<p>“Chris Columbus gonna find Ray Charles!”
[Flip</a> Wilson Christopher Columbus 33 1/3 rpm - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>We LOVED All in the Family in the household I grew up in (AfAm) because Archie was such a parody of the racist ignoramus. The writers never missed an opportunity to showcase the ridiculousness of his self-assumed racial superiority, yet made us “love” this man with all his foibles. I actually cried when Archie lost Edith. My heart ached for him. This show really was brilliant and ground breaking in the way it showcased the humanity that underlay every interaction, whether it be between Archie and his polish son-in-law, or his black neighbors, the Jeffersons. Some of the best laughs resulted from dialog between Archie and Lionel Jefferson (George and Weezy’s adult son). And who can forget the cognitive disconnect so obviously playing out within Archie’s fevered brain when Sammy Davis Jr. came to visit. I virtually howled with laughter throughout the episode. This show was whip smart and brave in ways one rarely sees on network television anymore, what with the virus that is “reality TV” spreading with the efficacy of a zombie Apocalypse.</p>
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<p>Well, that happened in South Africa. Anyone know how things are there? End of racism or role reversal?</p>
<p>Tsk tsk. You don’t think there’s racism or stereotyping because “you” don’t experience it or don’t think you dish it out. Does that make it so?</p>
<p>Thanks for the post, alh.</p>
<p>Sanford and Son. Fred and the Asian. Fred and the Puerto Rican. Norman Leer did both Sanford and Son and All in the Famly.</p>
<p>I recall that there were numerous articles then and later of what a “breakthrough” Sanford and Son was. I found it difficult to see how AITF and SAS weren’t from the same cloth.</p>
<p>Ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and Sri Lanka.</p>
<p>Sadly, it seems pretty universal.</p>
<p>Norman Lear’s shows were about racism rather than being racist. AITF was the first time, in my memory, that racist attitudes were called out regularly on TV, in a comic way. And it definitely allowed for growth, to0, as Archie Bunker was shown to start to see his unacknowledged racism and sexism for what it was and grow away from it. the show also lampooned mindless liberal-think–Mike came in for his share of slap-downs, too.</p>
<p>Additionally, there was a sympathetic tone to blue collar workers in general. My family came from that area, and were largely blue collar, and it seemed to show a lot of realities of how the world was changing, and the ways they were getting shafted.</p>
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It was possible to get the satire but still not enjoy the show. I just didn’t find Archie’s treatment of his family to be entertaining, even if he did often get his comeuppance.</p>
<p>I think young people today are more comfortable around people of other races, religions and sexual orientations than when I was a youth, and they often joke about these things. I don’t think that means they are becoming more racist.</p>
<p>I watched AITF, too- but thought it was about expressing what liberals were sensing but unable to vocalize- the futility of racism. By the time Archie softened, the popularity was over, the message sent. I get the humor. Just think we have to filter. These reality shows we can name aren’t to educate or soothe, but to make profit. Sometimes, yes, they let off steam. But we have to filter.</p>
<p>There was an article in the Washington Post a week or so, written by a pretty hipsterish writer, about how he came to appreciate Honey Boo Boo, in comparison to some fictional drama shows. It was essentially the same point mentioned above, that you realize the family is not so weird beyond the surface weirdness.</p>
<p>I was going to mention HBB. Nice to see a family that gets along and supports each other. I don’t think we watch it for that. I think we watch it to gawk and the family closeness is to make it palatable. Same for Housewives, which, of course, I watch. I don’t relate (though I did live in OC and can testify to some of what’s shown.) These shows are produced, constructed.</p>
<p>I don’t like watching mean people so I didn’t like Archie Bunker. Of the characters, I pretty much only liked Lionel. I detested the show The Jeffersons because I never liked George. Sanford & Son was not a favorite either.</p>
<p>To me, Norman Lear was in the tradition within Yiddish Theatre and vaudeville that played up ethnic stereotypes. He was born in 1922 so I’m assuming he learned about this style of humor - and pathos. This was never my cup of tea. Maybe that’s because I grew up in the midwest in a Christian suburb in the 1960’s, went to private school, etc. The Norman Lear world never felt like my culture. It feels more to me like an east coast version influenced more directly by E. European memories and, frankly, the greater density of ethnic groups. So for example, Italians lived in Detroit, along with Greeks, etc. but not in the kind of density that spawns deeply-rooted ethnic humor. I think Detroit as a whole had maybe 100-130k Jews at its peak, with many fewer for most of the 20thC. </p>
<p>In fact, I’d say one of the issues Detroit has had is that the identities it developed tended to conflict; chunks of the population were blacks and whites migrating from the South when the city exploded in size, bringing much of the old animosity along. The city’s suburbs tended to reflect those divisions, with southern whites more on the west while various ethnicities moving to the east. But this is a complicated matter to discuss.</p>
<p>I remember seeing Fiddler the first time. The idea of “Tradition” made little sense to me, though my grandparents were all immigrants. By contrast, I remember seeing a play called The River Niger and relating more to that though it’s about black America. I recently saw a play “No ******s, No Dogs, No Jews” and was reminded of this. That play intertwines the story of a white man who lived as a Christian in a town in MS which had that sign posted with a black family struggling to survive - under brutal assault. I relate to that because I’m American. My family background is mostly Belarus but that is mostly pictures and, oddly, a passport for my great-grandfather with his name spelled completely differently and a bunch of questions like how my grandfather could have had the name Kostya.</p>