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After the recent controversial comments by Donald Trump about Rob Reiner-- he called him, after his apparent murder at the hands of his son, "a deranged person" and after listening to Mike King's "The Murder of Meathead" analysis of Reiner (who co-starred with O'Connor in "All in the Family" during the 1970s), I went searching for the article below, which I posted on the original site. I could not find it; so I will re-post it for scholarly and speculative purposes.
Reiner and O'Connor
While my dad was ill from cancer (probably from hauling nearly everything, including, chemicals and crude oil across the United States-- a job and "identity" of care and self-sacrifice for which he was proud) in the early 90s, some of us were hanging out with him talking and watching TV. The Simpsons was on and my dad commented: “Another hit job on the workingman.” He would not have said that in the 1970s. He didn’t see it coming. But at the end of his life, he saw it terribly and clearly. The jokers put on TV to entertain us were not only mocking us, but also training us how to be impotent and teaching others (and ourselves) to revile us (that is, to be “deplorable"). In the 1970s when we were still laughing, one of the most “popular" shows on TV was All in the Family. It starred John Carroll O’Connor (1924-2001) as Archie Bunker, and it ran weekly on CBS from January 12, 1971 to April 8, 1979.
According to Wikipedia:
________________
"All in the Family is about a working-class white family living in Queens, New York. Its patriarch is Archie Bunker (O'Connor), an outspoken, narrow-minded man, seemingly prejudiced against everyone who is not like him or his idea of how people should be. Archie's wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) is sweet and understanding, though somewhat naïve and uneducated; her husband sometimes disparagingly calls her "dingbat". Their one child, Gloria (Sally Struthers), is generally kind and good-natured like her mother, but displays traces of her father's stubbornness and temper; unlike them, she's a feminist. Gloria is married to college student Michael Stivic (Reiner) – referred to as "Meathead" by Archie – whose values are likewise influenced and shaped by the counterculture of the 1960s. The two couples represent the real-life clash of values between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers. For much of the series, the Stivics live in the Bunkers' home to save money, providing abundant opportunity for them to irritate each other....
Frequently called a "lovable bigot", Archie was an assertively prejudiced blue-collar worker. A World War II veteran, Archie longs for better times when people sharing his viewpoint were in charge..."
_________________
Sounds like pure sweetness. Of course, it was not. It was vile propaganda, designed to destroy. I’d like to go through the up-side down descriptions on Wikipedia and elsewhere and explicate the treachery. But this seems like a waste of time. Instead, I’ll offer a brief clip that will help us understand the perverse so-called humor and its relation to the points I hope to make in the paragraphs that follow.
Archie Bunker and the Jews
I grew up in a working class household with working class relatives and working class friends. Dads worked as truckers, machinists, maintenance men, printers, factory workers, linemen, train conductors, policemen, firemen, meter readers and so on. I never heard any man or woman speak ill of the Jews, Blacks, Mexicans, homosexuals or each other. No one ever concocted a petition to keep anyone out of the neighborhood. My dad spent time helping kids at school, coaching sports, making friends with other parents, and talking with other people at his favorite local restaurants. Life wasn’t idyllic. All the parents were concerned about earning enough money to keep their families afloat, but no one ever talked about it. They talked about their kids, the weather, the news, the beauty of Oregon, and all sorts of stuff. People weren’t gorging themselves on nostalgia for the good old days, either. If anything, they wanted to forget the wars and fears. Women were not naive. Nobody learned from this show about the “Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers.” In fact, if I remember right, those terms hadn’t been inserted yet into the popular discourse. Nobody would have thought a real life bigot to be at all lovable.
To turn the screw once more, Norman Lear, a well-known and highly celebrated producer, based the show on his own father. Wikipedia tells us:
"When Lear was nine years old, his father went to prison for selling fake bonds. Lear thought of his father as a "rascal" and said that the character of Archie Bunker (whom Lear depicted as white Protestant on the show) was in part inspired by his father, while the character of Edith Bunker was in part inspired by his mother."
It is notable that in the 1980s, the Christian right tried to tar Lear, who is ethnically Jewish, as an atheist. (I admit this is one label that made people in my town uneasy; no doubt, that is why it why was used). But the attacks were simple misdirection. Defend the working class only by associating it with religious conformity and intolerance. Lear was never really in trouble. The Christian Right leadership (e.g., televangelists and mega-church stars) were ripping off their subjects, just from a different angle. That is, ordinary Christians were right in their cultural critique of the show and television in general, but they were kept ignorant about who was behind the cultural onslaught against them. In any case, if Lear really came from humble origins (which is very doubtful, insofar as his dad dealt in bonds), he wasn’t showing any compassion. Like father, like son, he was a rascal but a superior counterfeiter.
Looking back, I doubt anyone would have watched the show at all were it not for the fact that it suddenly became the number one show, celebrated at every turn, in the early 1970s. (For those who don’t know or recall, there were only four reliable channels on TV in those days-- CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS.) In fact, during its first season it got very poor ratings. It was during the summer, when networks ran re-runs of the prior-season’s shows, that All in the Family somehow spiked in popularity. It sounds suspicious. Like all the best-seller lists and top-40 lists and everything else that "we the people" are supposed to like, its popularity was probably manufactured and then sold to us as “must see TV.”
