The Cleavers:Typical American Family… Right?
Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, and The Andy Griffith Show are all examples of the typical American family; the nuclear family. There is a working father, a mother whose only job is to cook, clean, and take care of her family, and of course the two perfect children. Tie that all together, throw them into the suburbs in a colonial with two cars, and there you have it, the epitome of the American dream, right? While these T.V. shows are fun to watch and entertaining, they are FAR from accurately portrayting the American family in the fifties. “Least Objectionable Programing” prevented T.V. shows from showing the general public anything that was too bold or objectionable. While this was all fine and dandy at the time, it prevented the Shows from accurately portraying life like they do today. Think about it; have you ever seen a hispanic or black person on one of these shows? No. The only example is shown here
Real life was not so white as it sas on television. Television, comments historian Ella Taylor, ‘increasingly ignored cultural diversity, adopting the motto ‘least objectionable programing’ which gave rise to those least objectionable families, the Cleavers, the Nelsons, and the Andersons.’ Such families were so completely white and Anglo-Saxon that even the Hispanic gardener in ‘Father Knows Best’ went by the name of Frank Smith - Stephanie Coontz from her book, The Way We Never Were
I think that these shows were ridiculous. Taking a Hispanic gardener, and making him seem as white as possible, by changing his name is crazy. Tricking the youth of America into thinking that everyone is the same race, white Anglo Saxon is insane. When we look back to the years when racism in America was at its height, during the fifties, and we question why racism was so prevalent, here is the answer to that question. People believe what they see on T.V. and follow the examples that they see. By using “least objectionable programming” to decide what was shown on the Television, it changed the general public’s perception of reality, making them think that real life should be exactly how it is shown on the tube, but it only ended up creating problems in the real world, proving the saying “don’t believe everything you see on T.V.”
October 12th, 2006 at 11:22 pm
[…] Julia writes… Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, and The Andy Griffith Show are all examples of the typical American family; the nuclear family. There is a working father, a mother whose only job is to cook, clean, and take care of her family, and of course the two perfect children. Tie that all together, throw them into the suburbs in a colonial with two cars, and there you have it, the epitome of the American dream, right? While these T.V. shows are fun to watch and entertaining, they are FAR from accurately portrayting the American family in the fifties. […]