Images of Dissent, Persistence of an Ideal: Gender in TeIevision Sitcoms in the 1950s.

by

Rachel S.M. Yates

A thesis submitted to the Department of Kistory in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Queen's University Kingston, Ontario October, 1997

copyright 8 Rachel S.M. Yates, 1997 National Library Bib!iothèque nationale (*Iof Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Sewices services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, nie Wellington OttawaON KIAON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada canada YœIr &? vmRifemnce

Our dle Notre rEi18mUa

The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la fome de microfichelfihn, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique.

The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT

This study se& to expand the understanding of postwar gender codes through an exploration of the domestic ideal in television sitcoms of the era. Its sigdcance lies in the intersection of history with television studies and postwar social science perspectives. Analysis dows for an exploration of tensions between contemporary conceptions of gender within the domestic family ideai and their depiction in television sitcoms of the era. The ubiquity of the domestic famiiy's sitcom image in the postwar era reflected the nation's cold war insecurity and suggested the emergence of domestic ideology as a buffer against any perceived dangerous social forces. This study reveals the way in which television culture in the 1950s wove a "golden age" myth of this Amencan family through its ideaiiiation of family Ise. Whiie extensively exploring the domestic ideai of gender in the 1950s, careful attention has been given to dissent ffom this ideal. Images of masculinity and femininity in 1950s sitcoms suggest a mutability of the conventional postwar domestic ideal. While enforcing the domestic ideal gender codes in television sitcoms of the era nonetheless revealed a more complex and diverse reading of the postwar gender map. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1 wouid like to thank the many people who had input into this thesis writing process. It has been a lengthy and chdlenging process in which 1 had the very good fortune to have so many willing assistants and for which 1 am sincerely grateful.

First 1 would like to acknowledge the intellectual and editorial guidance of rny two supervisors, Dr. Karen Dubinsky and Dr. Geoff Smith. They have, in so many ways, irnproved both my understanding of the issues and the quaiity of the finished product. I'd also like to thank Yvonne who has facilitated rny travel through the Queen's history graduate program with her efficiency and helpfulness in al1 matters-

1 would also like to thank my family and fnends for their emotional support and concrete assistance. Nancy, thanks for the continued assistance with computer graphics. Josephine, thanks for living with me through this time. Eric, thanks for your continued encouragement. Fm& Bill thanks for your generous and tireless offer of laser printing. Paul thanks for your continued interest. And finally, Mom Br Dad thanks for your unfailing support, editorial assistance and logistical coordination in pushing this through to completion.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Ove~ew:The 1950s in Perspective Literature Review

Chapter II Television as Society: Images of Family and the TV Cornmunity Creation of a Comrnon Culture The Sitcom Genre The EIectronic Communie Eariy Sitcom Construction The Role of the Family in 1950s Sitcoms Homogeneity in 1950s Sitcoms Consumption & Homogeneity

Chapter III Conceptions of Gender Ui the 1950s Gender Roles - All &the Family Men and Women - Becoming Equal Marriage - A Mode1 of Companionship Femininity The 'Wornan Question" Masculinity Confonnity and Alienation 1s There a Father in the House Chapter IV Gender in Television: The Masculine Malaise Fatherhood in 1950s Sitcom America Centrality of Class in Imaging Fatherhood Working-Class Masculinity Middle-CIass Masculinity Contested Masculinity Movie Masculinity

Chapter V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? The Good Cornpanion Smail Victories and Everyday Rebellions Contested Terrain Outrageous Acts - The Role of Humour Women as Centrai Characters Strong Women - Bumbling Men Working Women in TV Sitcoms Reality of Television Women Image and Reality Women at Work Educating the Young Reading the [mage

Conclusion

Appendix 1 -- Television Sitcoms of the 1950s

Bibliography Introduction

"Contraiy to popular belief, Lave it to Beaver was not a documenta~y."' While

television sitcoms in the 1950s2 reflected the domestic ideal of "the Arnerican way of

Me," they failed to reflect the diversity of the American experience. Sitcom depictions of

the domestic ideal contributed to sex-role expectation and the realignment of belief

systems in the postwar decade through the ubiquity of the television image. This renewed

focus on the primacy of the domestic realm struck at the very core of the Arnerican national self-image. This study explores the tension between contemporary conceptions of gender within the domestic family ideal and their depiction in sitcoms of the era.

The 1950s was not a du1 decade of conformity and domestic bliss. Marked changes were being wrought in the social, cultural and political fabric of the Arnencan nation. The extent to which gender roles shared in this upheaval was revealed in the sometimes paradoxical and conûicting gender-encoded messages depicted in the television sitcom images of the era. A superficial reading of the 1950s gender map would suggea ove~rhelmingconformity to the domestic ideal; however, a closer reading of the image reveals several "cracks in the picture window." Indeed, seeds of discontent emerged fiom

' Stephanie Coontz, nie lVuy Ive Nwer Were: American Families und the iVostalgia Trop. (New York: Basic Books, 1992). p.29. ' Though this study focuses on the decade ofthe f~esand we tend to examine the twentieth century in temof deades. the domestic ideal which is traditionally identified with this era really spans from the iate 1940s to the mid- 1960s. Introduction 2

the conflicting images of domesticity reflected in the 1950s sitcoms which in the turbulent

decade which followed erupted into public discord.

The concept of the farnily is of central importance to any reading of 1950s

television sitcoms. The majority focused on nuclear famiy units or individuais seeking its

secunty and happiness. The ubiquity of this domestic image on television reflected the

structural importance of the family in the postwar atornic age, as a safe haven in an

uncertain world.' The centrdity of the Arnencan family reflected the nation's cold war

insecurity and domestic ideology emerged as a buffer against any perceived dangerous social forces. This focus was reflected in the rhetonc of the "Kitchen ~ebate"~which confïrmed the importance of the Amencan family as a symbol of American cold war supenotïty, as well as establishing the hegemony of the middle-class consumer ethos within the Arnencan national identity.

This examination of 1950s television culture, exposes the way in which the idealized family image depicted in sitcoms of the era wove a "golden age" mythos of

American family life. The Cleavers, the Andersons and the Nelsons constructed an ideal

"Happy Days" image of 1950s life which flattened the divenity of experience and suppressed the social anxiety which lay below the surface. Television, in its construction of a nostdgic ideal, has structured our collective memory. Its power to do so is at the center of my interest in this topic.

Elaine Tyler May. Homeward Bound: American FarniIies in the Cold lVar Em (New York: Basic Books, 1988). p. 3. The term. which will be e.qlored later, refers to the 1959 debate behveen Khrushchev and Nixon in which American Cold War superionty \\las framed in terms of domestic arrangements and consumer wds- Introduction 3

The first chapter includes a brief oveMew of political, social and cultural trends in

1950s Arnerican Me, as weli as a review of the fiterature mined for this study. The second

chapter explores the emergence of television, providing background to the powerful

medium's sitcorn image. It also explores the increasing homogeneity of the farnily image

within the sitcom context. The third chapter examines the contemporary sociological

literature and social commentary in order to reveal trends in thuiking on gender and family

which structure the contextual framework for a later examination of mascuiinity and

femininity in the sitcom image. The last two chapters form the essence of the study with an

exploration of masculinity and femininity in the sitcom image and the paradoxes inherent

in their depiction. The centrality of the domestic ideal to an examination of gender in

1950s sitcoms is incontrovertible; however, 1 have consistently attempted to reveal any divergence, confusion or diversity in these gender-role definitions. Although the persistence of the domestic ideal remains undisputed, 1have consistedly attempted to reveal any images of dissent fiom this ideal. Chapter 1

The 1950s

in Perspective

Far from the "placid decade" of Joseph Satin's recoilection, ' the 1950s were in fact a tumulîuous decade with many tensions bubbling below a seemingly smooth surface.

What emerges from a re-examination of the decade is a sense of paradox and contradiction. It was an age of duence and anxiety, an age of great optimisrn coupled with the gnawing fear of the bornb, of great poverty in the rnidst of unprecedented prosperity, of rhetoric celebrating the equaiity of the American people dong with the practice of rampant racism and sexisme2In its contradictions it harbored the roots of the discontent of the 1 %Os, fomenting rebellion below a surface of dissimulation and

Arnerican culture and politics in this era were characterized by a dichotomy of containment and rebellion. The ideology of containment3 of the contagion of comrnunisrn structured the American national secunty state's actions, both at home and abroad, in the

' From the title of Joseph Satin's. The Fifties: The Placid Decade. (Boston: Houghton Minlin, 1960.) Satin's tongue-in-cheek titring of his 1950s commentary nonetheless maintaineci a somewhat nostalgie view of the decade. ' Gaile McGregor. "Domestic Blitz: A Revisionkt Hinory of the Fifües." American Studies. 34 (Spring. 1993). p.7. 1 OveMew: The 1950s in Perspective 5

postwar era. Holding the line4 against communism was key to the American sense of

security in a postwar wodd threatened by the Soviet Union, the nuclear amis race, and a

Cold War which mobilized the two in a zero-sum standoff. Postwar prosperity within the

domestic sphere was marred by the fear of cornmunist intiltration and the dominance of conformity within this paradigm.

On the international front, American foreign relations were motivated by the need to contain the Soviet threat within a "cordon sanitaire" of influence. American Cold War rhetoric set the tone for an escalation of the conflict f?om the postwar policy of containment of communism, to a policy of brinkmanship and massive retaiiation.'

Containment structured the ideological content of the Cold War conflict, shifting

American international politics from its isolatio~ststance of the early twentieth century to postwar global interventionisrn geared towards "keeping the world safe for democracy,"

"rolling back the comrnunist tide," and "liberating captive peoples." By the rnid-twentieth century Amencan security interests had expanded beyond the borders of the United States.

The national security state was committed to protecting American interests in the global arena, as well as ensuring domestic safety for its citizens - whether this entailed ferreting out comrnunists in govement or ensuring the democratic dety of America's

------A term used in foreign policy rhetoric to wggest the confinement of the Soviet Union and communisrn within a clearly defineci sphere of influence. It was coined in 1946 by George F. Kennan, a key pIayer in the Truman Administration and the govement's Soviet e.qert. '' This was the titie of Charles C. Alexander's analysis of the Eisenhower years. It suggested a "Iine' which communism should not overstep. Once again the idea of "containing* the Soviet threat charactenzed the postwar decade. This rhetoric was articulateci by both the Txuman Administration - by Dean Acheson, Secretary of State and George F. Kennan, the administration's key Soviet adviser, and the Eisenhower Administration - with John Foster Dulles. Eisenhower's Secretary of State - as the most vociferous e.uponents. I Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 6

'backyard." Conflict in the name of freedorn and dernocracy precipitated Amencan

involvement in Korea, in Guatemala, and in Vietnam in the 1950s.

Issues of state security extended far beyond the borders of the United States to

Korea in the first postwar anti-cornrnunist conflict in June 1950. For the next three years

U.S.troops fought the comrnunist insurgence of the North Koreans and Chinese, only to

end in mistrating stalemate a war that Arnericans were told was necessary to stop Soviet-

sponsored aggression. The codict resulted in the permanent division of Korea and the recognition of a comrnunist govement in the North. The Korean war cost the United

States a total of $18 billion and caused the death of some 23,000 Arnericans and at least a million Koreans and hin ne se.^

In Guatemala, in the first of several covert military incursions into the Central

Amencan continent - Arnerica's "backyard" -- the bogey of a communist threat was used as justification for a CIA backed insurgency against the reform-minded Arbenz govemment, in 1954. The Arbenz government's social and land reforrn policies, in particular, were irksome to the leading foreign landholder, the Arnencan United Fruit

Company. Amencan financial interests painted the reform-rninded govenvnent red and a

CL4 backed insurgency "restored" democracy to the region.

Arnencan ad-communist folIy reached its apotheosis in the Vietnam confiict, a war that cost the US in lives, in money, and in self-confidence. Vietnam was a codict that bitterly divided the States after 1967 and destroyed the Arnerican sense of self- righteousness and its moral high-ground, self-consciously maintained since World War Il. 1 OveMew: The f 950s in Perspective 7

The 1950s witnessed Arnerica's early involvement in the conflict with the supply of financial and military support to France and, subsequently to the anti-cornmunist faction of the %etnamese civil-war.

Domestic anti-comrnunism was another manifestation of the containment ideology which permeated the 1950s. If subversive individuais could be contained and prevented fiom spreading their poisonous influence through the body politic, then society would be secure.' The feu of internai cornmunist infiltration, the Red Scare, stnictured the ethos of the era, authorizing a Salem-type persecution of dEerence and non-conformity. Virulent anti-communism was central to postwar American culture on al1 levels. BegiMing with the sensational and highiy publicized trials and conviction of Alger Hiss for perjury in 1950 and followed closely by the public "legal lynching" of the Rosenbergs, in their 195 1 trial and public execution in 1953. Anti-communist sentiment had rnobilized the nation. With the indiscriminate accusations of the McCarthy senate hearings circus, it soon became evident that the tirnes did not augur well for those who did not conform to the prevailing social noms. Fear of subversion coupled with the fear of non-conformity to bully the nation into silence and dissimulation. The fear of difference extended beyond the concem about communists to encompass issues of sema1 dserence. This lavender scare linked homosexuality with the idea of deviance signaling moral chaos, social decay and increased susceptibility to cornmunist infiltrati~n.~In a cold war environment, national strength

Charles C. Alexander Holding the Line: ïïte Eisenhower Ero. 1952-61. (Blaomington: Indiana University Press, 1975). p.48. ' Elaine Tyler May, Homeword Bound. (New York: Basic Bwkf 1988), p. 14. 8 Geo&ey S. Smith. "National Security and Personal Isolation: Ses, Gendcr and Disease in the Cold War United States." The International HisfovRei~ierv MV. 2 (May. 1992). p.3 19. 1 Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 8 depended on the ability of strong man& men to stand up against communist threats; homosexual degeneracy made Americans easy prey for communist ta~tics.~Homosexuals were therefore, identified as a national security risk, and like communists, had to be ferreted out of government and labeled dangerous.

The postwar national secunty state's obsession with ad-comrnunism which began in the Truman administration, ran rampant in government under the auspices of Joe

McCarthy. His smear campaign included a haphazard program of testing for loyalty which was undertaken with Little regard for the civil liberties of persons under attack in a process of guilty until proved innocent, or guilt by association. Few who were tarred by the senator's "shoot Rom the hip" approach went unscathed. The witch hunt ultimately targeted liberal-minded novelists, artists, poets, educators and intellectuals. Harassment, blacklisting, and incarceration followed in the wake ofthe anti-subversive legislation that began with the Truman administration's federal employee loyalty program and ultimately encompassed the Subversive Control Act, hearings held by the House Cornmittee on Un-

American Activities, state loyalty oaths and the Hollywood inquisition.1° This paranoia reached such levels that popular rhetoric declared it was "better to be dead than red."

Even after McCarthy had been thoroughly discredited, the fear of difference remained.

Holding the line remained a major political and cultural force throughout the decade. In literature, film and popular culture the anti-comrnunist rhetoric and rampant Amencan patriotism were vibrant. The lasting effeas of the cornmunist black-listing in Red

Chrmnels, structured the cultural voice of the era's popular entertainment media. Fear of

May. Honteward Bound. p.94. I OveMew: The 1950s in Perspective 9

dissent mdedartistic license and iirnited content." Amencan family values and the

postwar consumer ethos dictated entertainment content.

The prevalence of confonnity in the 1950s is not under dispute. In fact, conformity

was containment in its ultirnate form - the containment of behavior within set boundaries

of acceptability. The growth of consumerism, the rush to the suburbs, the emergence of professional and managerial elites not only promoted social homogenization but, in combination with Cold War atomic anxiety, and the looming threat of communist aggression, triggered fear that deviation f?om the nom in any "public" way, was symptomatic of discrimination and disease. l2 The extent to which Arnericans stniggled to define "the nom7' in the 1950s indicated its centrality to public life. People were not conformist during the 1950s because they thought it was a "good thing" but because they were afiaid not to be. And they knew this. One of the strange paradoxes of the 1950s was the symbiotic relationship of accordance with critique, or as Arlene Skolnick phrased it,

"America's duai collective representation of itself."13 While conformity was a fact of life, it was at the same time almost universally decried. Social criticism in the 1950s ovenvhelrningly denounced the pressure to confonn, criticizing the dehumanking and

'O Smith, "National Security and Personal Isolation," p.3 17. " For extensive discussions of the influence of antisommunisrn on the entertainment industq see Stephen Whiffield's The Culture of the Cold War, Lary May's "Movie Star Politics: The Screen Actors' GuiId, Cultural Conversion and the Hollywood Red Sa'' in May [ed.] Recasting America or Victor Nanrsky 's Naming Nantes (New York: The Viking Press, 1980). " Smith,"National Security and Personal Isolation," p. 3 12-3 13. l3 Arlene Skolnick. Embattled Puradise: nie American Family in an Age of Lrncertainty. (New York: Basic Books. 199 1). p.62. 1 Oveniew: The 1950s in Perspective 10

alienating effects of the "rnass, impersonal white-coIlar world."" In so doing, social critics

of the 1950s kept open a charnel of dissent in a tirne of social and political constraint.

