other Norman Lear shows are still a few years away.) The Addams Family may be just a silly program about a “kooky” and “creepy” family not unlike The Munsters or it might be a thinly-disguised appreciation of those people who refuse to conform to the standards of white-bread American society. Finally, *Beverly Hillbillies * and (especially) Green Acres may appear upon first glance to be just a couple of dumb rural-oriented sitcoms or could actually be unappreciated masterpieces of surrealistic and dadaist humor.
So, what shows from this seemingly fallow period of American TV can you argue had a lot more to them than people think? Any type of interpretation (Marxist, Freudian, etc.) will do.
It’s been observed by feminists, I think quite accurately, that Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie were both shows about women with extraordinary powers whose husband/master insisted that they not use those powers, and who were embarassed and alarmed when they DID use their powers. Pretty good analogue for the social repression of women until then. While fitting within the ambit of bland sitcoms, they gave the writers ample opportunity to write story about the tension between the sexes over women becoming increasingly powerful in American society.
From what I’ve seen of the shows on TV Land, if the writers did take such potshots, they did so in ways that are bland, inoffensive and boring.
Gilligan’s Island can best be viewed as a social experiment, where representatives of various social and economic groups are forced by circumstance to live communally. Of particular note is how one’s role in the outside world, which on the face of it should be irrelevant to life on the island, would regularly assert itself - for example, Gilligan frequently found himself in a subservient role, and the Howells were treated with deference even where their wealth and social standing did nothing to help the group.
As someone else has posted elsewhere, Bewitched works very well as a metaphor for class struggle. Endora, Maurice, and the rest of the witch community are old-school, upper-class, waspy liberals, while Darrin is, from their view, a social climber not long out of the slums.
Whereas I Dream of Jeannie is all about BDSM, of course. Jeannie’s just a smart-ass masochist. Likewise Lucy Ricardo.
Then there’s the alleged gay agenda that some shows were supposed to have, either by casting closeted but known gay actors or by featuring flamboyant characters.
Oddly enough, every one of these series was supposed to have a “straight” counterpart
The Adventures of Superman (straight) >> Batman (gay) I Dream of Jeanie (straight) >> Bewitched (gay) The Munsters (straight) >> The Addams Family (gay) Beverly Hillbillies (straight) >> Green Acres (gay)
The author who argued this (sorry, I don’t have his name handy) made a pretty glib case for it that sounded good at first, but personally I never agreed.
I don’t know. I think you’re reading too much into these. One network comes up with a kooky idea to sell laundry detergent, tampons, and cars, and another network counters. Thus, I Dream of Jeannie is another network’s attempt at Bewiched. Grren Acres and the Beverly Hillbillies are really the same show with the situations reversed.
True Sherwood Schwartz thought of the socio-economic ramifications of Gilligan’s Island, but I don’t believe it was intended as anything but a stupid sitcom. Hey, I watched all of the above regularly. Now, I can’t stand to watch anything. TV is absolutely terrible now; apart from sports and news.
There was a major (sorry) difference between Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. On Bewitched, Darrin insisted that Samantha eschew witchcraft entirely, based on some sort of misguided, pseudo-Calvinist belief in the evils of leisure. Nose to grindstone is good (even if the grindstone is a drafting table in a window office on Madison Avenue), nose twitching is bad. But his inflexibility precipitated or prolonged some catastrophe and it was up Sam to use magic to save the day, the account, his job and his meddlesome mother’s marriage; then agree with him that she shouldn’t have done it.
Oh I Dream of Jeannie, Major Nelson was not philosophically opposed to Jeannie using her powers. He had no problem with her blinking up a new outfit, or off to Bagdad to visit her mother. But he did have to suffer through the unintended consequences of Jeannie’s impulsive wishes. Tony was the pragmatist and steadying influence who didn’t want a life of leisure, but wouldn’t deny it to someone else (except childlike Roger). He was an astronaut, and wanted to go to the moon not just to be there, but for the things that could only be learned on the way. And whereas Bewitched used magic to solve crises, Jeannie usually resolved things by having her cancel the effects of a spell gone awry and returning events to how they should have been all along.
Maybe they are both responses to the women’s movement, one pro- and one anti-.
And however you deconstruct Bewitched, Darrin was a serious asshole.
I’ve never seen an episode of “My Mother, the Car”, but I know the premise - a young man’s recently deceased mother is reincarnated as the young man’s dream hotrod, which he lovingly washes & shines every Saturday, takes girls out on dates in, etc. This one has creepy, creepy, creepy fruedian overtones and was most likely conceived of by writers & producers under the influence of LSD. I bet R. Crumb - purveyor of all forms of sick & twisted sexual fetishism - loved this show.
