A. 1950s Idealized Nuclear Families vs. 1960s Single Parent Families

The move away from the idealized family of the domestic family sitcom (The Donna Reed Show, Father Knows Best, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet). Single parent families spring up on TV in a number of genres, most significantly in the sitcom and the Western. This is a reaction to the awareness of the dysfunctionality of the American family for the first time.

1. Sitcom

CLIP #2: My Three Sons (guest star, Sal Mineo, CBS, c1969): Robbie learns not to idealize Sal Mineo

Rebellion figured on film in the 1950s, but not on TV until the 1960s. And, as Jones explains, TV used more to soothe anxieties than argue for social change. Thus, the My Three Sons episode is about having the domestically-inclined son realize that his life is preferable to that of the biker radical’s.

2. Western

a. The Big Valley

1. Here is a family very different than those idealized ones on 50s TV: a single mother, and a family which is traumatized by their idealized father having had a bastard son.

CLIP #3: The Big Valley ("Palms of Glory", pilot, ABC, 1965): Heath confronts the Barkley’s about his paternity

2. Gender differences in The Big Valley vs. the other single parent family shows on TV? NO

Still a single parent family, but now a mother in charge. However, this ultimately doesn’t matter, as Victoria’s connection to her daughter Audra is downplayed. Compare this with Bewitched, a potentially progressive show with respect to gender because it emphasizes the matrilineal connections between Endora-Samantha-Tabitha, as allegorized via witchcraft (i.e., female resistance to patriarchy).

b. The Rifleman

1. Here, two sorts of families are contrasted: An extended clan matriarchy vs. A nuclear patriarchy

CLIP #4: The Rifleman ("The Mountain People", ABC, 1960): Lucas confronts the mountain mother

 2. Urban vs. Rural conflict and bigotries. We see this in many places on 60s TV, most notably, on The Beverly Hillbillies. We also saw this on The Fugitive, where the farmer berates Kimble for treating him like a hick. These 60s shows want to have it both ways: their heroes have urban sensibilities, while they choose/are force to live rural, bucolic lives. This is exactly what television strives for in the 60s: TV emerges from an urban location (NY and LA), is funded by urbanites, yet appeals ideologically to the nation (mostly rural). 1960s ratings strategies appeal to this (particularly James Aubrey at CBS): they seek a national consensus, forged by programs which appeal across demographic categories (from rural to urban, from kids to the elderly). By the early 1970s, this strategy would change, as TV would begin to appeal only to the demographic categories with money to spend (male and female 18-49 year olds, teenagers). Thus, in the early 1970s, relevance shows would develop which sought to appeal to the urbanites with disposable income.

B. 1950s Consensus vs. 1960s Social Protest Movements

1. 1950s: The Politics of Consensus

CLIP #5: Twelve Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957): the last juror changes his mind

2. 1960s: The Failure of Consensus and the rise of identity political awareness and social protests

CLIP #6: The Beverly Hillbillies ("The Servants", CBS, Nov. 1962): The servants arrive at the Clampett mansion

Class divisions emphasized and called attention to, not papered over as in 50s culture

C. 1950s McCarthyite Paranoia vs. 1960s Critiques of McCarthyism

1. Cold War hysteria over Communist invasion: you cannot trust your neighbors because they might be pods, i.e. Communists intent on killing you, your family, and the American way of life.

CLIP #7: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956): ending

2. Critiques of McCarthyism prevalent in film

a. During McCarthy’s reign of terror: High Noon (1952): Only Gary Cooper will stand up to the evil badmen (i.e., McCarthy), while the rest of the community (i.e., Hollywood) hides in fear.

b. After McCarthy’s reign of terror: Spartacus (1960): When asked to name names, all of Spartacus’ men stand up to the fascist Laurence Olivier and refuse to co-operate

CLIP #8: Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960): "I Am Spartacus"

3. The critique of McCarthyism on television began with Edward R. Murrow and See It Now. McCarthy’s demise was facilitated by television, the Army-McCarthy hearings. However, the critique of McCarthy on narrative television did not arrive until the mid-1960s

CLIP #9: The Fugitive ("10,000 Pieces of Silver"): Sheriff asks Dr. Kimble about Korea

Rather than forwarding McCarthyist paranoia, The Fugitive works to critique it by making us identify with Dr. Richard Kimble, the false object of a witchhunt. Here, the cross which he bears (falsely accused of murder) is linked to the Cold War (serving in Korea).

1. 1950s Dragnet defends law and order without question

CLIP #10: Dragnet ("The Big Crackdown", NBC, c1955): Sgt. Friday apprehends the bank robbers

2. 1960s Gilligan’s Island reveals that the imposition of law and order is precisely that which destroys the Utopia and causes the islanders not to be rescued

CLIP #11: Gilligan’s Island ("Gilligan Goes Gung Ho", CBS, 1967): Gilligan’s enforcement of law and order keeps the castaways from being rescued

Note that the Castaways understand law and order not from reality but from the movies

--> Compare this with the discussion between the editor and Detective Gerard in The Fugitive. Detective Gerard claims that the editor is destroying the public’s faith in the police through his campaign of vengeance against the police over his son’s arrest. The Fugitive itself is an argument against the infallibility of law and order. Even though the show resolves with Kimble’s freedom, the entire 2nd act of the series (hundreds of hours of narrative) has been about how the police have wrongly tormented Dr. Kimble and ruined his life.