Despite the new-found affluence of the postwar era, people felt they lived in an age

of anxiety. The news was dominated by crisis and turmoil. Cod strikes, steel strikes, the

casualties of the Korean war, the cornmunist threat both abroad and at home, as well as

the harsh reality that the country could be destroyed by nuclear conflict, dominated the

Amencan consciousness. Elaine Tyler May suggests that the ahuety over the idea of

nuclear annihilation in a Cold War era forced Arnericans into a state of domestic

containment. After the hardships of the Depression in the 1930s and the tremendous losses

of the Second World War, Arnericans wanted secure jobs, secure homes, and secure

marriages in a secure country. The self-contained home and the nuclear farnily held out the

promise of secunty in an atomic world, offerhg a safe haven removed fYom the dangers

of the outside ~orld.'~She suggests that cold war ideology and the domestic revival of the

postwar era were in fact two sides of the same coin. Whereas America was keeping the

world safe for democracy, the Amencan home was keeping Amencans safe from

communism. A farnily-centered culture became Arnenca's bulwark against the fears and

anxieties of the cold war era.

The home not only structured Arnenca's sense of domestic security; it became a

key symbol of Amencan national superiority. In the 1959 "Kitchen Debate7' Soviet

Premier, Nikita Khshchev and Amencan Vice President, Richard Nixon debated cold war supenority in terms of domestic cornforts rather than nuclear power. The ability of

14 May. Homeward Bound, p.22. I Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 11 each country to defend its way of Me and standard of living became the key comparative factor. For Nixon, Arnencan superiority rested on the ideal of the suburban home, complete with modem appliances and distinct gender roles for family members. The essence of American freedom was epitomized in the "model" home, with a successfùl male breadwinner, a fiill-time, attractive female homemaker, and a wide array of consumer and luxury goods. l6 The home therefore occupied the center of Amencan postwar idealism, and a "normal" family became the fiontline defence against the fear of cornmunism and subversion.

Paradoxically, anti-comrnunist paranoia CO-existedwith unprecedented affluence and optimism about the future. In an ever expanding consumer ethos, the "Amencan

Dream" became recodified as matenal and consumer acquisition. Consumensm went far beyond the mere purchase of goods and seMces as it included important cultural values, demonstrated success and social mobility, and dehed postwar life-styles. In the aforementioned "Kitchen Debate," not only did home and hearth occupy the center of the

American national self-image, but the idea of consumption and the accessibility of consumer cornforts to ail classes of Amencans was confirmed. The house, the car, and the television set, which comprised the American exhibit in Moscow, were, Nixon suggested, accessible to "millions of Arnenca's wage earners." The abundance and accessibility of domestic consumer goods in the United States was the most meaninfil measure of

Amencan superiority over the Soviet Union and a clear validation of the fiee market

- - ' bid. p.3. l6 ibid. p. 16. 1 Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 12 system. Furthemore, it was thought that home ownership would reinforce aspirations for upward mobiiity in dl classes and thereby diffuse the potential for social unrest.

The anluent suburban home provided the most vivid symbol of the Amencan way of life. The boom in residential housing after the war reflected govement policies which encouraged the development of suburban single-family homes rather than apartment buildings and inner-city dwellings. The expansion of the Federai Housing Authority (FHA) and the increased accessibility of guaranteed mortgage insurance and tax benefits to homeowners increased the demand side of the equation.17 On the supply side the govenunent also financed large suburban tracts such as those built by William Levitt.

With dl these incentives for building and purchasing suburban residences, the construction of low-cost, mass-produced housing boomed and home-ownership became an achievable reality for the majority of the middle-class. Between 1950 and 1960 the number of

American homeowners increased by over nine rniliion coinciding with a massive middle- and lower-middle class exodus nom the cities. This relocation of wealthier taxpayers outside the city-centers contributed to their decay." The segregation of the suburbs into racially homogenous cornrnunities was infiuenced by the RIA'S policies which excluded blacks from the suburbs, not because of financial inequity, but rather by de facto segregation and the FHA's redlining policies. ''

The growth of the suburbs and the transience of its occupants reflected a disturbing rootlessness in Amencan society. It signalled a diminution of extended farnily

" ibid. p. 169. '* Miller and Nowak. The IVqv CVe LVere. p.7. 19 May. Honreward Bound, p. 1 70. 1 OveMew: The 1950s in Perspective 13 ties and an increased reliance of the nuclear family on itselfbecause of distance ffom kin and dienation fiom community. William Whyte highlighted this rootlessness in a chapter entitled "Tran~ients~"in which he exarnined the fiequency wit h which young families relocated, foiiowing corporate promotions and transfers. The uniformity of living arrangement in these different communities resulted From the transience of its occupants.

"The more people move about, the more sirnilar the Amencan environment becomes, and the more sirnilar it becomes, the easier it is to move about." Whyte wrote. "With each transfer the decor, the architecture, the faces and the narnes change; the people, the conversations, and the values do not - and sometimes the decor and the architecture don't either.""

By stimulating suburban housing development and providing subsidies for homeowners, the federal govemrnent effectively underwrote the postwar baby boom along with the lifestyle and community arrangements that fostered traditional gender roles in the home. The suburbs represented the Amencan way of life: democratic, aEordable and fùlly equipped with the latest appliances. These homes were designed to accommodate families with smail children and flexible enough in design to expand to a growing family's needs.

Architects assumed that men wouid be away at work during the day, leaving a full-time mother-homemaker in residence. Consequently the kitchen was near the fiont entrance so that mothers could keep an eye on their children as they cooked, and large picture windows allowed easy supervision of the yard.21Young* mobile couples were attracted to the suburban areas. Youthful marriage, and high birth rates encouraged the nicknaming of

William Whyte. The Organization Man. (New York: Doubleday Anchor. 1956). p.305. 1 Overview: The 19503 ia Perspective 14

these communities with such suggestive names as "Fertility Valley" and "The Rabbit r ut ch."^

The consumer ethos which reinforced home ownership rested on the assumption of

a solid nuclear family at the center of the domestic purchashg unit. The breadwi~er

father, and the hornemaker mother anchored the unit, with Dad supplying the financing

and mom assuming the key role as family consumer. The family was therefore at the center

of American life on a political and economic level. Gender roles were codified within this

national ethos and strict adherence was essential to the American way of life. Patnotism and the market system fed into assumptions about gender roles, and television did al1 it could to reinforce this system.

The new middle class gained hegemony within the corporate order of postwar

Arnenca, propagating monolithic values rooted in the promise of classless consumption."

"The American way of life" was the culmination of a process of mythmaking unifjmg the

Amencan people and fonning the basis of nationai culture and American patriotism. The success of the American econornic and social order in weathering the Depression of the

1930s and the triumph of Amencan democratic ideds over the totditarian forces of the

Second World War created a surge of cultural nationaiism by rnid-century. The 1950s celebrated the "Arnerican way of Iifé" speculating that the developing consumer marketplace could eliminate gross social inequalities and create conditions where al1

'' May, Homeward Bound. p. 17 1. '' Ibid. T.Jackson Lears. "A Matter of Taste: Corporate Cultural Hegemony in a Mass-Conmption Society." Recusting Rntericn. in Lav May [cd.f (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1989). p. 1 1. 1 Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 15

Arnerïcans could "love automobiles, have refrigeraton and own ranch-style houses.""

This national culture became synonyrnous with white, middle-class farnily values. The

values of this rniddle-class shaped the dominant political and economic institutions that

affected ail ~mericans.~Those who did not conform to them were likely to be

marginalized, stigmatized, and disadvantaged. It was assumed that everyone wanted to

achieve this ideal. Television, in its depiction of the "nom" disserninated the ideal in order

to CO-opt"the masses" to the desired ideal. Popular culture was imbued with the

desirability of being part of an Amencan rniddle-class farnily. Yet beneath that constmct

were the continuing realities of class, race and gender inequality that sparked an undertone

of discontent throughout the era.

Indeed, rebellion from the nom was so marginaiized that the memory of the 1950s has yet to contest the white, middle-class myth of homogeneity and dornesticity with a more textured understanding of the postwar era. In an examination of the 1950s, discord can be found in the voices and Me-styles of the Beat writers and in much of the works of such contemporary playwrights as Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller.

Dissent can aiso be read in the rebelliousness of youth and the emergent civil rights movement.

The 1950s saw for the first tirne the emergence of a youth market and consequent formation of a teen culture. Media attention to the emergent adolescents as a group grew out of the recognition of the spending power of this youthful group and its increasing ability to iduence popular culture content through its buying power. For the most part

" Sussman "Did Success Spi1 the U.S.?"p.2 1. 1 Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 16 this teen market was seen as "square" and conforming to class and gender expectations.

However, the problem ofjuvenile deiinquency which the film, Rebel Withour a Cmise, identified, sparked the concem of social and govemental organizations. The mid- 1950s senate hearings, chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver, revealed concerns that the mass media stood between parent and child so that parents could no longer effectiveiy impress their value systems on children who were influenced by a new peer culture spread by mass media sources. This breakdown of inter-generational communication and control provoked youtffil misbehavior and juvenile delinquency.26The debate over mass culture and its effects on children during the 1950s challenged but did not subvert the mass media's attention to the subject. Movies more than television2' picked up on the notion of teen malaise and constructed an image of youthful confusion, dienation and discontent.

Youth rebellion manifested itself most clearly in the emergence and popularity of rock 'n roll in the 1950s. Appropriating key elements of black music, rock 'n roll revolutionized music and Amencan popular culture. With this music, the young generation distinguished itself frorn the prevailing musical noms of its parents' generation. The popularity of Elvis Presley in the rnid-1950s with the new sound of rock 'n roll and the overt sexuality of his performance marked a break with conventionality. To adults he was a "bad dream personified." This "gyrating, leering, sensual star" was popular, not only with the easily forgotten teenagers -- the poor white kids or the ghetto blacks -- but with

May. Honteward Bound, p. 1 3. '' James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: Arnericu 's Reaction to the Juvenile Minquent in the 1950s. (New York: O.dord University Press, 1986). p.3. " The movie industry in the frfties changed considerably in response to the emergence of television and the "theft" of the family audience by the domestic medium. Venturing into previously taboo areas. films 1 Oveniew: The 1950s in Perspective 17 everyone's kid~.*~Adult censorship of rock 'n roll helped solidify a teen culture as rebellious and cohesive. Rock mobilized teenagers, giving them a feeling of being a unique social group with particular characteristics. Moreover, it identsed the consumer potentid of this teen culture which, through its spending patterns, influenced popular culture and commercial interest. Not only did rock 'n roll challenge the conventions of rniddle-class respectability in the rebelliousness of middle-class youths, it also sigrilficantly introduced and approbated black music to a white audience.

The marginalization of those who were different encompassed various minority groups. However, the "whitening" of 1950s culture, particularly in the face of the nascent black civil rights movement, is particularly remarkable. As a result of institutionalized racism and widespread poverty, black Americans existed on the fringes of the 1950s rniddle-class farnily ideal. The Arnerican way of life, identified by consumption, affluence, and the suburban home, was not a part of the postwar black experience. Indeed, for many blacks, questions of education, employment, and basic human respect stmctured their postwar concems. However, social commentators downplayed contlict and instead stressed the harmonious and enduring nature of American democratic values. Blacks and other non-whites, who did not share equally in America's bounty, were assured by the white media that they never had it so good. Generally speaking neither race nor class were recognized categories of difference."

---- provided more controversial and chailenging ~toriesaimed at speciflc target audiences - such as the youth market. mars p.88). Miller and Nowk. The Wuv We Were. p. 302. Miller and Nowak. The IVq We CVere. p. 1 1. 1 Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 18

To proclaim the placidity of the decade was to ignore key developmental events in

the civil rights movement which polarized the nation in the 1960s. The Supreme Court in Brown - Board of l%ca~ion(l954) legaliy ended segregation and deprived segregationist practices of moral legitimacy. It set the stage for conflict, sensitizing the public to national

questions of race and politicizhg differences in the Amencan North and South. The

question of educational integration finally exploded in the 1957 attempts to Uitegrate nine

black students into Little Rock Central High in Arkansas. The image of the nation at war

with itself was indelibly captured on television as angry mobs of white red-necks protested

the black children's integration into the previously all-white high scho01.~~As Little Rock

developed, the national media's focus on civil rights "taught" black leaders how to

challenge the forces of segregation with the aid of the modem media. The role of

television in creating a moral high ground for the civil rights movement proved central in

the process.

The trial and acquittai of two whites in Mississippi for the lynching of fourteen- year-old Ernmett Till in 1955 galvanized the national press corp, creating çympathy in liberal white northemers and outrage in the nation's black population. The role of the media in fiaming the issue and sensitizing the nation to the plight of blacks in the South was central to setting the stage for the disruptions of the sixties. While the murder of

Emmen Till for whistling at a white woman shocked the nation, the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 demonstrated what blacks could do when mobilized. Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat to a white in the racially segregated bus system of Alabama, gave civil

" David Halbentam. The Fvies. (New York: Villard Books. 1993). p.667. I Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 19

rights activists a cause. Not only was the boycon successfùl in ending bus-segregation by

"forcing" a Supreme Court decision on the matter, but the rnobilization of the NAACP

and the emergence of a strong leader, in the person of Martin Luther King, Jr., ushered in

an era of civil rights activism. The practice of racial unity and the policy of nonviolence as

a means of manifesthg black strength roused the nation's black population and also

garnered support among the nation's liberal, white population. Tensions within the black

cornrnunity and the national mobilization of the civil rights movement would not fully

evolve until the 1960s, yet the seeds of public discontent had begun to foster within the

affluence of the 1950s' white rniddle-class hegemony.

The 1950s was clearly an era of change, an era of diversity and an era of considerable anxiety. Yet this detyhas been largely excluded from our cultural memory.

Television is in large part responsible for this omission. For, not only were television shows of the tirne eager to paint a picture of the happy, domesticated family smoothly ironing out the wrinkles of daily life in middle-class America, but Iater explorations of

1950s family life such as the 1970s, Happy Days, maintained the illusion of the 1950s as the golden age of the family.

This examination of gender in television in the postwar era has drawn upon several disciplinary categories. Gender history, communications and television theory, as well as sociological studies influenced the content of the study. While a general understanding of the postwar era fonned the basis of the study, more specific gender analysis of the 1 Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 20 domestic ideal, the television sitcom and the lines of communication between the two constituted the bulk of secondary research. Certain secondary sources provided important insight into developing this understanding.

Much of the relevant postwar Literature on gender grows out of late-80s and early

90s scholanhip which sought to revise the nostalgia of the postwar domestic ideal's perceived "Golden Age." This revisionism identified the hegemony of the domestic ideal and attempted to reveal its relevance to contemporary security issues. Elaine Tyler May's

~omeward~ound' is a key contributor to this scholanhip positing the relation between the postwar centrality of the farnily and the overwhelming importance of national security concems to an understanding of the postwar era. Her organizing hypothesis linked the containment of cornmunism to the centrdity of the family as a "psychological fortress" buffering its members against intemal and foreign security threats. Her analysis of gender within this context sheds important light on the postwar domestic ideal particularly with the support of the Kelly Longitudinal Shidy's contemporary analysis of mamage, domesticity and gender role expectation.

Examination of conceptions of gender in the 1950s and the accessing of "real" women's activities, was pivotal to displacing the notion that women in the 1950s were content in the "Happy Housewife" role that sitcom moms June Cleaver and Doma Reed epitomized. Increasingly scholarship revealed women's discontent and alienation from this role. Nevertheless this image is persistent in the 1950s nostalgia trap. Joanne Meyerowitz goes a long way to discrediting the idea that 1950s women were confined to the kitchen.

- --

JI Elai ne Qler May. Honieward Bound 1 Overview: The 1950s in Perspective 21

In her edited collection, Not June ~iewer,,"she mines the stories of "other" women, those outside the white middle-class hegemony, and presents a varied and textured account of the diversity of women's interests and activities in the 1950s. Her methodology and objective structured this anaiysis of gender and television. Wini Breines' Young,

White and ~iserable~~and Susan Douglas' Where the ~irls~re~ also uncovered po stwar wornen's "reai" experiences. Breines' study reveais the dissimulation and discontent of women within the hegemony of the dornestic ideai of the fifties. Her study reveais an important juxtaposition of contemporary sociological interpretations of gender with an understanding of the 1950s reality of young rniddle-class women. Douglas, on the other hand offers a witty and satirical look at the role of mass media in the construction of fernininity in the fifties through the eighties suggesting a paradoxical relationship between pop culture's continued obsession with defining and exaggerating stereotypical codes of fernininity and its subconscious agitation of feminist dissatisfaction.

