Bring Back June Cleaver: PCTV Too Real For My Taste

by Alicia Colon

Whenever I watch a retrospective of the Golden Age of Television, I find the shows considerable less entertaining than television I’ve watched as an adult. The Golden Age actually refers to the dramatic programs, sometimes broadcast “live” starring many great Hollywood stars and written by terrific writers.  But I was watching television then from the mean streets of the barrio and usually from a neighbor’s house because we couldn’t yet afford a TV set.  My perspective of the era is skewed in favor of the sitcoms and variety shows that presented an escape from my reality.

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What is noteworthy, however, is that much of television during that time period was considered politically incorrect but in a strange way was actually more honest. How can that be, you may ask? The fake domestic bliss of “Father Knows Best,” the racism of “Amos and Andy,” the sexism of “I Love Lucy” and so on. Yet there was a lot more credibility in those shows as entertainment than in the supposedly PC programming that probably started with Norman Lear’s “All in the Family.”

Many critics thought that show was daring but it wasn’t anything but a Hollywood liberal bashing conservatives. Archie Bunker was the bigot with the heart of gold arguing with Lear’s true hero, his son-in-law, Meathead, who was able to spout leftist rants that enraged and ultimately flummoxed Archie. The mere fact that Bunker lived in Queens, NY and not in the Deep South was a giveaway to Lear’s prejudice and cowardice. New Yorkers have always been more socially liberal than the rest of the country so it was all just a spineless way to trash the blue collar Christian white man. In actuality, Lear who was born in New Haven, Ct. based Archie Bunker on his own salesman father, a middle class Jewish man who regularly railed against women and minorities.

By the mid 1960’s, my family had moved out of the rat-infested tenement and were lucky to move into a housing project but we were still in crime ridden Spanish Harlem.  Eventually the Age of Aquarius arrived in full bloom and television producers’ liberal guilt presupposed that people like me could not identify with the characters on prime time TV. Thus we were treated to the stereotypes of “Chico and the Man” and “Good Times.” We were supposed to be thrilled at seeing minorities like ourselves on the little screen. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I could relate better to “The Goldbergs” than to Chico and I could never understand why the NAACP forced the cancellation of “Amos and Andy.” The character Kingfish was no less of a buffoon than Ralph Kramden or Lou Costello. For that matter, I found Jimmie Walker’s “Dy-no-mite” or Gary Coleman’s, “watchoo talking about, Willis,” to be even worse negative stereotyping.

Perhaps TV producers should take a gander at one memorable film that comes to mind in relation to the subject of entertainment for the masses- ‘Sullivan’s Travels.” It’s a story of a director noted for making comedies who decides that he wants to direct a serious drama about the troubles of the downtrodden poor. In order to relate to the harsher side of life, he sets off to experience life as a hobo without any cash or identification. He ends up being arrested in a case of circumstantial evidence and sent to a chain gang where he meets the harsh vagaries of prison life.

When Sullivan the Director starts out he has the same romantic idea of the less fortunate that many Hollywood liberal celebrities have today. What he learns during his experience is that people live within the constraints of their own design set from their personal experiences and moral fiber.

During a respite from the prisoners’ harsh routine, they are all treated to movie night and laugh heartily throughout the comedy feature. Sullivan joins in and when he is finally rescued from jail and the studio tells him that he can make his dramatic film, he tells them he wants to continue making movies that bring joy and laughter to the lives of those who have little to laugh about.

So perhaps Father didn’t always know best and Beaver’s Mom wasn’t really a stay-at-home mother who wore pearls with her apron. The comedy and drama were still fascinating and represented another side of life that seemed much more peaceful then my own. I’m afraid today’s reality fare is far too grim and uninspiring not to mention ugly. I may cringe a little at Lucy Ricardo having to kowtow to Ricky’s demands but I still laugh at her antics fifty years later. It also helps to know that in reality Lucille Ball wore the pants at Desilu.


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Posted Jan 11th 2010 at 5:04 am in Classic Hollywood, Featured Story, Television | 92 Comments