Posted on 06/09/2008 5:39:15 AM PDT by yankeedame
It used to be kids in TV families who caused the problems and the parents who solved them. In the brave new world of reality television, parents are the problem.
June 2, 2008 - by Katherine Berry
There was a time in American television when parents and children alike would gather in front of the TV to watch Leave it to Beaver or even The Cosby Show, programs that affirmed the importance of the family structure and reminded us that loving parents can guide their children through even the worst of childhoods problems.
Those days are long gone, baby, as viewers were reminded last week when Living Lohan and Denise Richards: Its Complicated made their debut.
Gone is the notion that parents are problem-solvers, or that parents in the plural are even the norm. In their place Hollywood now offers the new reality of divorced mothers who, while claiming to love their kids, actually cause the majority of their problems in life.
Have we reached a new low in the decline of the American family? Or has Hollywood completely lost touch with the concept of what family life is like?
In their infancy, family sitcoms offered only slightly idealized versions of the lives we all wanted to lead. If today Ward Cleaver seems a bit stodgy, he wasnt back then.
Our fathers dressed in suits and ties to go to work just as he did; they returned home to closet themselves in their dens with their pipes and newspapers, emerging in time for the family to eat dinner, a time when mothers and children would recount their days trials and triumphs.
Parenting, like housework, was left largely to hose- and heel-wearing housewives, at least until the dinner dishes were put away. Children knew that was the moment Mother meant when shed said, just as June Cleaver had, Wait until your father gets home. Then, a post-dinner cup of coffee in hand, Father assumed his role as head of the household to mete out punishment or deliver advice, all before the prime time family television hour started.
Even in later years, when Womens Liberation severed the chains that had kept moms tied to sink and stove, television parents remained firmly in control of their families and functioned as a unit.
Think, for instance, of the Brady Bunch episodes wherein Carol brought coffee or a hot toddy to Mikes den to discuss the childrens latest antics: how to reinforce Jans self-esteem during her latest effort to step out of Marcias shadow; Gregs need for privacy and a room of his own as he transitioned from boy- to manhood; Peters punishment for breaking Carols treasured vase when he defied her stricture against playing ball in the house.
In those days, when most American families had only one television in the home, TV networks knew they had to appeal to the entire family, and that viewership depended largely on getting adults interested in a program.
Thus shows portrayed parents as wise and clearly in control of the household, their focus on helping their mostly well-behaved children through whatever goofy situation theyd gotten themselves into.
We loved them for that, too. We grew up thinking of June Cleaver, and later Carol Brady, as substitute mothers: women like our own moms, but just a bit more patient, a bit more understanding. We, as children, often took their advice to heart in our own lives, and our parents benefitted from that.
As American lives changed, so did family sitcoms. Whereas censorship rules had previously prohibited shows featuring a divorced parent (hence why Steve Douglas on My Three Sons was a widower, and Susan Partridge of The Partridge Family a widow), that rule eroded as divorce became a frequently common fact of American life.
When Ann Romano left her husband and moved with her girls to a dingy apartment in Indianapolis on One Day At A Time their lives mirrored those of many of the shows viewers. Women who felt, like Ann, theyd always been someones daughter, wife or mother were increasingly starting their lives over and striking out on their own careers, establishing their own identities, albeit still with their children in tow.
Its no coincidence that, with the typical American family structure changing, the story lines of the sitcoms depicting those families changed, too.
Gone were the days when storylines stemmed from problems encountered (or caused by) the children. In their place came plots dealing with more parent-oriented themes: depression, economic struggles, dating again after a divorce.
The kids problems became more serious, too.
Who can forget when Ann Romano confronted Julie about taking the Pill only to find out she wasnt actually on it, that she just wanted boys at school to think that she was? Or the episode when Julie brought home a man twice her age much to her mothers horror, then asked her mother You lonely, Ma? You want him?
The full-handed slap in the face that Ann delivered in response was heard in millions of American homes where other parents had experienced similar moments of uncontrolled rage and ensuing shame.
Still, the message of the family sitcom remained the same: a loving family will somehow work through their problems and come out stronger for it. That same message minus the preachy moralism fueled The Cosby Show as it set out to demonstrate that families with educated, professional working mothers can be just as strong as those of bygone eras.
The shows success reaffirmed one other thing about family sitcoms, too: American viewers still wanted shows that, at the end, left them feeling good about their own families.
When Rupert Murdoch introduced The Simpsons, many thought it signaled a new low in the portrayal of the American family. Gone was the smoothly- run household headed by wise parents raising sweet-natured and only occasionally rebellious children.
The Simpsons gave us, instead, two bumbling and often negligent adults frequently duped by headstrong and often bratty kids.