George Lipsitz' Time ~msa~e?~is essentiai to understanding the stmctural influence of television to historical interpretation. A critical argument he makes concerns the relationship between television and memory. Lipsitz suggests that commercial culture increasingly framed collective mernory allowing for the managed misappropriation of memory. Consequently, the reality of memory has been supplanted with idealized images

3'! Joanne Meyerowiîz, Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwur Ainerica, 1945-60. (Philadel phia: TernpIe University Press. 1994). 33 Wini Breines, Young, Imite andMiserable: Growing Up Female in the Fijlies. (Boston: Beacon Press. 1992). Susan Douglas. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Femaie With the Masr Media. (New York: Times Books, 1994). " George Lipsia Time Passages: Coliective rllemory and .4merican Popufar Culture. (Minneapolis: Univeristy of Minnesota Press, 1990). 1 Ove~ew:The 1950s in Perspective 22 which television has constructed. Leave it to Beaver, I Remember Marna, and the like have corne to resonate an historical image which audiences identfi as their own. This idea is pivotal to an understanding of the importance of television in constructing the family and the domestic ideal of the 1950s. Stephanie Coontz' The Wq We Never Were and

Arlene Skolnick's Embattied Paradise confirm that the 1950s were not an ideal age, yet we persistently re-invent it as such. Why? Because our "memory7' of it has been constructed by the sitcom ideal of Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver. The reluctance to restmcture our memory of the 1950s reveals television's irnplicit conceptual power.

Lynn Spigel's Make Room for TV explores the importance of the domestic environment to the impact of television in facilitating the acceptance of consumer culture and revising postwar gender and farnily ideals. Spigel argues that it was television's domestic locale which defined its phenomenal success, stmcturing any understanding of the television message.

While these books proved critical to my analysis of the subject matter; certain others were simply important for the wealth and diversity of information they supplied.

Rick Mitz's, The Grea~TV Sitcom ~ook,'~is an indispensable encyclopedic compendium of sitcom history. Though it is not a scholarly work it is critical in situating7comparing and understanding the impact of 1950s sitcoms. Miller and Nowak's, nie Fvies: me

Wq We were3' and David Halberstarn's, 7he ~ijlie?~also proved invaluable as general

" Rick Mitz The Great TVSitcom Book (New York: Richard Marek 1980). " Douglas Miller and Marion Nowak, The lVay Ive Realiy W'ere. 38 David Halberstam. The Fiffies-(New York: Villard Books. 1993). 1 Ovein'ew: The 1950s in Perspective 23 sources. Milier and Nowak provided a critical anaiysis of key issues in the postwar decade while Hdberstam's journalistic account of newsworthy people, places and things was extensive, informative and generally interesting.

This study draws on these and many other influences with the objective of uncovering the parallels between the social reality of the 1950s and the constmcted reality of the sitcom Iegacy. I remain tom between the poles which Elaine May and Joanne

Meyerowitz artificially represent. In acknowledging the stnictural importance of the family to an historicai examination of 1950s sitcorns, which television emphasized in the ubiquity of the domestic ideal, I reinforce Elaine May's containment hypothesis contnbuting to the hegemony of the rniddle class domestic ideal of history. The television sitcoms' fdyorientation, and its conventional gender role depictions, are indisputable.

However, 1 have ais0 attempted to uncover, as Joanne Meyerowitz's collection did, the myriad of different and dissenting voices of the 1950s. To this end, in my analysis of masculinity and fernininity 1 have attempted to give voice and importance to dissenting images fiom the ideal and to highlight its intemal contradictions. 1 have tned, in every analysis, to look for Meyerowitz. My study, whiie in essence holding the line of May's containment theory, has attempted to uncover dissent from the ideal in any form. While 1 would not posit Meyerowitz and May as opposites, but rather as two sides of the same coin, they coexist in my study structuring the paradox of 1950s gender roles, symbolizing both conformity and difference, dissimulation and unhappiness. Chapter II Television as Societv:

Imaw of

Familv & the

TV Communitv

Recent scholarship has re-examined the myths of the 1950s, revealing "the rnind- boggiing power of American culture to foster an almost complete collective amnesia about events and attitudes of the not-very-distant past."l The persistent image of a "Happy

Days" era of harmony, and confonnity as collective memory denies the very real diversity to which the 1950s was witness. What this nostalgia reveals, however, is the enormous power of television to shape our understanding of the past and to stmcture our collective memory. The ideal of domestic bliss which underlies the idea of the "du11 decade" does not reflect the social angst which lay below the surface and which emerges in the social comrnentaty of the time. Real life was neither so white, nor so afnuent as it appeared on

TV. A quarter of the population of America was poor in the mid-1950s, and in the absence of food starnps and housing projects, this poverty was very red2Furthemore, the realities of race and ciass dissatisfaction were nowhere reflected in the national ethos

l Gaile McGregor. "Domestic Blitt- A Revisionist History of the Fifties."American Studies. 34 (Spring. 1993). p.6. II Television as Socieîy 25

of the tirne. Minorities were almost entirely excluded eom the gains and pnvileges of white rniddle-class families. The homogenous fdiesthat we "remember" nom the 1950s were partly a result of television's denial of this diversity3 Historian George Lipsitz suggests that one reason for this is that historical memory is in crisis. Instead of relating to the past through a shared sense of place or ancestry, consumers of electronic mass media acquire rnemories about a past to which they have no co~ection.Memory, then, becomes managed rni~a~~ro~riation.~Lipsitz explored this idea in an exhibition which focussed on the television program, 1 Remember Marna. Comrnents at the exhibition revealed that the show played to a desired past that people wished they had lived rather than the past as they actually experienced ite5"If our own personal pasts cannot be venerated as moral guides for the present," Lipstiz suggests, "we choose another from history or art and embrace it as our own?

C~eationof a Commun Culture

The emergence of television as a powemil social medium in the 1950s highlights its importance as a site of culture formation and as a source for the dissemination of social values and behaviorai expectations. During the 1950s television established its predominance in the Amencan home as a source of entertainment and as a means of accessing an emerging mass culture. Television technology evolved in the late 1930s making image and sound simultaneously available; however, it only gained real popularity

' Stephanie Cooniz, nie Wa-v We Never Were: American Famines and the Nostalgiu Trap. (New York: Basic Books, 1992). p.29. ' ibid.. p.3 1. George Lipsitz. Time Passages: ~ColctiveMentoty and A merican Populor Culfure.(Mimeapol is: Univeristy of Minnesota Press. 1990). p.5. ' Ibid.. p.79. II Television as Society 26 and prominence as a home entertainment medium in the postwar years. Mer the war television took hold of the Amencan imagination and television programming began in earnest. Statistics reveal the phenomenal rate of saturation with which television took hold of the American entertainment market. In 1946, 7000 sets were sold; in 1948, 148 000; and by 1950 4.4 million families owned a television set. By mid-decade televisions were selling at a rate of 20 000 a day, and by 1960, 50 million sets were owned in the U.S. alone.' Furthemore, by the late 1950s, the average person watched approximately five hours of television a day.' TV's increased appeal and universal access was unparaileled by any other entertainment medium. Its accessibility, size and the heterogeneity of the audience it spoke to made it the most popular and populist of modem, cultural communication format^.^ Not only was television free after the initial set payrnents, but it could be expenenced from the comfort of one's home. Television became a standard household appliance, a mass phenomenon and an excelient marketing tool. The setting reflected the medium - the television was literally a piece of fiirniture in the home, forming a link between the viewer and the sitcom message. It was used not only by advertisers peddling their wares, but also for selling a new ideal of farnily togethemess, and an ideology of consurnption, within a framework of contested gender definitions. Its saturation of the home entertainment market signaled a sudden and huge change in

ibid.. p. 80. ' Douglas Miller & Marion Notvak, 7he Fijties: The Wq Me Really Were. (New York: Doubleday & Co.. 1975). p.344. 8 Lynn Spigel, Make Roomfor W: Telmision and the Fmiiy Ideaf in Posiwar America. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. f 992). p. 1. In faa. in the early 1950s. Hollywood critics heraiding the television age were regularly forecasting the collapse of the HolIywood entertainment industry. And tvith the decline in profits from S 18 1 million in 11 Television as Society 27 communications technology. As a domestic presence, television proved far more intrusive and persuasive than any other medium in transmitting ideas about Lfe in the new modem

Television's emergence as a cultural force did not go unchallenged. Many social commentators of the late 1950s and 1960s echoed Federal Communications Cornmittee

(FCC)chairman, Newton Minow's critique of television as a "vast wasteland" and an

"idiot box," dismissing its content as rnindless entertainment geared to appeal to the

Iowest cornrnon denominator of mass taste. However, to dismiss television so flippantly was to avoid the medium's real and pervasive force as a source for enculturation and as a valuable historical document. Television was not a wasteland; rather, it was a lush jungle of messages, lessons, cues and instmctions on living in postwar Arnenca. Furthemore, with its universal accessibility and mass appeai, it becarne a way of relaying messages about acceptable behavior and establishing role-expectation. A subtextuai analysis of sitcom images reveals many of the concems sociologists voiced regarding changes in

Amencan society. Ideas about conforrnity, consumption and particularl y the family and gender role expectations were articulated and cntiqued within the visual medium. It had, and continues to have, an important role in shaping and reflecting social noms and in the sociaiization of people to changing ideals. "Television represents a direct Iink between technology and social organization, human consciousness and behavior. The formation of

1946 to $16 million in 1956. clearly the industry needed change to keep up with changing audience preferences. wller and Nonak. The Wuy IVe Reafly CC'ere. p. 3 15.1 II Television as Society 28 publics and the shaping of conceptions and behavion are influenced by the nature of the medium and by its ninction as a social in~titution."'~

Mass media depictions of sex-roles suggest an importance to the medium in establishing the rules of sex-appropriate behavior. In essence, television structures a social guideline for acceptable appearance, interests, skills, behaviors and self-perceptions." Its audiences tend to "model" behavior and expectations on what they see there. Conversely, what is viewed is also a reflection of the status quo. Thus, television content forms a common culture, a culture which reflects dominant patterns of social relations.

Anthropologist, Conrad Phillip Kottak argues that the common information that members of a mass society corne to share as a result of watching the same thing is culture. It is a collective, shared, meaningfùl experience, and it is transmitted by conscious and unconscious leaming e~~eriences.'~The main fùnction of television culture in the 1950s was to cultivate resistance to change, to make people accept life as good and society as just, no rnatter how things really were.I3 Television in the 1950s served this purpose - it facilitated the dissemination and adaptation of cultural codes of conduct.

The importance of television was in its ubiquity. It was not used selectively, it was used by practically al1 the people, practically al1 the time. Television cut across demographic boundaries - presenting to diverse classes, races, sexes and nationalities a

'O George Gerbner. "Television: The New State Religion?" Et Cetera. (lune 1977)- p.332. ' ' Gaye Tuchman et al., Hearth and Horne: Images of Women in the Mlau Media. (New York: O.dord University Press, 1978), p. 4. " Conrad Phillip Kottak, Prime Time Socieiy: An Anthmpological An~lysisof Television. (California: Wadsworth Publishing Co.. 1990), p.8. l3 Tuchman et ai. p.47. Lichfer et al aix, e.qlores this idm wggesring that television once served as an agent of social controt but it has becorne an agent of social change. "The onetime servant of the statu quo. it now fosters populist suspicions of traditional mores and institutions." [p. 131 II Television as SocieW 29

cornmon set of symbols, vocabulaiies, information and shared experiences." In doing so it

created a national audience with little in common except television and the shared media

message. Indeed, television now serves as a common bais for social interaction among a very widely dispersed and diverse national comrnunity. The simultaneity of the television image unites Americans and -- with the growth of Amencan cultural hegemony -- much of the western world in a comrnon experience, an "imagined ~ornrnunit~."'~Cornmon television expenences, such as the birth of Little Riclq on 1 Love LUC^'^ or, more recently, the "outing" of Ellen, serve to link the viewer with others of their sex and generation by means of a shared television experience. The pervasiveness of the television image and the repetitiveness of its message ailow for the conveyance of attitudes, beliefs and values about the contemporq world." Television structures an expectation of behavior in others, by creating "role expectation" in viewers who evaluate the behavior of others as appropriate or inappropriate compared with the television models they have corne to accept through their viewing experience.

The role of the audience in determiring television content continues to be a subject of debate among television scholars." These scholars disagree about the extent to which

- - - l4 Koffak Prime Time Society. p.7. 1s Benedict Anderson, in his Imagined Commwtities, Wposits the idea of the national comrnunity as a constnicted ideal. Radio. television and mass media work to enforce an idea of comrnunity by disserninating common images to membets of the cr>mmunitywho identitj, with this constniaed nation despite never knowing or meeting feiimv members. l6 This episode was watched by a record forty-four million Amaica~~~;more than the hventy-nine million who tuned in for the inaugural speech of Praident Eisenhower. [Jones p.73.) l7 Diana Meehan, Ladies of the Evening: Women Characrersoffrirne Time. (New Jersey: Scarecnnv, 1983). p.4-5. l8 Muriel Cantor, in Prime-Time Television: Content and Control (London: Sage Publications, 1980) outlines debate surroundhg the question of audience preferences and programming content. The "demand model" suggests that the audience is veq powerfiil; Mas-Society theorists suggest the audience is powerless: and the "sociological "model" sees the audience as only moderately infiuential. [p.97] II Television as Society 30 content is reflective of audience preference or a constmct of networks and producers.

Advocates of the "dernand modei" believe that the market determined content with audiences playing a very iduential role in its selection or non-selection of programs for viewing through the ratings systems. Others suggest that those who controlled the medium had unprecedented power in exploiting the television audience as a market. These mass society theonsts suggested that demand was created by those who controlled the market and view the audience as the passive recipient of their message. The "sociological perspective" suggested a middle ground between these two seeing the audience as having an indirect but active input into the creation of content. In this paradigm, producers offer programming which is consonant with their understanding of Amencan values. Producers decide the content of their message based on their beliefs about the nature of audience preference. Thus audience preference is indirectly inferred by planners' assumptions about taste and conferred in its selection of programming. Whether television reflected an ideal which elites wished to impose on the viewing public or whether television reflected the desired ideal of the American viewer, the medium nonetheless communicated an important idea of what Amencan life, culture and society was meant to be, which, when viewed by millions of Amencans daily, became a common culture and created a "way of seeing" universally accessible to the Amencan population.19

19 Though this study does not e.samine the role of TV nehvorks in sitcom production. it is important to note that a vast literature e'cists on the role of the networks as powerfirl mediators behveen domestic policy. private interests (such as sponsors and production companies), and the domestic family ideal. 11 Television as Societv 31

The Sitcorn Genre

Television sitcoms are no longer considered a laughùig matter. Whife they were

once disrnissed as fluff and fmtasy, the lessons of the entertainment medium are now

acknowledged as serious business. This change is evident in the public and political debate

on family values highlighted by Dan Quayle's comment about Murphy Brown's single-

mother status and in the media fienzy surrounding Ellen's "corning out'' episode. Social

commentators have begun to treat entertainment as seriously as the news in understanding

American popular discourse." Television entertainment introduces an alternative reality,

whose images reshape as well as reflect the real world. Indeed, even the most imocuous

sitcom conveys messages about how Amencan society works and how its citizens should behave.

nie EIectronic Community

Television's early sitcom communities acted, in a way, as a substitute or parallel community and helped to naturalize the new technology by conveying stories about everyday situations that took place in fàmiliar settings. This eiectronic neighborhood reflected a level of naturalism that fed the viewer's expectation of verisimilitude through images and stones that conveyed common experiences highlighted public concerns, and

"normalized" cultural shifts. Since the 1950s television has produced, in Lynn Spigel's words, a "virtual facsimiie community of the air cornpiete with neighborhoods and families

'O Robert Lichter. Linda Lichter & Stanley Rothman, Prime Time: How Television Portroys American Culture. (Washington: Regnely Publishing, 1994). The authors suggest that the qualitative change in the social role of popular culture has witnessed a merging of the entertainment and information medium to such an extent that the distinction between the hvo has become htened. tndeed, they sarcastically suggest that "Reality lias become one more ingredient in a pop culture stew chat is seasoned to audience taste." p.4-5. II Television as Society 32 that seem to share the same experiences we share or perhaps to experience social life for us, in place of us."*' This "facsirnile community" is important not only because of the suburban isolation and transience of most middle-class families in the 1950s but also in terms of TV's role in normdi'ng changes in socid values. It effectively altered the context of "keeping up with the Jones"' when the Jones' were the Andersons on television. The process of "learning" social behavior, gender roles and the postwar consumption ethos became tied to the electronic community of the television neighborhood. Sitcoms' reflection of these behaviors revealed interesting tensions in the process of enculturation.

