Posted on 06/01/2013 1:21:54 PM PDT by Monty22002
Jean Stapleton, who played Archie Bunker’s long-suffering wife Edith in the long-running 1970s television series “All in the Family,” died Friday at her New York City home. She was 90.
Stapleton died of natural causes, her family announced Saturday.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
So sad to hear this...RIP Jean Stapleton...whenever anyone asks me to sing something, my stock reply is that I make Edith Bunker sound pretty good!
Even back then I have to think it was out of the ordinary for college students to not at least work part time.
Television is to reshape American’s to the left’s views, not to reflect any natural leftism of the American people.
That is why they just suddenly start promoting new images, 40 years ago for instance, they just started mixing females among the Special ops troops, and as tough brawlers and tough guys, not to reflect reality, but to create it.
Introducing tons of lovable homosexual characters to middle American homes, was not to reflect their own lives and towns, but to influence their perceptions, and in time, their voting and politics.
I heard the news broadcast in L.A. area a few hours ago and the announcer said she was very much a liberal.
“I despised that series as a young man, it was pure, heavy handed propaganda and effective for the left...”
Wow, I thought that I was the only one that thought that. 21 posts before someone agreed. For people with doubts about the political message, look up Norman Lear...
Yup, and if I remember correctly the Meathead never got a real job. I think he went to California and became a professor...
Some of the people here are claiming with a straight face, that famous lefty and activist Norman Lear, famous lefty and activist Archie, famous lefty and activist meathead, and the rest of the famous lefties and activists of the family, were all secretly, beneath the surface, operating a sit-com, with a RIGHT WING message.
Let us clearly remember that the so called, no good, conservative bigot was the only one working in that household. He supported the other three.
The only thing of interest about remembering it, is it’s effectiveness as left wing propaganda.
Even on this thread you can see that many people were absorbed by it, it was quite effective in that way, more effective than the many actual left-wing organizations and causes that the cast members used the money to create or lead, following the series end.
You already went that far, buying the propaganda and defending Norman Lear's efforts.
Do you know who and what Lear was about?
She was so cool. RIP.
ansel12, I don’t know why so many are giving you a hard time. I think your remarks are right on the money.
I was 17 when this series premiered, and I knew then it was Leftie propaganda.
Lear was notorious for his lefty views, and his sitcoms were designed to push the envelope at a time when our whole society was being assailed by the Left. In 1971, we were losing 225 men per WEEK in Vietnam and the country was split into hawks and doves over the war. Kent State happened a year before, and there was constant social upheaval. This sitcom was a departure from the usual sitcom—it dealt with “issues” of the day, rather then the comedic antics of its characters. It was groundbreaking in that regard.
Archie was not so much afraid of tomorrow—he just wanted to be left alone and not be bothered by the BS change the Left was constantly agitating for. Archie had lived through the Depression and World War II, so I don’t think he was afraid of anything except losing his America to a bunch of Meatheads.
Back then, you worked in a factory and when you came home, you were bone tired, you didn’t want to have deal with stupidity.That is why so many, including my machinist father and I, could identify with Archie. We were blue collar factory workers, me part-time when the series first aired, and then all through college, putting myself through school, working in a machine shop.
I enjoyed the show’s characters and its comedy, but it was relentless in attacking every known notion of good and decency in American culture. So did “Maude”, a few years later, and it was used as a cultural battering ram for the feminist agenda. It was unwatchable.
It is fine to honor Jean Stapleton, she was a talented actress and performer. So was Carroll O’Connor.
But Archie was always the bigoted right wing buffoon, who although he was loyal to his wife, was in serious need of “fixing” by his left wing liberal daughter and her shiftless far left boyfriend, then husband.Archie’s ,malapropisms were designed to make fun of the millions who actually held those views.
Lear allowed the show to go back and forth in the thought dynamics, but the overall result was a push to the left as the “wiser” and “more enlightened” and “more informed” alternative to the conservative Archie.
And ,like now, the conservative Archie was the one who supported the whole household, like conservatives support the present ship of state, while the freeloaders get the bennies.
How did I buy into the propaganda when I clearly said the Meathead was a free loader? I think his portrayal as an elite educated fool resonates today more than ever.
Books and music too? Paintings?
The hero was not supposed to be meathead, or anyone else.
The idea was to softly degrade and overcome conservatism with Archie representing conservatism, the youthful Meathead was not supposed to be a liberal William F Buckley, destroying Archie in debates, he was just a part of the mix of anti-Archie arguments and perspectives coming from everyone, including the daughter and Archie’s wife.
Here is how the NYT’s describes it in their article on her death.
“”the Bunker family, led by an irascible loading-dock worker named Archie whose attitudes toward anyone not exactly like him – that is, white, male, conservative and rabidly patriotic – were condescending, smug and demonstrably foolish.””
Archie was meant to gradually lose all arguments while remaining likable and keeping the audience watching his death of a thousand cuts, soft, slow, humorously, almost invisible (evidently to many) accumulative cuts, as the audience “grew” along with Archie and his old fashioned views were slowly overcome as the seasons went by.
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