"All in the Family" Remains a Controversial Classic of Uncommon Quality

As regular readers of his column know Ainsley is very outspoken about the presentation and allaround treatment of Black people on television I expected him to laugh at Archie Bunker the central character on the show who always struck me as such a buffoon that the bigotry and sexism that had been baked into him throughout his upbringing came off as ignorant and of great importance in a comedy often very humorous bizarre as it is to say that today Importantly viewers laughed at Archie not with him just as they laughed at his neighbor George Jefferson a Black man with a similarly bigoted approach to life Also worth mentioning The legendary Norman Lear who was an executive producer of All in the Family has said in interviews that when he looks back on Archie Bunker he sees a man who never had any funWhen discussing this show with teens and twentysomethings today I try to put it in context All in the Family was indeed controversial and provocative but is broke barriers started conversations between generations and elevated quotsitcom actingquot to an entirely new level It was something completely new at a time when TV offerings were still very limited If you were lucky your choices were three networks with content customdesigned to appeal to advertisers a regional PBS channel or two and a smattering of programming on local stationsThe world was a different place back then though not as different as you might think as noted at the end of this column I was very young but never for a minute did I think when I watched All in the Family during its original run that Archie Bunker came from a place of hatred or malignancy He was a product of his environment His father was cold and at times abusive His family had no money and struggled like so many others just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table Archie was not at all well informed or educated his gift for mangling the English language remains unequaled and often such a fool that he was the very opposite of a role model At no time did he make bigotry appear acceptable or desirable Even if you thought he was funny you couldn39t take his views seriously nor would you want to be like him But he wasn39t deplorable That was the genius of the writing and of Carroll O39Connor39s legendary work as the actor who brought Archie to lifeOf course there was much more to All in the Family than Archie39s ignorance It was an outstanding study of a very real American workingclass family at a time when the working class was being ground to dust under pressures from every direction especially on the economic front Archie was a devoted husband and father who spent almost every waking minute working to provide for his wife Edith the magnificent Jean Stapleton daughter Gloria the egregiously underappreciated Sally Struthers and son in law Mike the eternally cool Rob ReinerIn fact over the course of the series Archie39s legendarily racist mindset actually softened thanks to the relentless influence of sweet openminded Edith budding feminist Gloria and unwavering progressive Mike not to mention cool cat Lionel Jefferson and his mother Louise before they moved on up in their spirited spinoffBut Ainsley didn39t see it that way He didn39t care for the show at all Here39s what he says about Archie in his new columnquotArchie Bunker was a racist sexist piece of sht with this heart of gold that everyone keeps talking about but that I39m too busy being offended by to find I39ve programmed myself to shut people like that out and take solace in the idea that one day society will leave their ancient and bigoted ways behind like the ignorant dinosaurs that they arequotOofOf course Ainsley is too analytical to leave it at thatquotMaybe sitting through an episode of All in the Family now isn39t as much fun for me as it was for viewers back then because I have much more uptodate and relatable content available to mequot he continues quotMaybe the reason that content is able to exist at all is because of the fact that All in the Family opened the door for shows like itself to exist and maybe the reason that any of that stuff worked at all is because Carroll O39Connor gave us the villain that we needed him to be If after 50 years of impacting American culture this show39s greatest achievement is the space it would eventually create for other works to push the envelope and address the issues they feel that they must then I39d say that all of that would have been impossible without O39Connor being the ally we all needed by giving us the villain we all hope to one day live withoutquotIn hindsight and as Ainsley suggests above when it comes to appreciating All in the Family and seeing Archie as anything more than a quotvillainquot I guess you had to be there at the time TV viewers never had a racist enter their living rooms on a regular basis unless one lived there nor an extraordinarily ordinary sitcom wife and mother like Edith who existed in a reallife universe far removed from those of the sterling sitcom moms portrayed by Jane Wyatt Donna Reed Barbara Billingsley and others Heck I don39t recall watching any other scripted sitcom that featured funny and outspoken people of color before All in the Family came along The Jeffersons aside Sammy Davis Jr39s guest appearance on the show is a treasure It remains one of the funniest episodes of any situation comedy everTruth is Archie would never be perfect but his trajectory and personal growth over time across All in the Family and Archie Bunker39s Place nevertheless mattered In fact in one episode of the latter he was so offended by the racist remarks made by one of his lodge brothers that he flattened the guy with a punch to the gut and quit the group The enlightenment of Archie Bunker such as it was came via a long slow build spanning more than ten years That39s something nobody appreciates in an era of nonexistent attention spans instant gratification and growing impatience with just about everythingSpeaking of which here39s something else for Millennials and Generation Z to chew on when contemplating the phenomenon that was All in the Family Mike Gloria and Lionel who were very vocal supporters of civil rights gay rights women39s reproductive rights helping the homeless equality and inclusion for all and were openly opposed to war racism sexism homophobia the inequities of the economy and the destruction of the environment were Baby BoomersHaNow check out Ainsley Andrade39s take on the showClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writersamp160

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"All in the Family" Remains a Controversial Classic of Uncommon Quality

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Ed Martin

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"All in the Family" Remains a Controversial Classic of Uncommon Quality

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