The fd1y sitcom or the "domcorn" grew out of a hybrid of two entertainment traditions: the anthology drama and the variety show? This new format, which called upon the conventions of theatrical realism and vaudevillian humour, proved one of the most successful formats for television entertainrned3 Both genres based their appeal on intimacy, irnmediacy and spontaneity. From theatrical realism, sitcoms adopted classical story construction, character development, and an acting style that minirnized artifice so that the audience would be better able to suspend disbelief and enter into the world of the narrative. This allowed the viewer to relate to the subject matter and to identify with the participants. The vaudevillian aesthetic privileged performance over story, featuring the

" Spigel, Make Room fir W.p. LOO. -ii Radio situation cornedies were television's natural antecedents. In fact, television adopted many of radio's narrative story Iines, as well as its industry stars. Indeed, many of television's early programs were based on earlier radio shows ie. Amos n' Andy, Our Miss Bmka and My Favorite Husband (which evolved into 1 Love Lucy). " Spigel Make Room for 7T: p. 142. II Television as Society 33

zany antics of comics and using narratives as a pretense for gags. Theatrical realism

provided the "situation" and vaudeville the "comedy." The combination was enormously

successfbl in reaching family audiences. Propnety, however, proved central to maintaining

this compromise, defining an ever-shifting line between acceptable and unacceptable

behaviour in family viewing. Lynn Spigel suggests that the sitcom rnerger allowed people

to enjoy the rowdy, ethnic and ofien sexually explicit antics of vanety show clowning, à la

Milton Berle, by packaging their outlandishness in rniddle-class codes of respectability.

The success of shows like 1 Love Lucy, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show,

and i Married Joan, which introduced vaudevillian male-fernale comedy routines to the

television screen, evidenced the success of this trend.

A mix of naturalism and theatricality defined the "domcorn," making it a "theatre

of the everyday," which presented reality in a heightened and exaggerated fa~hion.~~By

1955, however, the rnove towards realism in family comedies had become more

pronounced as the genre increasingly emphasized storytelling over comedic performances.

The appearance of The Adventures of Ozzie and Hamet in 1952 marked the transition to a more naturalistic type of cornedy where middle-class farnily noms became dominant.

Llnlike the vaudevillian routines of the previous couple-oriented comedy shows, this program type downplayed the talents of the celebrity couple, centenng most of its plot around the domestic "adventures" of the family as a whole. Increasing narrative dominance was accorded to the role of the children and the importance of parenting.

Realism in the family sitcom flourished toward the end of the 1950s in shows like Father 11 Television as Society 34

ffiows Best, Leave it to Beaver, and The Donna Reed Show, which drew on codes of

verisirnilitude to a much greater extent. These programs worked to "naturalize farnily life,"

to make it appear as if this living arrangement was the only one possible. The focus fell

increasingly on generational rather than gender conflicts, and the basis for their drarnatic

appeal lay more in sibling rivalry and the dilemmas of child-rearing than in the battle

between the sexes, refiecting to a certain extent the ernergent youth culture's influence on

popular culture content?

The Role of the Fami& in 2950s Sitcoltts: The Golden Age of fimily Life or the Wq We Never Were

The 1950s sitcom family constructed an ideal, not only of the day, but for our time

as well. This ided of the white, American, middle-class family, consisted of a homemaker-

mother, a breadwimer-father and two college-bound kids in an upper rniddle-class, single-

resident suburban home living orderly lives without major traumas or disturbances. The

golden age of farnily Me, which these smiling, happy, fàmilies on television came to

syrnbolize, created a nostalgia for the 1950s which began in the 1960s and has persisted

ever since. Such families were not the most commonly found units in the 1950s, in fact

real iife was not nearly so white, so afnuent, or so contented as it appeared to be on TV; however, the nuclear family was the Amencan ideal and its representation in the mass media signals the hegemony of this ideal. 26 At any given time in the 1950s television line-

'5 Ibid.. p. 178. 26 ~uchmanet al.. Hearth and Honte. p.8. LI Television as Society 35 up, three of five sitcoms featured a family as its central characters, and in some cases the actud families played themselves, as in The Adventures of hieand Harriet. In several other cases actual couples played the parents.

The centrality of the nuclear faMy on 1950s television reflected the society's focus on the family, evidenced not only in the literature of the day but also in govemment policy targetting family life. A 1958 issue of Woman's Guide fo Beifer Living suggested that

"Whether you are a man or a woman the family is the unit to which you most genuinely belong ... family is the center of your living. If it isnt you've gone a~tra~."~'Marriage and fàmily were indisputably core concepts in the 1950s stmctunng the Amencan national character and creating a sort of McCarthyist censorship toward anyone who deviated fiom the prevailing family Not only did the family represent the basic consuming unit in the postwar market, offering a vision of abundance and fulfillment, but the self- contained home also represented security in an insecure, nuclear world." A "normal" family becarne a frontline of defense against comrnunist insurgence and the uncertainty of a changing society. This idea was epitomized in the striking image of the suburban home and family as a symbol of the Amen'can way of life which was evoked by Vice-President

Nixon in the famous "Kitchen Debate." Arnericans proved to be eager to embrace domesticity in the rnidst of the terrors of the atornic age, and a home filled with children created the necessary feeling of warmth and secunty against the cold war forces of

" Miller and neWqy We Were, p. 147. '8 Arlene Skolnick, En~battledPurudise: The Anlericon Family in an Age ojUncertainiy. ('New York: Basic Books, 199 1). p.65. Elaine Tyler May. Honteward Bound: American Famifies in the Cold !Var Em Wew York: Basic Books. 1988). p.3. I Television as Society 36

potential nuclear annihi~ation.~~The increase in the rates of marriage and the decrease in

the age of marriage reflected these concems. People were marrying younger; the 1950

census documents the average age of mamage was 22 for men and 20.3 for ~ornen-~l

Furthemore, the boom in the birthrate which commenced almoa imrnediately afler the

end of WWn reflected the familial focus of postwar Americans and encouraged the

decade's fascination with parenthood.

Unfortunately, domestic reality did not agree with the ideal. Far from being a golden age of family lifk, Amencan fadies were haunted by contradictory demands and expectations. For some, growing up in 1950s families was not so much a matter of being protected from the harsh realities of the outside world as preventing the outside world from learning the harsh realities of family life. Behind the facade of many "ideal" families lurked discontent, abuse and dis~imulation.'~Although the most distinctive feature of

American family life had always been its diversity, the smiiing, hornogeneous television families incarnated an idealized myth of the "Arnexican way of life." The tension between the culturaily promised family and everyday We generated unrealistically high expectations of farnily life.33These idealized portraits of family togethemess created unhappiness and discontent.

The predominance of the idealized family image saturated television with the importance of being married and of being part of a family. This idyll was continually

ibid. Miiier and NOM&, nie iVay We Realiy Were. p. 147 32 Coone The IVay We Never Wete, p. 34. 33 The discrepancy behveen the ideal and the reality of American family life in the 1950s is estensively discussed in Skolnick's Enrbartled Paradise, as well as Stephanie Coontz' The Wav Cf'e Mer IVere. II Television as Societv 37

emphasized by dialogue in which explicit comments extoiled the virtues of the nuclear

unit. Marriage, rnotherhood, fatherhood and the security of the home serve as natural

topics of conversation, in which family life emerged as a charming excursion into

modemity while resting on the unshakable stability of tradition. Television children

inhabited a universe in which mild sibling quarrels were quickly but fairly adjudicated by sage, kindly parents equipped with endless reserves of time and patience.34~he underlying assumption was that parents would love and respect their children forever, and that their children would grow up, go to college and take up lives identical to their parents. This idea is beautifùlly enacted in the premiere episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and

Hamet, where the continued emphasis on farnily togethemess was a major organiring principle. The Nelson parents were never too busy to take a special interest in the activities of their sons and the Nelson boys were never too rebellious to share their problems with their parents. In a conversation between Oza'e and neighbour, Thomy, the dads discussed the future of their respective sons in a cornpetitive manner. They discussed future colleges and professions for their sons as well as their prospective wives, where the boys would Iive and grandchildren. There was an unspoken but clear expectation in this conversation that the children would mirror their parents' life pattern. And ironicdly, they do. When David and Ricky did marry in real life, their wives were written into the show.

Family togethemess continued and so did family traditions.

The language and imagery of the farnily was ubiquitous in every genre of television programming: comedy, dramatic senes, daytime and night-times soaps. However, the

'' Ella Taylor. Prime Tina Families: Television Culture in Postwm America. (Berkeley: University of II Television as Societv 38

sitcom, in particular, with the continuity of its weekly episodes, allowed the viewer to

build a gradua1 attachent to characten and their relationships, and, therefore, lent itself

more readily to disseminating ideas about farnily values.3' From their beginnings sitcorns

sought to teach social lessons. First in shows like 1 Remember Marna and The

Goldmans, where sitcom rnorality piayed itselfout in a nostalgie context. By the mid-

1950s, in shows like Father Knows Best, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and later on Leave it to Beaver, and The Donna Reed Show, morality lessons and the teaching of family values as well as the emphasis on farnily togethemess becarne an essential element in their depiction of contemporary settings.

One episode of Father Knows Best sought to underline the importance of cordial communication between parents and demonstrate the destructiveness of parental discord.

Bud, the Anderson's boy, at £irst ridiculed his parents' cordiality to one another, bernoanhg the lack of fights between them. In one instance, he cornments sarcastically,

"Ail will be calm and angelic, no harsh words will contaminate the domesticated bliss of

Our home sweet home." Later in the episode after witnessing a fight between his parents -

[mislrepresented as a "mock" argument - he admitted that "it gave me a sick feeling when

I thought you were fighting." Both the dissimulation of the parents, the suggestion that the real fight was a ruse, and Bud's reaction of horror at his parents' argument serve to promote the desirability of family harmony as well as underline the destmctiveness of parental bickering.

California, 1989). p.27. 35 Tay [or. Prime keFanidies, p. 17. II Television as Society 39

Similarly, in The Adventures of Ozzie and Hamiet the Nelson philosophy of kindness and consideration for others was pervasive. Solutions to farnily or individual problems were always sought in the best interest of al1 concemed. Ozzie Nelson's philosophy of parenting included the responsibility to, "instill in his children the thoughtfulness and consideration of people's feelings... 1 think mainly 1 tried to instill in my boys this kind of integrity, kindness and thoughtfulness of other people, their rights and des ire^."'^ This philosophy was "taught" to the Arnerican viewing public which enjoyed or rather, endured, his message for fourteen years.

The 1950s family was, in many ways, a myth, a creation for the maintenance and psychic well-being of ~ociety.~'Father Knows Best was lauded for restoring "parental prestige" to television and Robert Young was awarded for the Constructive Portrayal of

Amencan Family Life by the Farnily SeMce Association in 1955.'~This praise of Young as an ideal father and family figure is ironic, given his stmggles with alcoholism and depression during and fier this tirne. Further dissonance between the show's pristine image and the reality of its actors' lives is revealed in the fact that Elinor Donahue, who piayed the eldest daughter Betty, a guileless teenager on the show, had a baby out of wedlock while taping the show.-'' The mythologizing of 1950s farnily life was severely critiqued by Billy Grey, who played Bud on Father Knows Best:

1 wish there was some way I could tell kids not to believe it ...the show did everybody a disservice.. .[it] purported to be a reasonable facsimile of life.. .it gave

-- - -- '' 1.losIy-n& I. Pendeison, "The Adventures of Orne and Hamiet" Joumol of Popular Che.7(1), p.25-26. " NiLeibman, Living Rwm Lectures: The fiJies Fmiiy in Film and Television. (Aunui: Univesity of Tesas Press, 1993, p. 10. 38 Gerard Jones. Honey I hi Home: Sitcomr S4ing the .4nterican Dream. (New York: GmeWeidenfeld, 1992). p. 101. 39 Father Knows Best - Seminar Series 11 Television as Society JO

everyone a bad cornparison with their own lives ...looked at fiom a certain slant, it's an incredibly destructive pattern for ernu~ation.~~

Grey targeted the aforementioned episode that deait with parental disagreements for its unredistic treatment of the subject, suggesting that the lie of "we never argue" was less constructive than adrnitting its existence as a natural reality of family and social relations.

Homogeneiîy in 1950s Sitcoms

By the mid-1950s television portrayed a "wondefilly" antiseptic world of idealized, Amencans. No Italians, Jews or Blacks populated Arnenca's television sets; it was a world of Andersons, Nelsons and lea avers." Everyone on television belonged to the political and economic center and no one on TV doubted that the Arnerican values of consumerism and family togetherness worked. The hegemony of middle-class values successfulIy dominated the television sitcom ideal. Sitcorns reinforced social conformity to the ideal of Arnerican home life as white and middle-class, and acted as an homogenizing infiuence to the diversified experiences of postwar Americans. Nowhere in this image is voice given to the American poor dunng the 1950~~or to the cultural diversity which the black, hispanic and immigrant populations evidenced. Rather, it assurned that the domestic ideal was accessible to al1 Arnericans.

Interestingly, an examination of early sitcoms reveals a relative plethora of "ethnic" types. 1 Remember Marna featured the Hansens, a working-class Norwegian family, The

Goldbergs a Jewish family in New York, Life with Luigi, Italian immigrants in Chicago,

Rick Mi= nte Great WSitcorn Book (New York: Richard Ma& 1980). p. 1 10. " David Halbe- 7he Fiflies. (New York" Vilard Books. 1993). p.509. LI Television as Society 41

and Amos 'n Andy and Beulah blacks in New York. However, by 1954 none of these

diverse, working-class, ethnic images remained on prime-time. Both 1 Remember Marna

and The Goldbergs were popular and had considerable runs on television. They were

commended for their sensitive portrayal of ethnic working-class family life and for their

strong matnarchal focus. In contrast, both Amos 'n Andy and Beulah were heavily

criticized for their depictions of blacks and eventually forced off the air because of protest

by the NAACP.

The demise of Amos 'n Andy caused particular controversy. It had been a successfùl radio program since 1925 with white actors playing the lead roles of Amos and

Andy. When its white producers, Freernan Gosden and Charles Correll, brought it over to television amidst much publicity, it featured an al1 black cast. It irnmediately drew protest from the NAACP for "depicting the Negro in a stereotyped and degrading manner ...

[which] strengthens the conclusion among uninformed or prejudiced people that Negroes and other minorities are irferior, lazy, dumb and di~honest.""~The chief, though not sole, focus of criticism was the character of Kingfish - "the lying, fleecing, strutting, mugging, scheming c00n."~~The rniddle-class element of black society proved rnost vocal in its objection to the Amos 'n Andy stereotypes - which is not to Say that working-class blacks embraced the show. Middle-class blacks who had distinguished themselves from the mass of blacks found that the show, "demeaned aspiration, burlesqued the complex distinctions that marked black social classes, and presented to a national white audience an

" Jones, Huney I 'm Hume. p.52. " ibid. p.55. 11 Television as Society 12 image of maddening oversirnplicity."" The primacy of the white viewing audience was of central importance to the critique, as middle-class blacks winced at the thought that their collective image rested with two white men whose adult life had been devoted to creating a nation-wide mnning gag about biacks." The key to the protest against the show was its laugh track - it was white laughs Arnericans heard. Whereas a show like The Jeffersons, which aired in the 1970s also featured a "Kingfish characte? in the role of George

Jefferson, the dzerence was that The Jeffersons was a show for black people in which the laugh track was black. Amos 'n Andy, on the other hand, was a show about black people for white people."

Though not criticized at the time, the marginalized and shrewish depiction of black women not only represented a deviation from the usual strong working-class matriarch figure of other "ethnic" sitcorns, but aiso depicted a much criticized stereotype of black

~ornen.'~Amos 'n Andy's demise marked the end of a cycle of ethnic sitcoms on

American television, and it also marked the disappearance of blacks from television series for meen years and the marginalization of black supporting characters or guest stars for a decade. This marginalization of blacks in 1950s television narratives is particularly interesting given the nascent rnobiiization of the nation's black population in the late

1950s and 1960s, which ironicaily used the mass media to articulate its platforrns and publicize racial injustice.

