I see what Eve is getting at. The entire show is about an isolated, idyllic place where even the town drunk knew that he had to check into the jail after going out on a bender.
All this in the midst of the tumultuous 1960s.
TAGS was a form of escapism which in retrospect is a little bit distasteful, because the whole show is about how an entire community can bury its collective head in the sand and never once have to confront the issues that defined the times. It catered to a sense of denial among white, uptight Americans, especially in the South.
We have seen how long it has taken–is still taking–to overcome that denial. I think that most of us can agree that television played a part in reinforcing such a school of thought.
“Bury its collective head in the sand and never once have to confront the issues that defined the times”? You do realize the very show mentioned in the OP dealt with the issue of a woman entering a male-dominated position, don’t you? I seem to recall NOW and other groups campaigning for equal rights during this timeframe.
Give me another example of an early- to mid-60s sitcom that confronted the issues that defined the times, or even made oblique references to them. I think TAGS is getting all this vitriol heaped upon it just because it’s still around in syndication. If it were compared to its contemporaries, I think we’d find it was actually ahead of its time. I could be wrong, though. I’m gonna go do a little research when I can to see what else was on TV then.
Well, put me in the town pillory, then, it appears I have touched a nerve with what I thought was a harmless observation. I said—and I still say—that small-town America (not just Southerners, I never said anything like that!) was creepy and unfriendly to outsiders c1960, and I STILL find Mayberry ominous.
(I don’t suppose ANYONE even noticed my comment about Hooterville? Shows, I guess, when you don’t plaster your posts with smiley-faces, people woth dogpile you likew gangbusters . . .)
Come to think of it, will Ike or Euty just kill this thread for me, please? What I’d hoped would be a cute, harmless discussion about the quirks of various TV 'towns" has degenerated quickly into nastiness and name-calling.
And I’M wondering if I’m the only person left who has any sense of humor. Jesus, I get called both a bigot AND overly P.C. in the same thread? Someone PLEASE kill this goddam abortion of a thread before I just kill myself and be done with it . . .
But, see, Mayberry WASN’T creepy and unfriendly to outsiders. Heck, Barney even gave folks passing through quarta of pickles as a “thank you” for safe driving!
Seriously, though, there were several episodes that portrayed Mayberry as exactly the opposite of what you’re saying, including some of those I mentioned earlier.
And you have to understand that when you use phrases like “KKK” and “civil rights protesters [buried] behind the barn” that you’re touching upon things that deeply offend many Southerners. It reminds us of a time when the South was seen as a festering backwater of hatred and bigotry. We’ve come a long way in the past 40 years, but the image of police dogs and firehoses will always be thrown up to us by those who prefer to keep their views narrow, rather than seeing the South as it exists today.
It would be like going to the family reunion, year after year, and having all your relatives say “Remember when you were four, and you puked all over Aunt Sophie’s lap and then pooped in Uncle Roger’s hair? Boy, you were an idiot then, weren’t you?” At some point you want to scream “That was decades ago! I’ve changed since then! I haven’t pooped in Uncle Roger’s hair for days now!”
"Gosh, Eve, why stop there? Why didn’t “The Honeymooners” deal with the McCarthy hearings?
Why didn’t “Gilligan’s Island” ever touch on the Viet Nam war?
Heck, the Munsters lived in L.A. during the 60s- where were the race riots?
Just imagine how much better TV sitcoms could have been with a little help from Eve!"
—OK. I am now backing quietly out of this thread, listening to the loud “wooshing” noise over everyone’s heads, hoping that someone will kill this fucking thread right NOW. [Eve reminds herself never to start another light, humorous, harmless thread again. lest her head wind up[ on a pike somewhere . . . ]
Reminds me of a sketch SNL did yeas ago, when Ron Howard was the guest star. Opie, back from 'Nam, returns to Mayberry only to find Aunt Bea running a barber shop, Gomer as a gay SM love slave, and Floyd is black. Opie despairs over the ruin of his hometown until the spirit of Andy Griffith comes to him and tells him how bring order back to Mayberry. It involved a flamethrower and lessons on how to bitchslap Aunt Bea.
Eve, I don’t think you give everyone enough credit–nobody’s been whooshed here. You see, what you saw as “light, humorous, harmless” others saw (quite rightly, IMO) as a mean-spirited broadside at a show that you’ve seen fit to mischaracterize in an impressive number of ways for such a short OP. What you see as creepy stereotypes other people see as fully fleshed-out examples of how good (albeit maybe simple and naive), warm, accessible characters inhabited our cultural landscape at one time.
And you can’t possibly have expected to come into the Pit using such charged references to the KKK, dead civil rights workers, pedophiles, murdering racists, and anti-semitic homophobic athiests and not get a reaction, can you?
I got yer back Eve. Jeez, people lighten up. If she was serious about the slam on the sacred Andy Griffith Show she would have opened this thread in the Pit or GD. As someone who grew up in a small Southern town, I can say, yes, indeed, there is something creepy about these places. The overt gentility, courtesy, and breeding that gobear lauds often masks an dark underside. Just ask Ms. Pearl, who has been doing drag in Texarkana for 20 years, how enlightened this place is. She’s been beat up more times than anyone I know. I’m only 32 and I remember big, multi-person fights in junior high and high school that were sparked by racial hostility alone.
When I lived in Griffin, Georgia some of my friends visited from out of town. Their little baby was a fine example of race mixing. The overt disapproving stares were palatable at the freakin’ McDonalds.
But you are right, things have improved. 50 years ago my friends would have been arrested for Miscegenation. And although we were certainly intimidated by the looks we weren’t physically assaulted.
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This is Cafe Society, ArchiveGuy, not the Pit.