I think the portrayal of Annie in It’s A Wonderful Life is far more positive than negative, for the reasons you state, solost.
It’s my impression, though I might be wrong, that in some areas of the country, although there was segregation of adults, pre-pubertal black and white children often played together on a fairly equal basis, and the separation and enforcement of unequal status didn’t start until they were in their teens. If that’s correct, then even in heavily Jim Crow areas shows including mixed groups of young children might have been acceptable when showing similar equality among adults or even teens wouldn’t have been.
It would be relatively consistent with an attitude that Black people were “childlike”.
I recall an episode of Dragnet where Friday goes in front of a citizen’s group and answers their questions about the police. I’m pretty sure the whole point was to have the show rebut common criticism about the cops at the time. The one that sticks out to me is a guy who demands to know why the LAPD won’t hire Mexicans, and the defense is, “It’s not personal against Mexicans. We want big strong dudes to be cops, and you guys are just too short.”
I’m pretty sure that’s just what renting/buying was like at the time. There was a lot of segregation in the country, even in states without explicit Jim Crow laws, and “redline” policies which forbade people of color from buying or renting in white neighborhoods were super common. It would not surprise me at all if, in LA, there were Black and White realty companies that catered specifically to their specific demographics, including having realtors that largely matched the race of their customers.
Well, Friday didn’t say “we don’t hire Mexican-Americans because you’re too short”. He made it clear that the height requirement applied to everyone, regardless of national origin, and cited data indicating that taller officers were much less frequently injured on the job.
While such a policy could act as systemic discrimination against Mexican-Americans, it doesn’t seem to me a totally unreasonable policy, especially if the Friday cited data was true.
Even if Mexicans, at that time and place, were on average shorter than Anglos, I would find it hard to believe that no Mexican applicants met the height requirement.
I wonder what the actual height requirement was. Because Fridays longtime partner played by Harry Morgan was 5’6”. Webb was at most 5’10”.
According to an article I found, it wasn’t quite that explicit.
Of course, it’s a crock of shit. Harry Morgan, who played Officer Bill Gannon, was all of 5’6”.
And in 1997, the LA Times noted the the LAPD abolished a height requirement of only 5 feet. (But this is pretty far afield from the thread topic)
Getting back to the OP, I don’t think that we’ve mentioned Rochester on the Jack Bennie show. Yes, he was Jack Bennie’s chauffeur/valet, but he was not treated as the butt of jokes. To the contrary, he was often wisecracking and funny.
Wiki has a surprisingly detailed discussion of Rochester, Benny and race relations then: Eddie "Rochester" Anderson - Wikipedia
One of the weirdest issues during slavery was that white and black children, often half-siblings, were playmates until school age (five to seven). And slave children were often fairly indulged, in an off handed way, until that same age. Often the black and white kids would have been under the supervision of the same black woman.
Things changed dramatically at 6 or so.Wealthy white kids started school: poor white kids started chores. Enslaved kids started intense servitude, and whatever humanizing impact you’d hope was created by those early friendships quickly dissolved.
I’d understood that they did play together, but that there was very definitely a hierarchical order when they did so. I read that on the askhistorians subreddit with sources cited. Though it does say the hierarchy was more apparent as children got older.
Ah. I had some of the general sense, but the wrong idea as to the cutoff age. Thanks for info.
Thanks for source; I read some of it, other portions didn’t want to load. There seems to be some evidence that it varied considerably from place to place, as well as a lot of lack of evidence – the lives of enslaved children usually not having been well recorded; which isn’t surprising.
That one was kind of a shock. A black guy in a red shirt…and he lives!
In the 1950’s, Betty White hosted an eponymous show. The story has been verified that she was criticized for including Arthur Duncan, a tap dancer and singer, on the broadcast in 1954, since Mr. Duncan was black. Betty White memorably said “live with it”, and Duncan credited her for promoting his career.
In an episode of “The Twilight Zone” (Passage on the Lady Anne, I think) the main character goes to a busy travel agency, and a few desks away from the main character and her agent, there is a Black couple, one of whom was wearing kente cloth. They have no lines - they’re just in the background, but it’s nice to see background characters who are not generic white folks.
sheriff married Black woman (not in movie)
…Ironside: S3 E16 “Eden Is the Place We Leave”
It’s about a Samoan boxer.
The episode unfortunately doesn’t actually feature any Samoan actors (with the Matai laughingly played by John Marley ) but I can hear some Samoan spoken in the background, and my favourite moment is when Ironside enters a room during a feast and yells “Any Palusami?” he then explains the dish to Sanger. “Coconut cream. REAL coconut cream. Baked in taro leaves” said with absolute reverence.
If you can try Palusami, then do so. Its delicious.
Officer Gannon became a police officer two years before the minimum height requirement was instituted.
(I made this up, but it fits)
Possibly this incident in Boston following the MLK assassination?
Modnote: This is a hijack that is not about TV shows. So please drop it or take it to a new thread.