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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: Name a TV Show...
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2025 18:44:18 -0000 (UTC)
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BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
>Apr 16, 2025 at 10:36:36 AM PDT, danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>:
>>BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> writes:

>>>...that couldn't be made in today's political climate.

>>>I'll start with HOUSE.

>>The Dick Tracy cartoons with the Jo Jiutsu (sp?) character.

>>(there were a couple of The Flinstones episodes which MeTV
>>is *not* showing due to, in one of them, references to
>>the "towelhead" neighbors)

>And, of course, the grandaddy of them all, ALL IN THE FAMILY:

>https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1912190097039958016/vid/avc1/720x902/WoH5KZ3mwuYvrpG-.mp4?tag=16

Norman Lear adapted that from Till Death Do Us Part, which aired on BBC1
in the mid 1960s. I've seen clips of that. Archie ain't half as
outrageous as Alf Garnett, quite frankly. But that was an era in which,
despite network pressure to keep it toned down (and it did get toned
down after the first season), P.C. was in your face. Archie was the clown.
Norman Lear wanted his colleged-educated audience to feel good about
themselves by feeling superior to this degenerate who was obviously a
lesser man due to a lack of edumacation. Archie only raised a family,
despite a changing world.

	Didn't need no welfare state
	Everybody pulled his weight

It's the difference between hatred and discrimination. Archie got blamed
for running his mouth but it's not like Archie himself wrote CCRs and
laws enforcing segretation. Archie was there to take the blame for
everything that was wrong with society, despite his powerlessness.

Lear knew his lilly-white college educated audience that lived in brand
new lilly-white suburbs that attracted families that wouldn't consider
living in cities. The early '70s had an excessive level of urban
violence, much worse than today.

Thanks to fictional Archie, they didn't have to question their own
attitudes and the extent to which their own fear was also an expression
of racism. Yeah, Norman Lear knew how to exploit an audience.

On a similar vein addressing stereotypes, remember Norm (Norm!)
pretending to be gay on an episode of Cheers to gain an interior design
commission (because the customer refused to believe that a straight man
had artistic sensibilities)?

Or pretty much any episode of Seinfeld?