My parents liked to pass time with the TV. And they were gullible. These were their sins.
John Carroll O’Connor
Reiner and O'Connor
While my dad was ill from cancer (probably from hauling nearly everything, including, chemicals and crude oil across the United States-- a job and "identity" of care and self-sacrifice for which he was proud) in the early 90s, some of us were hanging out with him talking and watching TV. The Simpsons was on and my dad commented: “Another hit job on the workingman.” He would not have said that in the 1970s. He didn’t see it coming. But at the end of his life, he saw it terribly and clearly. The jokers put on TV to entertain us were not only mocking us, but also training us how to be impotent and teaching others (and ourselves) to revile us (that is, to be “deplorable"). In the 1970s when we were still laughing, one of the most “popular" shows on TV was All in the Family. It starred John Carroll O’Connor (1924-2001) as Archie Bunker, and it ran weekly on CBS from January 12, 1971 to April 8, 1979.
According to Wikipedia:
________________
"All in the Family is about a working-class white family living in Queens, New York. Its patriarch is Archie Bunker (O'Connor), an outspoken, narrow-minded man, seemingly prejudiced against everyone who is not like him or his idea of how people should be. Archie's wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) is sweet and understanding, though somewhat naïve and uneducated; her husband sometimes disparagingly calls her "dingbat". Their one child, Gloria (Sally Struthers), is generally kind and good-natured like her mother, but displays traces of her father's stubbornness and temper; unlike them, she's a feminist. Gloria is married to college student Michael Stivic (Reiner) – referred to as "Meathead" by Archie – whose values are likewise influenced and shaped by the counterculture of the 1960s. The two couples represent the real-life clash of values between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers. For much of the series, the Stivics live in the Bunkers' home to save money, providing abundant opportunity for them to irritate each other....
Frequently called a "lovable bigot", Archie was an assertively prejudiced blue-collar worker. A World War II veteran, Archie longs for better times when people sharing his viewpoint were in charge..."
_________________
Sounds like pure sweetness. Of course, it was not. It was vile propaganda, designed to destroy. I’d like to go through the up-side down descriptions on Wikipedia and elsewhere and explicate the treachery. But this seems like a waste of time. Instead, I’ll offer a brief clip that will help us understand the perverse so-called humor and its relation to the points I hope to make in the paragraphs that follow.
Archie Bunker and the Jews
I grew up in a working class household with working class relatives and working class friends. Dads worked as truckers, machinists, maintenance men, printers, factory workers, linemen, train conductors, policemen, firemen, meter readers and so on. I never heard any man or woman speak ill of the Jews, Blacks, Mexicans, homosexuals or each other. No one ever concocted a petition to keep anyone out of the neighborhood. My dad spent time helping kids at school, coaching sports, making friends with other parents, and talking with other people at his favorite local restaurants. Life wasn’t idyllic. All the parents were concerned about earning enough money to keep their families afloat, but no one ever talked about it. They talked about their kids, the weather, the news, the beauty of Oregon, and all sorts of stuff. People weren’t gorging themselves on nostalgia for the good old days, either. If anything, they wanted to forget the wars and fears. Women were not naive. Nobody learned from this show about the “Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers.” In fact, if I remember right, those terms hadn’t been inserted yet into the popular discourse. Nobody would have thought a real life bigot to be at all lovable.
To turn the screw once more, Norman Lear, a well-known and highly celebrated producer, based the show on his own father. Wikipedia tells us:
"When Lear was nine years old, his father went to prison for selling fake bonds. Lear thought of his father as a "rascal" and said that the character of Archie Bunker (whom Lear depicted as white Protestant on the show) was in part inspired by his father, while the character of Edith Bunker was in part inspired by his mother."
It is notable that in the 1980s, the Christian right tried to tar Lear, who is ethnically Jewish, as an atheist. (I admit this is one label that made people in my town uneasy; no doubt, that is why it why was used). But the attacks were simple misdirection. Defend the working class only by associating it with religious conformity and intolerance. Lear was never really in trouble. The Christian Right leadership (e.g., televangelists and mega-church stars) were ripping off their subjects, just from a different angle. That is, ordinary Christians were right in their cultural critique of the show and television in general, but they were kept ignorant about who was behind the cultural onslaught against them. In any case, if Lear really came from humble origins (which is very doubtful, insofar as his dad dealt in bonds), he wasn’t showing any compassion. Like father, like son, he was a rascal but a superior counterfeiter.
Looking back, I doubt anyone would have watched the show at all were it not for the fact that it suddenly became the number one show, celebrated at every turn, in the early 1970s. (For those who don’t know or recall, there were only four reliable channels on TV in those days-- CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS.) In fact, during its first season it got very poor ratings. It was during the summer, when networks ran re-runs of the prior-season’s shows, that All in the Family somehow spiked in popularity. It sounds suspicious. Like all the best-seller lists and top-40 lists and everything else that "we the people" are supposed to like, its popularity was probably manufactured and then sold to us as “must see TV.”
My parents liked to pass time with the TV. And they were gullible. These were their sins.
John Carroll O’Connor
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