44 Thomas Cripps, TxAmos and Andy Contrwersy," Arnericm Histogh?rnericon Television. (Spring ) p.34. 4s Cripps, 'The Amos and Andy Controversy," p.39. 16 Mie The Great TVSitconi Book, p.3 1. " Accordhg to Hill et al. if one called a biack woman "Sapphire." the name of Kingfkh's wire in Amos 'n Andy. one wouid have to "engage in fïsticiiffs"due to the negative connotations of the word. II Television as Society 43

In examining the decline of ethnic images on television, one may draw a parallel between the nse of television's national appeal and the decline of the ethnic and racial types as a source of narrative construction. The growth of television's appeal in the early years was not uniform; rather it followed a western migration with the Nonheastem States initiating acceptance of television as home entertainment. Early television prograrnming reflected audience composition. Not only were these prograrns set in Manhattan, they were also filmed [ive fiom New York and viewed primarily by New Yorkers. This audience was predominantly cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse and familiar with the thriving theatre and broadway tradition of vaudevillian clowning and ethnic humour. With the migration of the viewing audience westward into the less ethnically diverse herican mid-west, however, these ethnic images became less representative. Lndeed, Milton

Berle's variety show, though initially a hit on television, lost popularity in the mid-1950s.

Berle's loss of populanty was infiuenced by the fact that his New York, Yiddish vaudeville humour did not appeal to the growing, rural mid-western market." Increasingly, ethnicity was sidelined in television content, no longer structured as a mode of address linking narrative with audience. As audiences grew and became dernographically diversified, ethnicity ceased to be a shared cultural expenence -- instead it becarne a source of humour, a mnning gag as opposed to identifiable reality. As television became a national medium, rniddle-class values increasingly structured its content.

- - -- 48 Spigel. Make Rooni for Ti : p. 147. II Television as Societv 44

Cor~s~irnptior~& Homogmiiy

The presence of the ethnic working-class sitcom, popular in the early 1950s, ran counter to the commercial properties of the medium. Incongniity was inherent in the juxtaposition of the econornic deprivation of working-class households and the context of the consumer orientation of the medium." By 1954 these working-class images had been phased out of the public eye, and even at their peak there were only four popular working- class sitcoms in cornparison to the thirteen middle-ciass successes. The hegemony of rniddle-class values of respectability and family togethemess - in 1 Remember Marna and

The Goldbergs - or aspirations for upward mobility - evidenced by Kramden and Riley's get-nch-quick schemes in The Honeymooners and The Life of RiIey - prevailed even within these working-class shows. This emphasis sanctioned a lack of dignity and legitirnacy for the working-class image within the national medium and reinforced the predominance and desirability of the middle-class ideal.

As ethnic and working-class images were phased out and replaced by the upper rniddle-class coziness of Father Knows Best and The Adventures of Ozzie and

~arriet,~'producers rnay well have thought they were reproducing the typical Amencan family. What they reproduced, however, was less the expenence of most family lives in the

1950s, than a postwar ideology that forecast steady rates of economic growth aimed at eliminating class and ethnic confli~t.~'The setting and character traits of family members

George Lipsiîz TheMerining of Mernory: Famiiy Class and Ethnicity in Eariy Nehvork TV." Coniera Obscura. 16(Janmy 1988). p.79. 'Sarcastically termed "benevolent Aryan melodramas" by Tom Engel hardt in The End of Victory Culture: Cold War .4nrericti and the Disillusioning ofa Generation New York: Basic Books. 1995). p. 146. 5 1 Taylor. Prinre Tinre Fontilies. p.-#. II Television as Society 15

in these sitcoms naturalized middle-class home life, masking the social and economic

barriers to entry into that privileged domain. The heterogeneity of class and gender which

in reality formed the national nom was manifest neither in Father Knows Best nor Leave

it to Beaver. The Andersons, Cleavers and Nelsons aii ranked quite well in terms of their

socio-economic position in society. In other words, television naturalized this rniddle-class

status by avoiding reference to the social and economic means by which these families attained their middle-class statuss2

Television became the most important discursive medium in American culture charged with making middle-class economic and social relations legitimate to its audience.

It created a nexus between the consumer consciousness of the 1950s and the collective social memory of the Depression experience of the thirties. The Depression not only damaged the economy; it also undercut the political and cultural legitimacy of Amencan capitalism. The 1950s consumer culture required new ideas and spending practices to take hold of American households. The ideology of newness and credit purchasing contradicted the Iessons of the 1930s and required a social re-education to a consumer ethos. Postwar prosperity encouraged speculation that the developing consumer marketplace would eliminate gross social inequalities and create conditions where al1 Americans could buy cars, refigerators and own ranch-style houses." Television worked to create an homogenized mass audience which reflected the hegemonic consumer postwar ideology

" Mary B*h Wovich "Sitamu and Subwtrs: Positionhg the 1950s Homemaker." QuarterfyRwim of Filnt and Kdeo. 1 1.1 (May I989), p.74. '' Warren Sussman 4Did Success Spi1 the U.S.?Dual Represcntation in Postwar Arnerica." in Recasting .4 nrerica: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cold Far. ed. Lary May (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). p.2 1. which maintained that happiness, liberty, equality, and fiaternity could be affirmed through

existing private cornmodity fonns." A "culture of abundan~e"~~provided a key therne in

1950s sitcoms either in the relaxed assumption of affluence of the Nelsons, Andersons,

Cleavers and Stones or in the endless get-rich quick schemes of Rdph Kramden and

Chester &ley?

The sitcom image of the family, with its attendant gendered conceptions of

masculinity and femininity, became increasingiy white and middle-class. Television assured

viewers that an Arnerican self-image as a nation of wholesome, middle-class consumers was a positive and welcome fact of life. It was perceived by idealists as a solvent that could melt away the differences between Arnencans. Yet substantial discord over the corûormity of middle-class America in the 1950s suggests otherwise. Indeed, the discontent sirnmering below the smooth surface of domestic life helped Fuel the cultural upheaval of the following decades.

Y Lipsiiz 'The Meanhg oFMemory."p.93. '' Warren 1. Sussman. Culture as HisIory. (New York: Pantheon Book 1973). p.n. Sussman suggests that a iùndamental conflict in 20" centuiy America \vas behwn two cultures: a Puritan-republican, producer-capidist culture and a newly emerging culture of abundance. The 1950s marked the ascension of this second culture with its empliasis on buying. spending. and consuming. [p.ss-ssiv] 56 Tay [or. Prinre Tinte Fanrilies. p. 25. Chapter III Conceptions of Gender

in the 1950s

The prevailing image of the 1950s as a contented, prosperous and socially well-

adjusted time is contradicted by much of the literature of the period which reveals

underlying anxieties about the direction of social change. Social anxiety in the postwar era

tended to focus on issues of conformity, dienation and consumerism in Amencan society.

Though these texts did not necessarily have gender as their focal point, changing ideas

about masculinity and femininity formed an important subtext to their discussion. Upon

close examination these larger issues of conformity and consumption did reflea many of

the dominant assumptions about gender in the postwar era. Gender concems received

direct and extensive address in discussion of family Me with particular interest directed at

the socialization of children in American society. Social commentators who critiqued

Amencan society suggested that neurosis in the population resulted from faulty parenting

or structurai flaws in the farnily contributing to maladjusted sex-role education. In this

context, masculinity and femininity were extensively critiqued.

These discussions of gender and social anxiety should fom a comparative basis for any serious analysis of gender in television. In the 1950s the cultural reorientation to ïïï Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 48 domesticity, and the concomitant retum to the traditionai gender roles of breadwimer- father and homemaker-mother, formed the bais for television sitcom images of the era.

Analysis of these roles allows for a greater understanding of the cornplexity of the sitcom image.

Gender Roles - Ail in the Famil'y

Anxiety regarding how changes in society affected male and female roles revealed the period's concem with changing gender roles. This concem was most extensively explored in analysis of the changing face of the Amencan family. With biological functionalism forming the subtext for analysis of gender roies, reproduction emerged as the assumed purpose of human existence. Freud's earlier assertion that "anatomy is destiny" maintained that each sex's options in life was determined by immutable physical characteristics.' Therefore the main purpose of men and women was to form families and raise children. Not surprisingly, the majority of these discussions tended to be prescriptive treatises on the necessity for women to conform to standards of wifely or motherly ideals, thereby grounding child-rearing ideology in the pre-eminence of motherhood. Conceptions of gender in the 1950s were analyzed in several contexts. Social commentary suggested an increased convergence in gender roles encouraged by the equal education of both sexes.

A second theme analyzed the changing relationship between husband and wife, identified by sociologist Talcott Parsons as the "companionship marriage" model. A third area of discussion conflated concem over the socialization of children with the changing role of

' William Henry Chafe. The .4 rnerican Monmn: Her Changing Sociul. Economic und Political Roles. l92O-/970. (New York: O'dord University Press. 1972). p.209. iII Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 49 1950s

women in society while a final area of discussion focussed upon the changing role of men

in society and the pivotal role the father was to play in this new American family.

Men and Women - Becoming Equal?

Sociological studies of the tirne identified an increasing convergence in the roles of

men and women. More than ever before women, particularly married women and mothers,

worked outside the home, continuing a trend which had been intensified during World

War U. Furthemore, social and cultural indicators such as prosperity, the expansion of

higher education, the democratization of the family, and increased emphasis on sexual

pleasure for women suggested that the trajectory for women after the war was towards greater autonomy, equality and expanded possibilities.2This proved a central paradox in women's lives, because although possibilities for an expanded social role seemed to open up, expectation of success remained limited.

Talcon Parsons suggested that Amencan society was conspicuous for the extent to which children of both sexes were in many fundamental respects treated alike. The convergence of sex roles reflected new postwar technology and the needs of the modem occupational world, which no longer required accenting sexual daerences, but rather stressed adaptability of personality. The lack of distinction in curriculum for male and female children was an important hornogenizing infiuence. According to Parsons, "One of the most conspicuous expressions and symbols of the underlying equality [of the sexes]... is the lack of sex differentiation in the process of forma1 education... up through college

------' Wini Breines. "The 1950s: Cknder and Some Socid Science." SocioIogical Inquiry. 56 (Winter 1986). p.69. III Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 50 1950s

differentiation seerns to be primady a matter on the one hand of individual ability, on the

other hand of class status, and only to a secondary degree of sex d~erentiation."'

This focus on education was elaborated by postwar sociologist, Mirra

Komarovsky, who suggested that women and men shared a cornmon ability to rnaster

most academic subjects when equally encouraged towards acadernic achievement in their youth. Where the argument of convergent sex roles fails, according to Komarovsky, was in the contradiction between ability and expectation for women. While wornen received a comparable education to men, the only acceptable ambition for a women was the goal of mamiage and motherhood. Moreover, as she aged a woman found that the hard work and good grades of her schooling became deleterious to her future happiness. ui college she was warned against being "too smart" and scaring off prospective suitors. Traits which were defined as assets in her youth becarne liabilities in her adulthood. Where once she was encouraged to be cornpetitive she was now instnicted to be docile. Anthropologist,

Margaret Mead, elaborated, 'howe end up with the contradictory picture of a society that appears to throw its doors wide open to women, but translates her every step towards success as having been damaging to her own chances of marriage, and to the men whom she passes on the road."'

Furthemore, the 1950s were dominated by a mass media, popular culture and social values that encouraged traditional fernininity. Girls received powerful messages to the effea that their lives would be nothing Iike men's, despite their comparable education.

-- - - 3 Talcott Parsons, Eksays in Sociological Thought. (New York: Free Press, 1954). p.89. '' Parsons. Esscys in Sociological Thought. p.9 1. m Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Geuder in the 5 1

In his study of suburban life, Cres~oodHeights, John Seeley suggested that a girl's soci~tionwas demoralizing since in school she was educated for a career just like boys,

"in the classroom, the sex of the student is largely irrelevant. The girl who in ten years will be nnsing diapers cornpetes in the trigonometry class with the boy will be an engineer - and often gets higher marks."6 Despite this equal education, Parsons advises that, "the woman's primary statu-carrying role is ... that of her husband's wife, the mother of his children, and traditionally the person responsible for a complex of activities in comection with the management of the household care of children."' It is perplexing that both

Parsons and Seeley identify the conflict between increased equality of upbringing and the emphasis on traditional femininity as the end goal of American women, without acknowledging the contradiction or the destmctive effect it rnight have on social

Parsons suggested that the family in the 1950s became increasingly specialized in its function, with the socialization of children and the stabilization of the adult personality as its most important functions. The family in the postwar era was a mobile unit, isolated

From exîended kin ties. Its transience increased the exclusive interdependence of husbands

Margaret Mead, Male and Feniale. (New York: William Momwv and Company, 1949)- p.3 15. John Seeley, Crestwood Heights. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1956). p. 142. Parsons, Essays in Sociological Thought, p.95. This is of particular interest in the case of Tafcott Parsons given the stniggle his daughter Anne Parsons had with precisely these issues. A doctorai student of sociology, Anne Parsons evennially suffered a nervous breakdown because of her inability to. as she put it "to corne to terms with [hcr] basic ferninine instinct." Her story is detailed in Wini Breines' l'oung, JKWe andhfiserable. III Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 5 2

and wives. Their solitary relationship became the linchpin of the farnilyysidentificationeg

"The tie between husband and wife indeed became pre-eminently important, providing, as

it did the one enduring human relationship in the so~iet~."'~Not only was the relationship

between husband and wife a central defining unit - the link that held the f~lytogether - it

was also the source of divergent feminine and masculine role socialkation. It facilitated

growing equality and cornpanionship between husband and wife. This companionship

model delineated separate but complementary spheres for husbands and wives, paralleling

the public and pnvate domains. While this model aiso encouraged a strong role for the

father in the sociaiization of his children, women were not encouraged to have the same

access to the male-domikated public sphere.

Parsons' paradigm of feminine roles included several patterns. The first

"d~rnestic'~pattern was characterized by the housede, who had strong affectional devotion to her husband and children. Parsons contended that this pattern had become progressively less comrnon as it conferred little prestige, while at the same time offenng the highest level of security. Alternatives to this pattern were suggested in the "glarnour" pattern which appeared to "offsety' masculine occupation status by realigning women's focus to her sexual attractiveness. This tended "...to segregate the elernents of sexual interest and attraction fiom the total personality and in so doing emphasized the segregation of sex roles."" This pattern offered an attractive alternative to the wornan who desired the power and prestige of the occupational sphere, as it offered an alternative

Wini Breines. Young, Ffiite and Miserable. (Boston: Beacon Press. 1992). p.77. 'O Seeley. Crestwood Heights. p. 162 ïïï Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 5 3 female spectmm of hierarchy and success. The pattern that held the greatest oppominities for the capable, intelligent, and emotionally mature woman was the ''good companion" model, which emphasized common humanistic elements of social weKare, and offered an outlet for usefùl work to the cornmunity as a whole. This "good cornpanion" model was preferable (according to Parsons), as it lay less stress on the exploitation of sex-roles and acknowledged ambitions which were cornmon to both sexes.'* A Princeton student described this ideal. His wife would not " be a 'career girl' but neither should she be a

'stay-at-home wife. ..She will be the Grace Kelly, camel's hair coat type. Feet on the ground, and not an ernpty shell or fake. Although an Ivy League type, she will also be centered in the home, a housewife. Perhaps at forty-five, with the children grown up, she will go in for hospital work and so on."I3 Femininity

The "Woman Question'' and the Role of Motherhood in Modern Amerka

The question of woman's role in 1950s society was a key concem of postwar social cornmentary. "Choose any set of criteria you like ...and the answer is the same: women and men are confused, uncertain and discontented with the present definition of women's place in ~rnerica."'~Concem over the socialization of Amencan children was at the heart of the debate surrounding women's function. Anti-Ferninists, such as Famham and Lundberg, targeted the increased number of working women as the major problem,

' ' Parsons. Esstys in SociologicaI Thought. p.97. " Parsons. Emysin Sociological Thought, p.97. 13 Paul Carter. rinother Part ofthe FiJies. (New York: Columbia University Press. 1983). p.88. 14 Chafe. The .-lnrerican CVonran. p.20 1. III Sociologicai Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 54 suggesting that the cause of woman's malaise lay in her refusa1 to accept her "true ferninine self" In what was termed "a classic postwar statement about women,"" historian

Ferdinand Lundberg 's and sociologist Maxynia Famham' s Modem Woman: The Lost Sex defined the ferninine as rnotherhood, and attributed to this role the responsibility for much of society's ills. On the other side of the debate, critics suggested that women were unhappy, not because of some inherent "ferninine identity," but because they were fnistrated with the dual and contradictory roles they were expected to play in this postwar society.