A. Newton Minnow’s speech

Vast Wasteland label usually applied to 1960s narrative television that is predominantly bland genre-based telefilm: sitcoms, Westerns, detective shows. When the Dick Van Dyke show goes off the air in 1966, there are no more proscenium shot sitcoms until All in the Family in 1971.

B. Questioning the Vast Wasteland hypothesis

Analysing a quintessential wasteland show: Bewitched

In our era, this show is associated with children’s TV and with Nick at Nite camp

But in the 1960s, this show was a prime time, adult show

Arguments Against Wasteland Telefilm Shows

1. Narrative Stupidity and Simplicity

The first argument against the wasteland shows is their stupidity: i.e., Bewitched is always the same. However, this ignores the narrative complexity of the show. Example: The Two Darrins Affair. Ordinarily, the switch from Dick York to Dick Sargeant is seen as the show’s dumbest moment. I believe it is the show’s narrative triumph: An early episode of Bewitched concerns Endora splitting Darrin into two people.

CLIP #12: Bewitched ("Divided He Falls", ABC, 5/5/66): Endora splits Darrin into two

The first episode with Dick Sargeant that was filmed is a re-make of this exact plot. Thus, the show, in an almost modernist gesture, relates its narrative level to the extra-diegetic level of casting. Whereas the Sargeant remakes of York episodes are always ridiculed as the show’s lack of inventiveness, the show is actually working to retroactively erase York out of the series’ history, in the same way that the witches on Bewitched play with identity and history. This, it seems to me, is as complex as TV gets, and is comparable to the final episode of St. Elsewhere (a Quality TV show that is praised for its modernist play with reality and TV: the entire show was the product of the imagination of an autistic child). Important that the story is told in flashback, because we are seeing the show re-write its own history.

CLIP #13: Bewitched ("Samantha’s Better Halves", ABC, 1/1/70): Sam and Darrin reminisce about the time Endora split him into two

2. Apolitical, Ignores Political Discontent of the 1960s

The second argument against the Wasteland is that it ignored the historical changes going on around it, unlike the relevance shows that would follow. I believe that the wasteland shows are deeply historical and political, and just as related to their social context as the relevance shows of the late 60s and early 70s.

a. The past’s influence on the present in Bewitched

CLIP #14: Bewitched ("George Washington Zapped Here", ABC, 2/19/72): George Washington gets arrested

Consider how closely related this is to a quintessential moment from "Relevant" TV

CLIP #15: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (guest star, Agnes Morehead, CBS, 4/28/68): George Washington’s mother skit

b. The present’s influence on the past in Bewitched

CLIP #16: Bewitched ("Samantha’s Old Salem Trip", ABC, 11/12/70): Samantha gives a passionate speech against the persecution of witches

Also, this is an episode from the 1960s, revealing that the show was grappling with historical and political issues even before the relevant TV age. Sam, a modern woman from the present, returns to the past and puts an end to the Salem Witch trials. Connection to 1950s anti-McCarthyism (compare with Arthur Miller’s The Crucible).

III. 1960s Television and the Cold War

1. Obviously, hour-long telefilm spy action-adventure dramas were prevalent in the 1960s Cold War period: I Spy, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible

CLIP #17: I Spy ("A Day Called 4 Jaguar", NBC, 1965): American spy Kelly talks with Russian defector turned Aztec god Dmitri Balin

Cold War fought over the Third World

2. Allegorical Cold War shows, like The Fugitive

The golden age of television (political investigations of anthology drama) kept alive on 60s television in the quasi-anthology drama: each week the fugitive arrives in another town and solves some new social problem.

CLIP #18: The Fugitive ("The Evil Men Do", ABC, 12/27/66): Epilog (both Lt. Gerard and the gangster’s wife have been touched by Dr. Kimble’s humanity)

Dr. Kimble proves to the gangster’s wife that some people are truly good by placing Lt. Gerard’s life above his own freedom

3. The Cold War is inscribed in all sorts of TV genres

a. Sitcom

CLIP #19: Bewitched ("Sam in the Moon"): Samantha vacuums during the space flight

The Cold War quest to go to the Moon is ridiculed in Bewitched, revealed as a nationalist, jingoist, patriarchal show with no substance. Samantha’s already been there and it is not all that interesting.

Spigel’s analysis in "From Domestic Space to Outer Space"

b. Science Fiction

CLIP #20: Star Trek ("The Omega Glory", NBC, 1967): Kirk shows the neanderthals the emotional power of the Constitution

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This page was last updated on January 8, 2001

Questions or comments?  Please phone me at (406) 994-6403 or send e-mail to:  metz@montana.edu

Walter Metz, Department of Media and Theatre Arts, Montana State University--Bozeman