[This week marks the anniversaries of the premieres of two classic TV shows: the 50th anniversary of Little House on the Prairie and the 70th of Lassie. So I’ll AmericanStudy those and other classic TV shows and contexts, leading up to a special post on what we can learn from a couple current hits I finally got around to checking out this summer!]
AmericanStudying
the clichéd extremes of sitcom dads, and the men in the middle.
1)
The Wise Men: It’s no coincidence that one of
the first popular TV sitcoms was entitled Father
Knows Best (1954-60, based on the 1949-54
radio show). A central thread throughout the genre’s history has been the
trope of the wise father responding to his family’s problems and issues, from Father’s Jim
Warren (Robert Young) and Leave
It to Beaver’s Ward Cleaver (Hugh Beaumont, proving in that clip that
father most definitely did not always know best) to The
Cosby Show’s Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby, now ironically but
nevertheless) and Growing Pains’ Jason
Seaver (Alan Thicke), among countless others. It’s difficult to separate
this trope from 50s stereotypes of gender and family roles (especially after
seeing that hyperlinked Leave It to
Beaver moment), but at the same time the trope’s endurance long after that
decade reflects its continued cultural resonance. If sitcoms often reflect
exaggerated versions of our idealized social structures, then there’s something
about that paternalistic wise man that has remained a powerful American idea.
2)
The Fools: Yet at the same time that the TV
version of Father Knows Best was
taking off, Jackie
Gleason’s The Honeymooners (1955-56,
based on a recurring comedy sketch) was experiencing its own brief but
striking success. I’m not sure whether Gleason’s foolish,
angry husband (not yet a father in Gleason’s case) character was a direct
response to wise characters or just the natural yang to that yin; but in any
case such foolish fathers have likewise continued to be a sitcom staple in the
decades since, with Married with Children’s Al
Bundy (Ed O’Neill) and The
Simpsons’ Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) representing two
particularly exaggerated end of the century versions of the type. Yet also two
significantly distinct versions—Al Bundy consistently desires to escape from
his wife and family (putting him in the American tradition of characters like
Rip Van Winkle), while Homer is a macho stereotype who loves his beer and
donuts but also mostly loves his family. To paraphrase Tolstoy’s
famous quote, each foolish sitcom father is foolish in his own way.
3)
The Middle Men: Because these two extremes
have been so prevalent in sitcom history, it’s easy to put each and every
sitcom father into one or the other of these categories. But I think doing so
would be a disservice to (among others) those sitcom dads who might
superficially seem like caricatured fools, but whose characters included
complexities and depths beyond that stereotype. I’d say that’s especially the
case for a few 1970s dads: All
in the Family’s Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), The
Jeffersons’ George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley, who first appeared
as the character on All), and Sanford
and Son’s Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx). Each of those fathers could be
as foolish and angry as any, but to stop there would be to miss much of what
made them and their sitcoms memorable: partly the willingness to engage with
social and political issues such as race and class; but also and just as
importantly the messy, dynamic humanity each character and actor captured, all
without losing an ounce of their comic timing and success. Few fathers are
purely wise or foolish, after all, and these dads in the middle help remind us
of the full spectrum of paternal possibilities.
Next TV
Studying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other classic TV you’d analyze?
