Posted on 01/11/2021 10:14:04 AM PST by Borges
There was a time when racism could be funny.
On Jan. 12, 1971, a skittish CBS television network premiered an unusual television show as a mid-season replacement in its primetime lineup. The sitcom, modeled on a successful British version, starred veteran actor Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, a bigoted dockworker living in Astoria with his dimwitted wife, feminist daughter and liberal son-in-law.
“The program you are about to see called ‘All in the Family,’ ” read a text advisory before the show (it would now be termed a trigger warning). “It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show — in mature fashion — just how absurd they are.” The network hired extra operators to handle a tsunami of complaints.
The reaction was not what CBS expected. It was, in fact, more of a non-reaction. The pilot episode got 15% of the viewing audience, finishing in 55th place for the week. In its first month, “All in the Family” drew about 10 million viewers a week — monster numbers now, but decidedly anemic in a broadcast era of television where a successful show drew about twice that.
Perhaps ironically, the people most interested in the show in its early months were the intelligentsia.
“Is it funny, for example, to have the pot-bellied, church-going, cigar-smoking son of Middle America, Archie Bunker, the hero of ‘All in the Family,’ fill the screen with such epithets as ‘spic’ and ‘spade’ and ‘hebe’ and ‘yid’ and ‘polack’?” asked New York Times writer Fred Ferretti in a review that appeared the day the show made its debut. “Is it funny for him to refer to his son-in-law as ‘the laziest white man I ever seen’?”
Ferretti’s view was clear: “The answer, I say, is no.” Yet the dean of television critics, Cleveland Armory of TV Guide, proclaimed it as “the best thing on commercial television.” “Archie Bunker is real,” wrote Pamela Haynes for the (African American) Los Angeles Sentinel. “Far from protesting, members of minorities slandered by Archie should rejoice at this non-cosmetized portrait of the ‘master race.’ ”
The creator of “All in the Family,” Norman Lear, knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote and directed the pilot for the show. He went out of his way to cast a pleasant-looking actor for the part and to situate him in a loving, if boisterous, family.
“The point of his character,” he said of Archie, “was to show that if bigotry and intolerance didn’t exist in the hearts and minds of good people, the average people, it would not be the endemic problem it is in our society.”
There were some who objected to this premise, but Lear held fast. He also held fast to a formula that marked the show for its nine-year run: Every time Archie said something ridiculous or offensive, there was always someone — often his son-in-law Mike (Rob Reiner), daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers) or his ingenuous wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), but just as likely a Puerto Rican nurse, African-American businessman, gay former football player, or any number of other in a diverse array of characters — who would highlight his absurdity. And yet Archie was also the quintessential working man who supported his family and who, every once in a while, would show flashes of decency.
But “All in the Family” was always more than a cleverly constructed political soapbox. What became the number one show on television for five years running was a miracle of artistry. Some of this was a matter of incomparable one-liners, like Archie’s famous malapropisms (“Patience is a virgin”; “Don’t draw me no diaphragms”; “It’s a proven fact that capital punishment is a detergent to crime.”). Some was a matter of acting, as in the remarkable plasticity of O’Connor’s face or Stapleton’s wondrous ability to find dignity, even wisdom, in the character of Edith. And some was the complexity with which the show handled topics that included rape, menopause and anti-Semitism even as it found humor in all of them. The affection the show engendered is visible in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where Archie and Edith’s living room chairs have been on display for decades.
Was there — is there — a risk that viewers could take Archie Bunker or his successors the wrong way, that they could secretly or openly embrace foolish or dangerous ideas? Yes. This is the price of artistic freedom — and vitality. But the potential gains in enlightenment and useful debate are worth it if we believe ordinary people can be entrusted with ambiguous truths. Laughter, among other things, can be revealing.
Went back and watched some episodes of Star Trek with Picard about a year ago. OMG. Dripping with liberalism.
One episode David Ogden Stiers (MASH’s Winchester) reaches 60 and by law must commit suicided so he wouldn’t be a burden on society!
I remember seeing Mitchell in an episode of “The Saint” with Roger Moore called “The Latin Touch”; he played a cab driver in Rome.
So Lionel had respect for Archie? Interesting. It seems to me as if Norman Lear,a true leftist in real life,did his best to portray Archie as a semi-literate knuckle dragger.
I also think that there was a time when liberals weren’t completely bats—t crazy.
No, he actually didn't. He developed the Archie character as one to be hated and reviled as a bigot. He was clueless and had no idea people would LOVE Archie and embrace his "America, Love it or Leave it" attitude.
Maude.
My mother hated Maude. Mother was a conservative Christian lady and Maude was the opposite of that.
Maude served as an example of what was (and still is) wrong with America.
You are so right!
The Maude character backfired on Lear too. Many found her preachy and insufferable (like Meathead), and liked Walter, Florida and Archie better.
(Maude refuses to get out of Archie’s chair)
Archie: Well I got the secret weapon that can lay this little lady right away. Here we go, This country was ruined by Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Cousin Maude: You’re fat.
Archie: Sticks and stones may break my bones but Franklin Delano Roosevelt...
Edith: Archie you promised never to say that name again in front of Maude
Archie: Franklin Delano Roosevelt!
Edith to Maude: He don’t mean nothing His whole family was for Roosevelt.
Archie: That was for two terms But that was it. We didn’t know the guy was going to hold on to the job like a pope!
Lear did want Archie to be somewhat relatable. Writers in TV know that “Love to Hate” characters can’t be TOO hateful. Otherwise people won’t want to spend time with them.
Archie accused FDR of giving away the store at Yalta, which he did.
Like any leftist, Lear had no original thoughts or ideas. He took Archie Bunker from Alf Garnett, a character created by BBC’s Johnny Speight.
The British show was in the credits of every single episode. But the characters were quite different. I don’t know how much of that is due to the actors.
I remember that George Jefferson character in time to become a born-again deacon in another.
Sherman Helmsley was a Gentle Giant fan, so he was cool in my book.
Probably the most different characters were Else and Edith. Else was quite sarcastic and put Alf in his place a lot.
My parents loathed maude. I’m not sure if it was her demeanor or the abortion episode or both.
I still LOL every time Rush talks about “Maude Behar”.
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