The socialization of children, according to Parsons, required clearly identified and understood sex-roles for parents. The ideology of separate spheres identified parenting as predominantly the responsibility of the mother. Although a major impetus of sociological studies of the family in the 1950s was the re-integration of 'Dad' into family life, MO^' still seemed to bear the brunt of responsibility for children's socialization. Ironically, blame for socially maladapted children was heaped at the feet of a seemingly reluctant mother, while it was the father-figure that social science redeemed. Not surprisingly, the actual expenences of mothers ran counter to society's romanticization of the fhlyand optirnism about companionship and equality in mamage. Women often found the new child-rearing values and goals reproacffil and burdensome. In Elaine Tyler May's examination of the Kelly Longitudinal Study of mamage in the 1950~~women were twice as likely as men to report dissatisfaction and regret with their marriage, and they were

'' Joe L. Dubbert. -4 Man's Place: dlascuhity in Transition. (New Jersey: Preotice Hall. 1979). p.252. ïU Socioiogical Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 5 5 1950s

"almost always more negative about marrïage than were men."16 While the respondents expressed a strong cornmitment to the domestic ideal, their responses to questions in the survey suggested they experienced disappointments, dashed hopes, and lowered expectations. May found that many women who had given maniage a high rating had actually resigned themselves to their situations.l7

Faniham and Lundberg's Modem Wornan, detailed a postwar fascination with female neuroses and a prescnptive restructuring of the American family dong traditional domestic lines. Their treatise allocated blame for social unhappiness at the door of women, and more specifically "unnatural" feminists and career-minded women. The hypocrisy of

Fambarn - herself a career woman -- ironically did not seem to dirninish the impact of the book. They contended that matemal over-involvement led to the weakening of the

American nation. This postwar backlash against women in the worldorce, makes the backlash of the eighties look flaccid. l8

Targeting feminists and Mary ~ollstonecra£t'~in particular, Farnham and

Lundberg deliver a scathing critique of femînist ideology based on the prernise that feminists were extrerne neurotics anlicted by penis-envy, a psychopathology which led to ferninist neurosis and unnaturd women. Women, Famham and Lundberg concluded, "have moved more deeply into a blind alley, dragging al1 society with them through their

' Elaine Tyler May. Homoward Bound. (New York: Basic Books, 1988). p. 1 93. " ibid. p.30. l8 Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Fentale with the MmMedia. (New York: Times Books, 1994). p.47. l9 Their critique of feminism kgan with a psychoanalysis of Wollstonecraft's Me. her relationship with her father. her mother and her inabiIifL to "succeed as a woman." Famham and Lundberg suggest III Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 56

tremendous influence on their chi~dren."~~They suggested many housewives and mothers

were just as disturbed as the ferninists, due to their dissatisfaction with their social role.

The home offered them few outlets for thei energy and their work did not bring them

prestige.21In identifjing the lack of prestige as part of the problem of motherhood,

Farnham and Lundberg echo Parsons in suggesting a need for renewed respect for the role

of motherhood and a revalidation of the role of the housewife. "Women must leam to

respect themselves as women and not think of themselves as pale and subrnissive echoes .. .

they are the mothers of hurnanity; do not let us forget that or under-emphasim [this]

importance... women are the tnie carriers of the spirit of h~rnanit~."~

Within the critique of womenhood, the dissatisfaction of modem women was attnbuted to the success of feminists in wooing women away fiom their true instincts into destructive patterns of career-mindedness and neurotic motherhood. The more women tumed away from their "tme femininity," the more discontented they became and the more the entire society suffered nom psychological debilitation. The solution in their eyes was to reaffirm the role of the housewife and mother as "the most important of al1 occupations in the world."

Neurosis in child-rearing was due to women's dissatisfaction with their social roles. Fadam and Lundberg suggested that "ody insufficiently loving parents give rise to neurotics ... a fully matemal woman is en rcpport with her child and the child is therefore

Woflstonecraft was afflicted with penis-enw, eEectively ignoring the validity or cuitural relevance of her Vindication of the Rights of Wonien. '%Iaryma F. Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg, hfodern Wonron: The Lost Sex. (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1947). p.20 1. '' Farnham and Lundberg. Xfodern CVontan. p.303. ïiI Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 57 1950s

well-adjusted? Concern about female neuroses opened up discussion of female semality,

identifyuig women's need to be sexuaiiy satisfied in order to be successfbl mothers. Sexual

neuroses, Faniham and Lundberg suggest were expenenced by women who consciousiy

or unconsciously rejected the idea of rnotherhood. Women who embraced the idea of

motherhood, meanwhile, rarely expenenced sexual difiiculties." Although the connedon

between sexuality and good mothenng is moot, interest in female sexual satisfaction and

the acknowledgrnent and articulation of female sexuality marked a tremendous

breakthrough.

This anti-feminist literature blamed rnothers for the inadequacy of their children.

And anxiety about this gender-development focused predorninantly on the socialization of

boys. While mothering was assumed to be instinctual, pathologies supposedly resulted

frorn the unconscious motivations of the mother. In playing out her subconscious urges

she unwittingly wrote on the child's psyche. There was no escape fkorn this instinctual

imperative -- a deficient mother would be exposed by the very symptoms of her child's

pathology. Indeed, pretending to have a good time washing the baby was not enough, one had to really enjoy it.* Not only were a mother's unconscious thoughts of concem, but she would injure her child if she either paid him too little attention or ovewhelmed him with her affection. There appeared little that a mother could do right.

- - -$3 Ashky Montagu, The Natural Superiorip of Wonien. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1956). p. 192. Famham and Lundberg, Modern Wornan. p.257. '' Ibid. p.278. -5 Barbara Ehrenriech and Deidre Englisli. For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the fiperts Advice to Women. (New York: Anchor Press. 1979). p.231. III Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in tbe 5 8

In a chapter suggestively entitled, "Mother and Child: The Slaughter of the

Innocents," Famham and Lundberg detailed categones of mothering which were harmfiil to society. The "rejecting mother" in various extreme or subtle ways rejected her responsibiiity; the "overprotective mother" inhibited her child; the "dominating mother" ovewhelmed her child with discipline and directives; and the "over-affectionate mother" smothered her child with affection to compensate for lack of sexual love in her own life.

Farnham and Lundberg identified this last category of motherhood as the most damaging to the nation's sons, as this type of mother ofien converted her sons into 'sissies.' The fully matemal, or "ferninine mother," on the other hand, did not "reject her children, attempt to overprotect them out ofguilty anxiety, dorninate them or convert them into lap dogs... She mereiy loves her ~hildren."~~This "ferninine mother," Farnham and Lundberg reassured. accounted for perhaps "50% or more of the births because she has more children than the other types." Yet the authors wamed that, the first four types produced the delinquents, the behavior problem children, alcoholics and a substantial number of criminals. The "ferninine mother," on the other hand, had accepted herself fully as a woman, she knew she was dependent on a man. For her, "having children is the most natural thing ...hers is not wisdom in the sense of intellectual knowledge. ..she just likes her children .. mistalces are unimportant in the presence of her firm love."*'

Dr. Spock, the postwar era's most consulted baby care expert, also encouraged mothers to stay at home with their children. His pragrnatic approach to childcare made no

'6-- Farnham and Lundberg. Modem Ilronron, p.305. -' ibid. p.3 19 III Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 5 9 wide-ranging proposal for social change; however, he did advocate government allowances for "al1 mothers of young children who might othenvise be cornpelled to work" because "usefùl, well-adjusted citizens are the most valuable possessions a country has, and good mother care during early childhood is the surest way to produce them."*'

While Spock's approach was much less condemnatory towards career-minded women, he nonetheless urged mothers not to work outside the home, as he felt they should realize that loving care was vital to small children. For Spock a woman's preference was negated by childbearing.

While maintaining a focus on rnotherhood, Philip Wylie's Generution of Vipers elaborated a contrasting analysis of "momisrn" in Amencan society. Aithough condernning the society as a whole, Wylie reserved special condernnation for the persona of "rnom," whom he scapegoated for much of society's woes. He suggested that this diatribe against

"momisrn" in Arnerica was not rnisogynist, but rather, pitying. Wylie cnticized Amencan society for its empty veneration of motherhood. MO^" had been toasted by politicians, feted with a national holiday, and celebrated in song. Mother worship, he suggested, was ostensibly based on the endless self-sacrifice of "mom," but in reality "mom" had an insatiable appetite for devouring her young and preventing them fkom developing into independent adults.

In a footnote to his 1955 revised edition, Wylie confionted his critics, "1 showed her as she is - ridiculous, vain, vicious, a little mad. She is her own fault first of al1 and she

" Dr. Benjamin Spock, 73e Contmon Sense Book ofBaby md Child Cam. (New York: Duell. Sloan and Parce. 1945). p.484-5. iII Sociological Perspectiva: Conceptions of Gender in the 60

is dangerous. But she is also everybody's fault. When we and Our culture and our religions

agreed to hold women the iderior sex - cursed, unclean and sinfil - we made her morn.""

Wylie suggested that the excess adoration of motherhood in American society contnbuted

to a pathological emptiness in women's lives and that with nothing else to occupy them

women preyed on their children, smothering them with affection so that they would

remain tied to the home. "Mom is everywhere and everything and darnned near everybody depends on her. Disguised as good old mon dear old mom, sweet old mom, your loving mom ...she is the bride at every funeral and the corpse at every ~edding"'~In particular,

Wylie saw moms as dangerous to the socialization of their sons: he suggested that mothers tied their sons to their apron strings and made babies of them. In short, moms castrated their sons by their over-protectiveness creating dependent, immature or deviant men --

Wylie undoubtedly meant to raise the specter of homosexuality. Written in 1942, his ideas had particular relevance to conceptions of masculinity for Amencan soldiers, addressing the fear that American youth were not measuring up. Edward Strecker, a consultant to the

Surgeon Generai of the US Amy, echoed this in Their Mother 's Sons (1946). He attnbuted the unmanliness of those rejected or discharged fiom the military on the grounds of psychic disorders to their mother's over-protectiveness.3'

Margaret Mead argued a very different perspective. Far fiom blarning mothers,

Mead suggested that malaise was rooted not in the supposed neuroses of American mothers, but in the contradictory cultural messages that formed the backbone of their

Philip Wylie. Genereation of Vipers. (New York: Rinehart and Winston. 1955). p. 194. Wylie. Generaiion of b'ipers. p. 198. III Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 61 1950s

sociali~ation.~~A growing number of social scientists rejected the argument of biological

detemiinkm because it failed to measure the impact of environment and society on

personality formation. At the core of this approach was the idea that people's lives were

shaped as much by shifiing expectations of their role behaviour as by the irnmutable characteristics of sex or psychology. "Identity is not something given," Mead wrote, "but is bestowed in acts of social recognition."33 Personality development, therefore, resulted fkom cultural noms and social circurnstances that changed over time. In her work, Mead demonstrated how characteristics were not sex-linked but resulted fiom socid conditioning. This research confirmed that women's unhappiness lay more with the changing nature of female roles than any irnmutable understanding of women's psychology. "There is no evidence," Mead maintained, "that suggests women are naturally better at caring for children."

Ferninine malaise clearly reflected the dominant system of cultural valuation in

Amencan society. Society conferred its greatest rewards on persons who succeeded as individuals in their own right. Within this system of values? women suffered fiom severe

"structural train."^^ They were educated as equals and then expected after graduation to revert to the lonely, unstimulating role of homemaker. This role conferred little prestige and was depicted by advertisers and mass media sources as a bore from which lucky housewives could escape - especially with the right kind of automatic stove or

" Edward Strecker, lheir Mother 's Sons. (Philadelphia: Lippincof 195 1). p. 6. " Margaret Mead Sex und Temperamenf.(New York: William Mom& Co.. 193 5). 33 Peter Berger "Social Roles: Society in Man." in Readings in Introducto~Sociologv. Wrong & Gracey ed.s New York: 1967). p. 1 IO. LII Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 62

-

dishwasher! American culture, they contend, subjected women to a barrage of

contradictory and contlicting images and expectations.

Did the postwar emphasis on traditional gender roles suggest a triumph for the

anti-feminist camp? In some ways it seemed like the 1950s witnessed precisely the

revitalization of family Iife which Faniham and Lundberg advocated. The "baby boom"

heralded high birth rates, there was an increase in household size, and the commercial

emphasis on farnily togethemess, as well as the suburban way of lifê, al1 add to the image

of a retum to traditional values. Yet wornen in the 1950s continued their wartime trend of

entenng the job market and expanding their sphere of infiuence. In fact, the Pace of

women's employment quickened rather than slowed during the postwar years. Umoticed

by women's magazines, child-raising experts and psychoanalysts, women started sneaking

out to work right after the postwar job shakedown in the late 1940s. In 1950 one-third of

Arnerican women held paying jobs.3s By 1960 twice as many women were at work as in

1940 and forty percent of al1 women over sixteen held a job.36 Sorne women had worked

al1 along despite al1 efforts to dissuade them from doing so - from experts' theories of

matemal rejection, to the help-wanted ads that began with "Opportunities for ambitious

young men.. .7-37

Moreover, the greatest increase of women in the work force was arnong well-

educated wives £tom families with moderate incornes. Not only was the revolution in

34 Florence Kluckhom "Cultural Factors in Social Work Practice and Education." Social Service Review. XXV (March 1951. p.40. 35 Ehrenreich and English. For Her Own Good, p.284. 36 Chafe. The Anierican FVoman, p.2 18. 37 Ehrenreich and English. For Her Own Good. p.284. ïü Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 6 3 female employment continued after the war, but it was spearheaded by middle-class wives and mothers women supposedly content in their rniddle-class domesticity. Their discretionary incorne fueled unprecedented family spending and ailowed middle-class families to buy the new home, the domestic luxuries, and Save for a college education for their children. The domestic ideal of a house, three to four kids, and a fùil-time homemaker who held everything together was financially exacting. Many families found the first two items on the list so expensive that the third ofien had to go.38

Masculinity

Conformity and Alienation

Mainstream social commentary focused on the social and econornic transitions taking place in Arnerican society and attempted to evaluate the psychological impact of large-scale social change on the middle-class personality. Concem was expressed with the way in which the corporate structure imposed its constraints on the male personality and by extension women, children and the family. Two studies of the postwar decade which are rnost often referred to as characteristic of social anxiety were David Riesman's Thr

Lonely Crowd and William Whyte's lrhe Organization Mm. These texts examined the changing social structure of corporate Amerka and the changing image of masculinity in the postwar era The bureaucratization of the work world demanded a new type of man, a man who could fit into the corporate mold of white-collar Arnerica.

David Riesman's The Lone[y Cdanalyzed the social psychology of conformity, revealing a diffise anxiety among Amencan men regarding changing ideas of masculinity. III Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 64

Riesman suggested that dl societies ensured conformity by shaping a "national character"

which evolved over time. He outlined a modemkation scheme containing three kinds of

societies which developed in an historically Iinear fashion and were represented by a typical personality type: tradition-directed, inner-directed, and other-directed. He argued that middle-class Amencan society had shifled fiom an inner-directed to an other-directed society; from an accurnulating, entrepreneurial, production-oriented society with a personality type driven by inner ideals and values -- characterized by the Protestant ethic -- to a society characterized by economic abundance, bureaucratized white-collar and seMce occupations, smaller nuclear fmilies, permissive child-rearing, powerfiil peer groups and consurneri~m.~~In this new society consumption became econornically and socially more important than production. The predorninant trait of the other-directed personality was the need for approval and direction by others. The need for approval and the resulting conformity had supplanted an earlier commitment to abstract values and ideals emphasizing a major change in Arnerican values. The traditional characterization of

"rugged individualism" so closely associated with the Amencan identity and the development of the West was characteristic of the imer-directed personality. Riesman argued that the "scarcity psychology" of the inner-directed personality which spurred earlier Arnericans in entrepreneurial ventures during periods of heavy capital accumulation needed to give way to an "abundance psychology" in the postwar period which allowed for 'wastefùl' luxury consumption of leisure and of the surplus product." The new "other-

- 39 David Riesman. The Lonelv Crowd (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1950). p. 18. 40 Riesman The Lonrlv Crowd p. 18. III SocioIogical Perspectives: Conceptions of Gcnder in the 65 1950s

directed" men of post-accumulation capitalism were relaxed consumers and adaptive

bureaucratic workers.

Abandoning the fiontier character was not a desired identity change for modern

man. The Nneteenth century man, according to Riesman, was anirnated by conviction and

principle, while in the postwar era men had become more concemed with fitting in than

standing out. This new "other-directed" male wanted only to "get along" at work and cash

in his earnings for a private Iife of suburban leisure. The decline of ambitious individualism

and the emergence of the bureaucratic order seemed to be an attack on Amencan manhood itselt41 Bureaucracy seemed to be shaping a new universalistic personality whose main characteristic was adaptability. Indeed, an examination of Riesman's typology revealed the gendered nature of the skills and traits of the other-directed personality: being attuned to others, wonying about their opinions and feelings, being adaptable and avoiding confiict were the traits demanded by corporations and white-collar occupations.

Ironically they are al1 traditionally feminine characteristics. The corporate ethos of the postwar era was emasculating American men.

