4. Cinema Talk (America and the Sitcom) Pt. 3
And when that show was developed, he said himself that he wanted to have a show that reflected much more of a working class and not the comforts of suburbia, which many of these shows took place. So we can even see, even if you remove the racial dynamic out of it, the presentation of American values, in particular presentations of American families, are even one sided when you remove color
These types of different things are very much political in mind where you could argue that these shows were allegories for change and again, it didn't have to always rest in color. There's discussions of hippie culture and the idea of transition and the idea of what exactly does it mean to be modernized and changing in a world that doesn't necessarily match what I know to be America. It's a fascinating look at how the sitcom evolved to match what we were all thinking at the time
And so these periods in time when we used to gather around the TV at the same time to watch the same show were essential because it really was a community. Even amidst the racism, even amidst the segregation, there's a great deal of community at play
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
And I grew up watching reruns of things like I Love Lutzie and the Jetsons and Bewitched and I Dream of Genie. And I thought until I'm listening to you and this sounds really stupid at this point in my life, but I am 48. And so hearing you describe how I thought that in some ways these reflected largely how society was. And I used to think how weird that it was so neat and tidy, so constrained
What I will say that really doesn't get discussed about enough for the 1950s for the 1950s to be such a conservative time period in terms of how it presented white Americans as working citizens and successful and morally valid about everything and ethical. One thing that no one ever talks about is arguably I Love Lucy as one of the first, if not the first, primetime show to present an interracial couple because Ricky Ricardo is very much Cuban