But if we cringe over Homers insensitivity and Marges failed efforts to establish an identity outside of motherhood, over Lisas overt contempt for her parents and Barts contempt for just about everything, we still ultimately receive the same message at the end of The Simpsons that every family sitcom before it has delivered: a family is a cohesive unit that is made stronger by struggling through its problems together.
What, then, are we to make of Hollywoods latest depictions of the family as portrayed this week in Denise Richards: Its Complicated and Living Lohan?
When it comes to Denise Richards, who is attempting to reinvent herself after a nasty divorce from actor Charlie Sheen, no one really believed her claim that she needed to work to support her children. With a $40 million divorce settlement and nearly $10 million in tax-free child support coming over the next 15 years its clear that Richards is actually just interested in getting herself back in front of cameras.
More importantly, at least Richards has been proclaiming to anyone wholl interview the former Bond girl, shes interested in letting people see the real her: I want people to see what Im really like and then judge for themselves, she claims. And then if they still hate me then, thats their choice.
So what do we see? A woman who snaps at her hired help. A woman who cant believe the DMV wont remove her ex-husbands name from her license based on her celebrity status even if she doesnt have the proper paperwork. A woman who claims to be a good mom yet has not one but two nannies raising her children. A woman who spends more time with her 10 dogs, three cats and three pot-bellied pigs (for one of which she spends hours trying to find a breeding stud ) than with her children.
Hell, she spends more time getting a spray-tan before her blind date than she does with her kids.
If we still hate her after seeing all that? Well, as she said its our choice, but shes certainly made that choice easy. Half an hour after Richards show were made privy again to the life of another celebrity mom: Dina Lohan.
The very same Dina Lohan who freely admitted to partying with daughter Lindsay and then feigned surprise when Lindsay checked herself into rehab. That same Dina Lohan now stars in a reality show about her trials and tribulations as a mother/manager to youngest daughter, Ali.
(Lindsay does not appear in the show.)This, she hopes, will convince people that the Lohan family is normal.
And what happens in the fledgling episode? After Dina rips through tabloids looking for mentions of her daughters she settles down to watch a video with 15-year-old Ali. What kind of video? An internet sex tape purportedly starring oldest daughter Lindsay.
An explicit sex tape with mother and daughter watch with apparent glee as demonstrated when Ali tilts her head to get a better look at the action and says Is that her? with a smile on her face.
These shows, were told by Hollywood, are reality programs reflecting normal families.
They are, network executives would have us believe, more accurate depictions of the American family than fictional families of old: the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Huxtables, even the Simpsons. But when did any of our realities include buying a $9,000 grill like Denise Richards, or sitting down with our youngest daughter to watch a porn tape possibly starring our oldest child?
Completely missing from these shows is the one thing that keeps us tuning in, year after year, to reruns of Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch and The Cosby Show, the same ingredient that has kept The Simpsons on the air longer than any other sitcom in the history of television.
At the end of Its Complicated or Living Lohan we are not left with the belief that a family, headed by a wise and loving parent, will somehow come through its struggles better off and stronger for having worked through them together.
Rather, we are left shocked at the complete and utter absence of a true parental figure and certain that, somehow, any problems those families encounter are largely caused by the parents themselves. If watching these shows leaves us with that same warm, fuzzy and affirmed feeling that the sitcoms of old did, its simply because by comparison our realities look so much more sane than theirs.
I hardly watch TV any more, certainly none of the new stuff. It’s all garbage.
I assume you don't watch them with your kids for the most part. King of the Hill isn't bad, but the rest of them don't give any better values than any other sitcom on TV.
I’ve read interviews with Dina Lohan, and the woman is a real flake.
The problem today is that the kids on these shows are kids, and so are the parents.
Right click on the red X for properties and the website.
My television viewing consists of every Yankee game, some Turner Classic Movies, Netflix DVD’s, and Netflix streaming videos are getting a LOT of play.
Our culture has always been in the sewer.
If I recall correctly, Bible readings and prayer in school were pretty common during the year a jury failed to convict men who beat a black child to death because he spoke to a white woman the wrong way.
The pre-60’s weren’t the cultural paradise people like to pretend it was.
“seen the decline of our nation from the days of world war two”
You mean the days when men who fought for their country were treated like second class citizens as soon as they returned? Days when certain people were treated as living guinea pigs for untested medical procedures?
Tell me again about the cultural purity of the “good old days”.
I’m a teen in the ‘00s
And some day these will be the good ol days. :)
Carol NEVER bought a hot toddy to Mike in the Den, or any other part of the house. Coffee, yes. Alcoholic beverages, no.
Peters punishment for breaking Carols treasured vase when he defied her stricture against playing ball in the house.
Actually, the kids covered up for Peter by each one claiming they did it. Mike and Carol knew thAt Peter was the one who did it because he was thwe only one that didnt confess. So they relied on Peter's guilt to force him to come forward sooner or later.
ping
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