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There was a major (sorry) difference between Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. On Bewitched, Darrin insisted that Samantha eschew witchcraft entirely, based on some sort of misguided, pseudo-Calvinist belief in the evils of leisure. Nose to grindstone is good (even if the grindstone is a drafting table in a window office on Madison Avenue), nose twitching is bad. But his inflexibility precipitated or prolonged some catastrophe and it was up Sam to use magic to save the day, the account, his job and his meddlesome mother’s marriage; then agree with him that she shouldn’t have done it.
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Aren’t most of the problems caused by the magic, though? Either Samantha or one of her relatives uses magic in some irresponsible way, and then Darren has to deal with the consequences.
Well, only Serena was really frivolous in how she used magic, and how many episodes was she in? Most of the others were either malicious or manifestly incompetent. Jeannie knew what she was doing, and always had Tony’s best interests at heart, but very poor impulse control.
More so Dick Sargeant than Dick York. Sargeant was a smarmy bastard who deserved to be turned into various things. At least York was good at humorous physical takes.
Well, yea, but what I mean is, most of the problems Darrin faced in the show were caused by Samantha or her relatives using magic…Endora turns him into a horse, or whatever, or Samantha’s aunt accidentally summons Ben Franklin, and then Darrin and Samantha are forced to fix the problem.
So in most of the episodes, it’s magic that gets them into the mess. If Samantha and her relatives weren’t witches, if they were just normal people who can’t use witchcraft, like Darrin wants them to be, the problems wouldn’t arise.
True. But Tony would deal with Jeannie as an individual, and while magic was okay there was just nothing he wanted that magic could give to him. Darrin inveighed against witchcraft itself; even when it was being used in his aid he opposed it (and his wife’s very nature) on principle alone.
Well, but Darrin treated Samantha as an individual…remember, he loved her and married her even before he knew she was a witch. Remember, too, that Sam wanted to live a normal life as an ordinary housewife. She wanted to give up using magic…she didn’t always succeed, of course, but she was trying, and not just to please Darrin. And the reason he didn’t like witchcraft was because it was unearned privilege. You have a class of people, who, by accident of birth, have unlimited access to anything they want.
And if Darrin wasn’t “open minded” on the subject of witchcraft, he was a beacon of tolerance compared to Samantha’s family, who despised Darrin merely because he wasn’t a warlock. I agree with the previous thread. The show’s about class.
If you want to lookat feminism, Bewitched is a much more positive feminist show than Jeannie. Sam is a strong, independent woman, and not just because of her magic. If she disagrees with Darrin, she’s not afraid to tell him so, and she often wins the arguments, and a lot of times, she can come up with ideas he can’t think of. Compare this to Jeannie, who is literally a slave, and whose only real goal is to get Tony to marry her. And like you said earlier, “And whereas Bewitched used magic to solve crises, Jeannie usually resolved things by having her cancel the effects of a spell gone awry and returning events to how they should have been all along.” So, any power to control events that Jeannie has is taken away by the end of the episode.
Leave it to Beaver. Now there was a show about the neurosies of a Cold war child. Despite the traditional family set up and safe economic status, Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver would fall to pieces over the smallest things. His father never hit him yet Beaver’s fears always seemed disproportionate to the reaction his father usually gave. He would some times be reduced to tears for no reason at all. When confronted with trouble he would hide up a tree and declare he “wished he was dead” In Beaver’s world the smallest infraction was cause for him to fall utterly to pieces.
He represented the fear that America experienced in the late 50’s early 60’s. The threat of nuclear war, the red scare and suburban angst all were bundled into that little kid.
Rememeber him crawling into the giant coffee cup on Whitey’s insistance. Remember him being unable to call for the help out of fear only compounding his plight. That kid was a walking encyclopedia of neurotic disorders.
Then there is Eddie Haskel and his passive agressive simmering sociopathic behaviour.
Lumpy Rutherford and his thuggish methods of achieving his goals and inability to recognize his false face for the parents was too transparent because he lacked any intellegence whatsoever. He picked on the little kids because he was inferior in every way to his peers.
How about Larry Mundello and his comulsive eating disorder? Or Whitey and his self destructive impulses that he projected on the Beaver.
I think Leave it to Beaver is really about Beaver’s parents, who have turned away from the prewar authoritarian method of childrearing, with its harsh discipline and stressing of immediate obedience, and have adopted the modern Spockian methods of rationality and encouraging dialogue with their children. Still, they find themselves adrift, having abandoned traditional methods, which, for all their harshness, nevertheless set a distinct social hierarchy with fixed roles. Ward and June, in their attempts to democratize and bring familial consensus to their childrearing, find themselves bemused by their children (thereby giving early hints to the future generational conflict between the war generation and their baby boomer children).
