4. Cinema Talk (The sitcom & The American Family (pt.4)
Suddenly we have a TV show where the main character is a bigot and this person is used as an avatar to go through life, where we get these discussions of classism, where we get these discussions of bigotry, where we get these discussions of homophobia and transphobia and these things and this is a sitcom. It was very vulgar. It was very a lot of times, very offensive, but that was the point
It would seem, based on our other conversation in this one, that with the oversaturation of streaming options, we can rest in the comfort zone own, we don't have to challenge ourselves in any way, whether it's emotionally or intellectually or around important issues. We can just I guess it comes back to what you said before, choosing what we like versus choosing what to watch
And I would say that the city became a much more prevalent factor in sitcoms than it had 20 years before in the 1950s, where again, shows like Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver and Ozzy and Harriet. They all had this suburban, very subtle, quiet backdrop as a means of acting as a setting for where these families and their hijinks take place
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@Swell · 0:15
And I think there was even an episode I might be wrong, but there was an episode where one of his patients was a nymphomaniac. And so these are just very interesting and funny things that we can see. And we could do this for days about how broad the content was becoming because people's interested finally did not have as much of a filter as before
Okay. This brings up so many things for me. The first, when people talk about the good old days of television or what they miss from the past I wonder if they if their memory has somewhat sanitized whatever it is that they're thinking of. You know? I mean, this just makes me laugh. Now, I remember my parents watching all in the Family. The Jefferson, Sanford and sun
But long story short, I love the show for what it is, and there's a lot of humor. It is genuinely funny. But if you go back and you watch Three's Company, I think the reason why the show was one of those things where it's like, I don't know if I want my kids to watch it. It's an innocent show
But now hearing you talk about the hippie culture and if anything could have been interpreted as potentially spiritual, but not deeply Christina, or even on the fringes of what might have been perceived from their perspective as witchcraft or voodoo or something like that, would Harvey been so taboo? And now this is adding so much more color to my past from Three's Company to Scooby Doo. Wow. Fascinating. You are a font of information. I'm loving this. It's also quite revealing about my parents