Monday, March 1, 2010
All in the Family
Television sitcoms are often a reflection of our culture and no other show depicted the social issues of its time any better than the 1970s comedy All in the Family. Created by Producer Norman Lear, All in the Family was ahead of its time. It touched on many social topics, some controversial, during a time when other television shows would not even consider such content.
The heart and soul of the show was the main character Archie Bunker, played by actor Carroll O’Connor. I cannot even imagine another actor playing him. Archie was not a prejudiced man—he hated everybody!
His wife Edith was a direct contrast to Archie. Sweet and kind to everyone, she was also devoted to her husband. However, she would often speak up when she disagreed with him to which he would always reply, “Stifle it Edith!”
The Bunkers’ daughter, Gloria and her husband, Michael (and their baby in later episodes) lived with them in their home. Some of the best moments from the show were when Archie and Michael (who he called Meathead) would get into confrontations over a particularly sensitive social issue. Archie was from the old school of thinking while Michael was part of the baby boomer generation who was more opened minded to things such as race equality, women’s rights and other issues. The confrontations would bring to light Archie’s short-sightedness and prejudiced ways of viewing things.
There was also a great supporting cast for this show. This included the Jeffersons, who were an African-American couple that moved in next door to the Bunkers. Mr. Jefferson was well aware of Archie’s bigotry, and those two would frequently go at it very much like Archie and Meathead would. The Jefferson’s son Lionel, however, was always very kind to Archie who couldn’t quite figure out how to take him.
In addition, there was Frank and Irene who were also neighbors to the Bunkers. They were more liberal in their ways of thinking which also created conflict with Archie’s old school ways. Frank was the cook among the couple which was a direct contrast to how things worked in Archie and Edith’s home.
Even Archie’s best friend Barney would sometimes have conflict with Archie over particular events or issues written in to the show. Even still, Archie was never going to change.
There has never been a show before or since that made me laugh like All in the Family. Watching old re-runs is like going back in time. I'm grateful for all of the laughs, and grateful that our society has advanced past some of the issues depicted so well by one of America's greatest sitcoms.
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I’ve decided that I would hire Charles Jones based on his blog. He has completed all of the assigned blogs and his entries are well written and personable while maintaining a level of professionalism. He uses examples from his life in his blogs to back up his opinions and includes multimedia content to engage his readers. Although at times this multimedia content, specifically video, could be better used, as sometimes it seems off-topic.
ReplyDeleteMy main constructive criticism upon hiring Charles would be his lack of references and outside sources in his blogs. Only in one of his entries, at least that I found, did he reference an outside source and in that entry the sources were simply listed at the end of the post. They would have been more effective inserted as hyperlinks at the places they were referenced inside post.
Apart from lacking attributions, Charles’ blog does an excellent job of giving a voice to his opinion in an intelligent manner that readers can understand.
COMMENT ON STUDENT EVALUATION:
ReplyDeleteI think your evaluator was spot on (except about your choice of video clips). You are a strong writer, however to effectively communicate in this medium you need to layer your information with more multimedia content (particularly hyperlinks).