A similar critique of masculinity appeared in William Whyte's The Orgunizatio~l

Mm (1956), which detailed the ovemding importance of "the company" in the expression of the postwar personality and in the necessity of conforming to postwar ideals. The new corporate workplace required more flexible personalities and ski11 at getting along with others. Whyte's description of the "social ethic" required by bureaucratized corporations stressed group-think, togethemess, team spirit, getting along well with others, as well as III Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 66 1950s

downplaying individuality and difference. Loyalty and conformity to the company mold

characterïzed the "organization man." Whyte lamented that persona1 goals were minimal

and ambition was muted. Hs research suggested that the very idea of success had

acquired a negative connotation - the preferred goal had become middle-management level

positions where there would be sufficient security and status dong with regular

promotions and room for lateral movement." Moreover, corporate uniformity of training produced cookie-cutter employees, so that, as an I.B.M. executive put it, "our men [are]

interchangeable.""

Modem man was said to have become more conformist. What became the "normal social groove" afler the war was characterized by the absorption of many individu& into very large organizations, businesses, industries and colleges. The individual was expected to accept the company line because the company, with al1 its collective wisdom, really knew what was best. Contemporary man therefore had a much stronger orientation toward situational rather than intemal goals and was much more sensitive to peer-group pressure than his nineteenth century counterpart. Man's identity was based on adherence to extemal values and was Iess achievement-orientated than earlier conceptions; identity was thus structured less in tems of classic individuali~m.~

Social commentators studied the postwar Amencan male with distaste, finding him

"alienated" and absurd. A critique of modem man suggested that America was

" Ehrenreich and English, For Her ûwn Good. p.239. " Whyte. The Orpnizotion Afan. p.305. j3 ibid. 44 Dubbert. .-1 Man 's Place. p.243. III Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 67

breeding a new type of human being ...a guy with a tùii beiiy, an empty rnind and a hollow heart. These new corporate men were cogs in the business rnachinery that had routinized greed and made aggression an impersonal principle of organization. These depersonalized cogs in the corporate machine lost their sense of themselves as men.45

Fiction writers also decried suffocating conformity and dienation. Books such as Richard

Matheson's 7he Incredible Shrink»tgMm (1953), presented an allegory of the disappeanince of real manhood and Sloan Wilson's Mm in the Gray Fhnnel Strit (1955), was one of the most influentid American novels of the 1950s. It detailed the stniggle of a young Amencan couple against the pressures of conformity and imprisonrnent in a suburban lifestyle. " The couple's dissatisfaction, despite their achievement of rniddle- class status, flouted 1950s icons of success and revealed the culture's underlying superficiality. Dissatisfaction was vocalized by the wife in the novel, "...your job is plenty good enough. We've got three Nce kids, and lots of people would be glad to have a house like this. We shouldn't be so discontented ail the time."47 Norman Mailer's 1957 essay,

"The White Negro," meanwhile critiqued the fate of the American man who faced a slow death by conformity with every creative and rebellious instinct stifled. In its stead Mailer offered up a romanticized ideal of masculinity in the Negro as hipster-outsider.

In 1958, Look magazine published a series of articles on the American male.

Bluntly addressing the period's malaise, the magazine targeted group conformity as the reason for the loss of individuality. Male identity had been constmcted by consensus

45 Charles Siepmann in Michael Kimrnel. hlanhood in America: A Cultural Histoq. (New York: The Free Press, 1996). p.210. 46 Shan Wilson. The Man in rhe Grqv Flamel Surf. (New York: Simon and Schustcr. 1955). 47 Ibid. p.3 Hi Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 68 thinking and behavior, decision-making had been routinely made by cornmittees of men who increasingly put aside personal convictions and instead tumed their "radar" -- a term popularized by Whyte - to pick up on the mood of others in their group.J8On the other side of the tracks fiom respectable middle-class conformity lurked the dangerous men7 the rebellious nonconfiodsts who threatened social stability, domestic hannony and corporate responsibility. The decade's preoccupation with juvenile delinquency and the rebellious writing of the beatniks, as weI1 as widespread fears about effeminate homosexual men, provided several examples of Amencan anviety about rnascu~init~.~~

Critique of corporate rnasculinity was pervasive. "Everybody fiom the fiee enterpriser to the socialist has corne out against conformity," historian Paul Carter wrote.

To a great extent, this modish anti-conformity was itself only a species of conformism.

Self-cnticism prompted the kind of heart-searching in which Amencans have engaged or indulged ever since the ~uritans.'~In Carter's view Amencan self-censure becarne something of "a sentimental parlour gameY7as it remained unconnected to action. In this context it is interesting that Whyte did not reference McCarthyism in his denouncement of conformity in American society. The McCarthy red scare's success in destabilizing

Amencan society in the early 1950s relied on the unwillingness of individuals to embrace their difference in the face of persecution. The conformity Whyte critiqued in 7he

Orgm~izationMm bemoaned this same lack of individualism in the American postwar

- --- - 58 Dubberi, A kfan 's Place, p.247. J9 Kimmel. iMunhood in Arnerica, p.242. Also see lames GiIbert 's Cycle o/Ou!mge for an insigh tful e~~lorationof juvenile delinquency in the 1950s. 'O Carter. Another Parr ofthe Fijies. p. 110. ïIï Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Chder in the 69 character. His book, published &er the "downfall" of McCarthy, might have made some connection between the lack of individual initiative and the horrors of conformity gone wrong.

Is There a Father in the House? - The Nou Marculinity

Domestic ideology was predicated on the centrality of the father to the home. Men had to be dedicated fathers in order to offset the negative effects of their "matemally over- involved" wives and to help their children to resist the temptation of gender nonconfonnity. According to sociological prescriptions for the 1950s family, real men were breadwinning men, but they were also fdymen actively involved in the raising of their children. Fatherhood was important not just to give rneaning to men's lives, but to counteract the overabundance of matemal care. Being a father was not "sissy" business; it was a serious oc~u~ation.~'Indeed, fathers had the responsibility to ensure that their sons were not overprotected. "You have a horror of seeing your son a pantywaist, but he wonyt get red blood and self reliant if you leave the whole job of making a he-man of him to his rn~ther."'~The father's prirnary function, therefore, was to ensure that his children learned proper gender roles; this was particularly important in the case of his son. Lefi to herself mom could not be trusted. She would produce emasculated males and "mornish" fernales.

Only Dad could guide the boys towards rnanliness and the girls towards true womanliness.

The learning of sex-roles from parental example dictated that girls would successfùlly leam their role from a mother, who found complete satisfaction without conflict or anxiety

'' Kimmel. Xlanhood in A merica. p. 245. '' May. Homeward Bound. p. 147 ïIï Sociotogical Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 70 1950s

in living her role as a homemaker. For boys, it was a little more complicated, as the traditional male sex-role involved not being present in the home. The father's role in the home, therefore, had to be strictly defined. Dad should not involve himselfin household chores, which might undemine the value of his presence. Watching sports on TV allowed a venue for fathen to pass on the ancient values of cornpetitiveness, male solidarity and physical prowess. ''

According to Talcott Parsons, fathers played an "instrumental" role in society, acting differently with their sons and daughten in ways that would condition masculinity and femininity. Parsons suggested that while the mother had a pnmarily expressive reiationship with both boys and girls the father, in contrast, rewarded his male and female children differently, encouraging instrumental behaviour in his sons and expressive behaviour in his daughters. By the mid-1950s child raising theory had become so dependent on the role of the father in sex-role sociabation that the experts could ody contemplate the "father-as-absent" situation, which the corporate work world necessitated, with dam.

Critics of corporate conformity suggested that fatherhood gave men the opportunity for achievement they did not receive in the workplace. For middle-class men, the work world offered no physical oppominities for manly redemption. The econornic system generated feelings of competition, inadeguacy, hostility and fear which men attempted to dissipate within the family. As a result, the family was required to serve

53 Kimmel. ibhnhood in Anrerica. p. 245 LU Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 7 1 enormous therapeutic and personality-stabiliting needs for males.*" It was as fathers, not as employees, that they experienced autonomy and control, markers of traditional manhood. The day of the manly hero had yielded to the day of the buifder, the plmer, the quiet team player ... and the dad." Masculinity had been domesticated.

This new masculin@, however, was not generally lauded. Middle-class men sensed they were powerless, conformists adrifi in a world that had no use for their rnanh~od.'~

Barbara Ehrenreich suggested that earlier males, in the growing urban rniddle-class, had seen a heroic role for themselves as the tamers and "rationalizers" of capitalist society, and they had cwed out professions which had made them indispensable to industry. In the postwar decade their sons faced a world which seemed overly mechanized, rationalized and organized, and they felt like they had lost control." For married men who had nothing to fear at work but the loss of their ambition and individuaiity, home offered the only chance of masculine redemption. The "collectivization of the corporation" no longer provided a sure sense of masculinity; therefore, focus reoriented itself to the private sphere. A man's home became his castle, the only place he could count on to give him a feeling of individuality, autonomy and control. Mass culture became obsessed with the diminution of the American male, and criticism of him abounded.

The ovenvhelrning impression of gender analysis in 1950s social scientific texts is one of malaise and discontent. Clearly gender roles were being drastically altered in an

" Jules Henry. Culture Agoimi Man. (London: Tavistock Publications, 1966). '' Kimmel. Manhood in Anrerica, p. 250. 56 Ehrenreich and English, For Her Oivn Good. p.238. 57 Ibid. p.238. ïIi Sociological Perspectives: Conceptions of Gender in the 72 1950s effort to keep Pace with a changing society. But the resultant changes seemed unsatisfactory to both men and women. The overall pichire of the 1950s is arnbiguous, and critiques of gender are particularly hanh. Could this be because the perception of the new modem man was one of weakness and complacency in the face of the looming Soviet threat? The impression of discontent of both men and women contradicted popular imagery of the 1950s as a happy, prosperous time of family togethemess and domestic bliss. The "happy days" image of the era told only part of the story. Gender in Television:

The Masculine

MaCaise

While gender historians focus primarily on the Limitations the ferninine ideal placed on women in the 1950s, constraining masculine narratives also developed within the context of the TV image. The difference was that while femlliinity and masculinity had very narrow definitions in the sitcom family narrative, images of maleness were much more prevaient in other types of television programming - westerns, detective shows, news shows, and drarna. Contrasting female "types" did not develop outside the domestic space of the sitcom. While "an" image of masculinity developed in sitcoms in the 1950s-

"the" image of femininity defined itself within the genre.

The 1950s, according to Marge Piercy, marked the "last gasp of WASP history as history: the history of the atnuent white male."' Though one rnight argue that the idea of patriarchy was hotly contested in the 1950s. suggested by the distress over gender-role definitions, perceptions and, indeed, images of patriarchy dorninated the domestic sitcom.

Males ruled this traditionally femaie-gendered space, usurping woman's "natural" domain

' Marge Piercy. %ugh the Cracks: Growing Up in the 50s." in Parti-Co/ored Blacks fir Quilr. (hm A.rboirr: University of Michigan). p. 1 14. IV Gender in Television: The Masculine 74 of the home and family. Yet, the construction of masculinity as domestic in 1950s sitcoms was not uniforni. Not only did sitcoms consciously and subconsciously responded to much of the anxiety that social scientists identified regarding the changing role of masculinity in modem America, but they also contrasted with other media conceptions of masculinity.

Television sitcom's celebration of the staid, stable and reliable Dad contrasted sharply with other television genres, as well as with movie depictions of heroic masculinity. If sitcorn's masculinity was most ideally represented by the competent, domesticated father-figure of

Father Knows Best's Jim Anderson, then criticism of this figure suggests an ambiguous dissatisfaction with the direction of Amencan rnasculinity. This arnbiguity has led some critics to suggest that despite its ostensible strength, masculinity in the 1950s was in crisis.

Fatherhood in 1950s Sifcoms

Fatherhood was clearly a key defining role for masculinity in television sitcom formats, forming the basis for self-perception and social valuation. This domestic emphasis reflected sociological concern with family dynamics -- particularly the fear of an over- dominant mother -- and provided a prescriptive solution to the conformist corporate ideal by re-focusing masculine energy within the home and away From the work-place. To this end, the total lack of acknowledgrnent of the work world presented an interesting phenornenon. Although in reality men's activity was divided unevenly between work and home life - with the balance to a large extent favonng work - sitcom reality ignored this aspect of men's life almost completely. One almost never saw sitcom fathers in their work environment participating in big business deals or embroiled in the problems of making a IV Geader in Television: The Masculiae 75 Malaise

living. in the Kelly Longitudinal Study's findings of 1950s family life, husbands mentioned

diniculties on the job, too much pressure, tense relationships with employers or employees, efforts to achieve promotions or raises, boredom or ennui, and financial difficulties as their major causes of stress.' However, work, stress, and cornpetition never played a rote in Jim, Ozzie, or Ward's life. We know what each of these fathers did for a living (though Ozzie's profession was never really clarified), and their luxunous homes suggested that they were successful in these jobs. Yet, viewers never received any indication of the importance of the work world to these men's lives. The sitcom dad's career remained a shadowy presence in the background. The structuring of their lives and self-worth within the home therefore proved unproblematic. As opposed to depicting a conquering corporate hero, sitcom men focused their energies on conquering family problems and restructuring the family to run like a finely honed machine. Consequently sitcoms ignored the stresses of Riesman's "other-directed" man or Whyte's conformist ideal. They presented a picture of the post-Organizufio~lMm, whose struggle with confomüty was no longer a problem because he had found challenge and satisfaction within the expanse of his home.

Television's father-figure camed his responsibilities within the home willingly, without a sense of oppression. The fact that his family occupied him so fùlly, challenging al1 his resources but never ailowing him to get bored, was his most powemil proof to his children that his ordinary Iife was worth living. He articulaied this in different ways. To his daughter he provided reassurance that mamage, children and love were far more

Elaine Tyler May. Home~i*ardBound (New York: Basic Books. t 988). p. 185. iV Cender in Television: The Masculine 76 Malaise important than fame, wealth or career. To his son, he counseled, there was no disgrace in compromise. This father-figure represented reasonableness, tolerance and good will: the image of Amencan maturity3

In his benign firmness, in his mature sobriety, in his sad but determined sense of responsibility ... we can detect the traces of the contemporary political climate. He reflects the feeling that the only safe oasis in a dangerous cold-war world is our home which, though it may once have been taken lightly, must now be preserved at al1 costs if the battle is not to be lost everywhere.'

The male-dominated home sphere offered certain ironies. While domesticity allowed masculinity fieedom from the homogenizing force of the workplace, on another level domesticity reinforced homogeneity of another kind. In essence, sitcoms depicted a type of benevolent dictatorship with Dad making most or al1 decisions on his own. Father was the ultimate arbiter, defining good and bad, nght and wrong. His role contrasted sharply with the other-directedness of the work environment. Here in the sanctity of the home man was independent and decisive; however, while allowing for independent action on the part of Dad, the domestic ideal constrained his actions. Therefore man's so-called

"independence" became conformi-ty of another kind. As enforcer of family order, Dad maintained conformity to gender roles in the socialkation of his children. Father, therefore, became an adherent of confom*ty, promoting other-directedness in support of the domestic ideal.

This socializing function dorninated an episode of Father Knows Best, entitled,

Kathy Becornes a Girl, which documented her transition from tomboy to young woman.

- -- ' Norman Podhoretz "Our Changing Ideals As Seen on TV." in Chander Brossard. [ed]. The Scene Before Iou. (New York: Rinehart & Co.. 1955) p.96. IV Gender in Telc~lsion:The Masculine 77 Malaise

In this episode both Margaret and Betty fail to effect a feminization of Kathy despite their

attempts to interest her in clothes, makeup and the benefits of discovering her ferninine

wiles. While Margaret cajoles her, saying she too was once a tomboy but knew when to

"put down the baseball and pick up the lipstick," Betty advises her that "nothing will make

a boy sit up and take notice like a little glarnour." OnIy Jim in his wisdom and strength,

however, finally convince her of the psychological benefits of being a woman. He tells her,

"you can become a queen to some man," and continues, "being dependent and a little helpless now and then is an excellent strategy because men like to be gallant, 'the big protector."' The episode ends with Kathy in a dress and heels feigning a sprained ankle so that the young boys at the party can wait on her. In essence, Jim transforms his daughter fiom a capable tomboy into a "helpless" manipulator dependent on the solicitousness of men.

The ubiquity of the father in 1950s sitcoms contrasted sharply with reality for most fàmilies. Fathers, in reality, were overwhelmed with work and therefore had less time at home? Furthemore, women were overwhelmingly responsible for the socialization and care of their children. The domesticity of television fathers, therefore, represented an mattainable and unredistic ideal - a destmctive mode1 of expected masculine behavior.

Altematively this image might construct a substitute image for the absentee father. In the idealized community of the sitcom, television dads could "teach" viewing children just as they "taught" their own children. In essence, they became a surrogate, providing the

' Podhoretz, "Our Changing Ideals." p. 103. ' Michael Kirnrnei. Xfanhood in Anierica. (New York: The Free Press, 1996). p.228. IV Gender in Teleklsion: The Masculine 78

necessary role model for boys and identifjmg ferninine behavior for girls. Their ubiquity on

the TV screen dso counterbalanced the dominance of the ever-present mother in the home. By foregrounding fathers and celebrating the importance of Dad in the home, television took the emphasis off motherhood. It narrated a solution to Philip Wylie and

Fanihm and Lundberg's denigrated mother-figure by providing a positive role model of appropriate farnily dynarnics. By foregrounding the father-figure and sidelining the mother,

1950s sitcoms reflected the necessary balance in parenting which social cornmentators had proposed.

CentraIifyof CIass in Irnagilig Fotrherhood

In every middle-ciass or working-class sitcom, the male dorninated either by rneans of narrative and physical ubiquity or by means of their authoritative control over the other characters. Even in sitcoms where the female lead was the star, such as 1 Love Lucy or

The Donna Reed Show, Ricky Ricardo and Alex Stone both maintained executive control of the family and commanded their wives' deference. Masculinity in these images was defined as much by what Dad did as by how Mom treated him. This dynamic

M structured the different perceptions of masculinity which emerged from contrasting middle-class and working-class sitcoms. Though male figures "dominated" both genres, their influence was antithetical. In rniddle-class sitcoms male characters were portrayed as

"superdads" who predorninated through their physical presence, their narrative dominance, and their authonty in decision-making. By contrast, in working-class sitcoms, though male characters dominated the action, they were usually not allocated the respect or deference IV Gender in Television: The Masculine 79 Malaise of their families. Representations of masculinity in sitcoms divided dong class lines, privileging the middle-clw through its depictions of the way in which the masculine character was accorded respect and reverence by his family.

If, as Joan Scott argues, class is syrnbolically coded in gender terms, and gender becomes a means of establishing class status, then de-masculinking working-class men by applying gendered descriptors such as child-like or incompetent not only devalued thern as men but also used gender to establish their subordinate class status! Furthemore, cultural images of working-class males in sitcoms were limited by the scarcity of successfbl working-class sitcoms in the 1950s.'

Characters like Ralph Kramden and Chester A. Riley syrnbolized a broad character type in Amencan culture, the working-class man as a loveable yet inept bumbler and buffoom8 This negative image of the bumbler linked working-class males and certain negative depictions of middle-class females. Parallels exist between such characters as

Riley and Kramden and their female counterparts, Lucy Ricardo and Joan Stevens.

Working-class husbands, portrayed as clumsy, awkward and inept, were contrasted with a strong, superior wife. This combination of matriarchhffoon served firther to disparage the image of the working-class male, because, in a male-dominated society, the father as

Richard Butsch "Cbs and Gender in Four DeQdes of Telnision Situational Comedy: Plus Ca Change" Critical Sîudies in Mm Communication. 9 (4. 1992), p.387. ' Workingclass sitcoms of the 1950s were limited. 1 Remember Marna. The Life of Riley. The Honeymooners and The Goldbergs were the only successful four. ' Butsch "CIass and Gendcr." p.39 1. N Cender in Television: The Masculine 80 Malaise

head-of-household rnost clearly identified the family as working-class. In these shows the

father's ineptness appeared the reason for the farnily's economic condition and therefore

prevented him from becoming a positive role modeL9 Moreover, the strong

matriarchmuffoon painng played into fears of "rn~misrn~~identified by Philip Wylie

suggesting the emasculation of the Arnencan male. The failure of the working-class male

to control or subdue his "woman" identified his powerIessness and inscripted his class with

negative signifiers. This was most clearly articulated in The Honeyrnooners, for not only

was Ralph Kramden's weakness identified in his inability to provide his family with the

"basic" consumer cornforts of a television, vacuum cleaner or even a washing machine, but he dso proved unable to dominate his wife intellechially or intimidate her physically -- despite his imposing physique -- though he never stopped trying. In a telling scene from

Better Living I;hrozrgh TY. the dialogue revealed the dynamics of Ralph's subrnission to his wife. In another of his endless get-rich-quick schernes, he thought up a plan to rnake "a fortune" through advertising gadgets on television. In proposing his plan to his pal,

Norton, he desct-ibed how he would convince Alice to put the home finances towards his project. "Al1 I have to do is be firm and show her who's boss," he told Norton. "I am the

King in my castle, the King. Alice is just a mere peasant girl, a servant to do my bidding ...1 snap my fingers and she jumps ...like Richard the Lionhearted, I rule with an iron hand." In confronting Alice, however, his bravado f~ledand he became flustered. Alice responded to him sarcastically, "There is something you wanted to tell me oh mighty King of the

L.M. elennon & R Buisch "The Famiiy as Pomyed on TV. 1916-78." in D. Pearl [ed.] Television and Behaviour: Ten Yems of &ientijk Progres and /niplicalionsfor the Eighties. RockMlle, MD: U.S. Department IV Gender in Tekvision: The Masculine 8 1

castle... the peasants have a right to know." As Ralph became even more tlustered, Alice's

cutting response was, 'That's right, old Richard the chicken-hearted ...I'm getting pretty

sick and tired of this - every week you corne home with some new crazy hair-brained

scheme. That's al1 I've heard for the last fourteen years since we've been mamed." This dialogue emphaiszed Alice's clear domination of Ralph. Not only did she hold the purse strings, she never exhibited an iota of respect or reverence for his illustrious position as head of the household - though he obviously feared and respected her. In a reversal of roles Alice "ruled with the iron hand."

In al1 these shows, the male figures proved ineffective, especially as father figures.

Their working-class status and concurrent dearth of consumer goods conveyed their lack of success as providers. In 1 Remember Marna, the working-class was depicted with more dignity than other shows. However, Lars Hanson, while sweet and harrniess, remained an ineffective provider and greatly dependent on his wife for her wisdom and dignity. In an episode, entitled @een ofhe Bee, Lars' role as breadwi~erand his responsibility as a father were brought into serious question. In an unusual show of bad parenting, Lars jeopardized the family's finances by betting the insurance money - the only "spare" money available -- that his daughter, Dagmar, would win the class spelling bee. Not only did he foolishly nsk the family's scarce financial resources, he also put unfair pressure on his daughter to cornpete for a questionable purpose - a bet. Although his actions showed him incapable in the handling of the family's money, and an inadequate father-figure, his intentions were not "malicious," merely misguided. He was inept while of Heaith and Human Senices. 1982). p.268. IV Cender in Television: The Masculine 82 Malaise his wife and children carried the moral message of the show, thereby devaluing "Dad's" role as household arbiter and socializer of his children.

In The Honeymooners and The Life of RiIey, both Kramden and Riley proved not only inept but bumbling They jeopardized the family finances in ridic~10~~schemes casting doubt on their role as breadwimer and father-figure. Chester Riley was the

"original idiot father...[ he] was likeable, but so stupid. How he ever managed to 'bring home the bacon' was a mystery to everyone."l0 Riley always managed to create havoc

wherever he went, not because he had

bad luck but because he had no cornmon

sense. His character stretched the

masculine image by demonstrating

female characteristics. He was an

emotional person, he cried, he

whimpered, he acted weak t hings 1 Lije of Riley: Riley's posture and task - he is wearing - an apron and drying dishes - suggested a less-than- masculine identity. ody women were allowed to do on television.

In The Honeymooners Alice's logic and sarcasm invariably bested Ralph in arguments, which ended in Ralph's exasperated retorts, "One of these days Alice, POW, right in the kisser." This suggestion of physical force not only revealed Ralph's inability to challenge Alice on an intellectual level, but Alice's lack of feu at Ralph's threats revealed their certain impotence. Few shows on television at the time displayed hostility between IV Gender in Television: The Masculine 83 Malaise

husband and wife as openly as The Honeymooners. An article in 7T Guide suggested 8.d that the program's popularity rested on male perceptions that women had too much power

and on female perceptions that male irnmatunty demonstrated the superiority of women. l1

The characterization of the working-class male was accentuated by contrasts with their wives and children, as weii as with the rniddle-class men in other sitcoms. Working- class wives, and even children, were consistently portrayed as more intelligent, rational, sensible and mature than their husbands or fathers. The emasculation of the working-class male in this image forestalied his fulfillment of the role of father and man in the patriarch~.'~Interestingly, in the working-class sitcorns, patriarchal rhetonc was much more in evidence. While middle-class dads simply ruled the house, in the working-class milieu they talked a lot more about being head of the house or in Ralph Kramden's words

"King of the Cade." This discussion of patriarchy privileged males, yet, ironically ended up diminishing the working-class male's status by highlighting his inability to fùlfill this rhetorical ideal.

In an irnmensely hmy episode of The Honeyrnooners, appropriately entitled

Baitle ofh Sexes, Ralph attempted to extend his "playtirne" with Norton by explainhg how a real man should relate to his wife - or more to the point, how Norton should impose his will on Trixie. Bemoaning Trixie's control of Norton's free time, Ralph suggested that Norton should change his approach and stand up to her, "tell her who's the

- -

'O Rick Mi& ne Great TVSircom Book. (New York: Richard Marek 1980). p.7 1. " George Lipsia The Meaning of Memory: Family. Clas and Ethnicity in Early Network TV." Camera Obscura 16 (Januuy, 1988). p.94. ' ' Butsch "Class and Gender." p.39 1. iV Gender in Television: The Masculine 84 Malaise

boss." Ralph launched into a tirade against wifely control, instmcting Norton on how to

communicate with his wife. "A man's home is his castle and in that home he is a King. I'm

the King of the castle and you're nothing." Norton responds, "RaIph, those words should

be recorded and played at every wedding instead of 'Here cornes the bride."'

Unfortunately for Ralph's patriarchal view, his grandiose assertions of masculinity were

far from his reality. These ideas on rnarriage earned him temporaiy separation from his

wife. In the episode, which started out with the men regaining their ''rightful" position in

the home, narrative closure resulted in just the opposite as it was the men who ended up

apologinng in order to regain stability in the home. Once again working-class man's

subse~enceto his wife was maintained and patriarchal noms, though exaggerated in this

episode, were denied to his class.

MiddIe-Class Masadin@

ldeas about rniddle-class rnasculinity focused primarily on the celebration of man's

role as father and husband in the postwar domestic ideai. In a transitional penod in gendered interpretations of fatherhood, one scholar suggested that in the "first phase of the new fatherhood" men expanded their role from breadwinner to include an important role in the sociaiization of their children." This emphasis on child care became a way both to re-establish class boundaries and to assert middle-dass values. Middle-class men had the job security, financial wherewithal, education, and leisure to practice a style of child

l3 Robert L. Griswold-Farherhoodin .4merica. (New York: Harper Collins. 1993). p.217. IV Gender in Television: The Masculine 8 5

rearing that underscored private rather than public life and solidified the social standing of

the middle class. ''

This rniddle-class celebration of fatherhood emerged in the sitcom image of the

"superdad." This laudatory image of fatherhood in the 1950s existed in stark contrast to

the working-class buffoon characters. The middle-class Dad was typically intelligent,

rational, mature and responsible. Furthemore, "Dad" was omnipresent, always at the

center of narrative, visual and aural space. This was particularly evident in the episode of I

Love Lucy which introduced "givingbirth" to the Amencan viewing public. Even though

the show focused on the birth of Little Ricky, Ricky Ricardo dorninated both the screen

and the viewer's understanding of the pregnancy. The focus on Ricky's enthusiasm at

becoming a father stressed his agitation about the upcorning birth. When Lucy and Ricky

arrived at the hospital it was Ricky -- not Lucy -- in the wheelchair. Even at this crucial

moment of motherhood, at the time of birth, the sitcom focus remained on the male. l5

In middle-class sitcoms, the father deprived the mother of her domain over the

expressive needs of the children. He presided not oniy over his traditional breadwinning and disciplinarian roles, but also eclipsed the mother as pnmary caregiver and numirer - the object and trammitter of love.16 Father was the crucial figure in middle-class family dialogues. Although both parents were depicted as competent, mother always deferred to

Dad, and, in discussions questions and answers were addressed to him. Dad's power within the home was also reinforced by his constant availability in times of crisis.

'' Ibid p. 187. l5 "Lucy Goes to the Hospital" IV Gender in Television: The Masculine 86

Strangely, sitcom Dads never seemed to work - they kept employment hours that allowed

them constant contact and involvement in their children's lives. Jirn Anderson and Ward

Cleaver mived home weli before dark, Ouie Nelson chose to locate his program solely

on the weekend, and Alex Stone's pediatrics practice was in the home. Because of their

availability, the fathers were involved in al1 their children's dilemmas and delights, usurping

the mothef s traditional position as in-home boss.

The father was granted power mo

explicitly via dialogue and plot. In

conversations, farnily members reiterated

the importance of his love and affection

and his superiority over other family

members. Mothers ofien accorded power

to the father by defemng to km as an

authonty figure and constantly including

center of his family's affkction and respect Leaking hi, in the narrative, despite his physical Margaret pondering the periphery. absence. Ifa child was sharing positive news, Donna and Margaret exclaimed over how

"proud" father would be, and if the child had misbehaved, father became the threat of ultimate arbiter.

In Father Knows Best, Jim Anderson epitomized the ideal Arnerican father whose self-assured good humour and competence seemed inexhaustible. In one episode Jirn decided he needed to take sorne tirne for himself because of the constant need of his

l6 ~inaLeibnm. Living Roont Lectures. (Austin: University of Tesas Press. 1995). p. 1 18. IV Gender in Television: The Masculine 87

children for his attention. Kathy wanted hirn to play horse; Betty wanted his assistance in

writing a paper; and Bud wanted him to help hirn construct a weathervane for a school

project. Jim, or rather his wife Margaret, decided to isolate hirn from contact with the

children - to dow him some private the. Of course a crisis arose and Kathy ran away

£tom home. Jim, the "superdad," leapt into action, took charge of the cnsis and solved the

probiem. He realized that by secluding himself from his children he allowed a crisis to

occur in his home."

This episode reflected several key ideas of rniddle-class masculinity. First the

father's centraiity and importance was confirmed both in Margaret's constant referral to

Jim, "Your father deserves some time to himself, he works ves, hard for al1 of us," and in

the collapse of the situation when he was not available for help. His wife's deference

emerged in her avowal of his breadwimer role, as well as in his children's love and respect for him. Furthemore, he was not even culpable for the debacle resulting from his inaccessibility, as it was Margaret who had isolated him physically by keeping the children away. Middle-class masculinity clearly structured a privileged position with the family stnicture.

Contested Mirsculinities

Sitcom masculinity spoke to one set of 1950s ideals which strove to develop the masculine character outside of the work world and give men valuation unconnected to their place in the oppressive confornüty of Riesman's Loriely Crowd or Whyte's

'? Father Know Best "FathetsPrivate Life" LV Geoder in Television: The Masculine 88

Orgmization Man. By tùlfilling his role as father and head of the household, man

reinforced the postwar domestic ideai. Yet this domestication of Dad within the sitcorn

farnily represented only one image of masculinity, and it was in fact a highly contested one.

The uniqueness of this sitcorn masculinity is highlighted by the juxtaposition of domesticity

with the more active depiction of men in other popular television genres. In general, men

appeared on television as adventurous, aggressive, and likely to be single; however, when

TV prograrns were analyzed by genre a different picture emerged. The dominating,

authoritative, and active male, so cornmon in other genres, was rarely found in domestic

cornedies. Sitcom men projected an open, responsive, and sensitive image not usually

associated with popular conceptions of rna~culinity.'~The elusiveness of this image

suggests a certain nostalgia and idealism in the sitcom image. Even in the 1950s this

"golden era" of farnily togethemess which the domestic ideal represented was a contested

Other television programming, such as news, game shows, and adventure

programs, depicted a greedy, hostile, violent world where most perpetrators of violence were men. By contrast, in sitcoms, male vimies were little different fiom female ones.

Cornpetition and aggressive behavior were devalued, and love and sensitivity were foregrounded with the objective of helping the f~lyto resolve the daily stresses of family life.lg Domestic sitcoms featured no "macho" men or compt business people like those found in detective shows and western series. This sitcom focus on a gentler masculinity

'' Muriel Cantor. "Pnmc Time Fathers: A Study in Continuity and Change." Critical Studies in A.4as.s Conrmunication. 7 ( 1990). p. 276. N Gender in Television: The Masculine 89 might have been experienced by viewers - especially women - as a welcome change from the n~rrn.*~And it certainly reflected the family values that sociologists were espousing at the tirne. However, the critique of this domesticated image of masculinity suggests that reinventing masculinity as fatherhood did not sit well with Americans who pined for the

'rugged individuaiist' of a previous era Cntics of the domesticated Dad saw him as "the mouse of the house." They lashed out at the appearance of burnbling fathers in the domestic sitcoms. In 1953, WGr~ideasked "What ever happened to men? ... Once upon a time a girl thought of her boyfnend or husband as her Prince Charming. Now having watched the antics of Ozzie Nelson and Chester k Riley, she thinks of her man, and any other man, as a prime idiot."*'

Such programs as The Adventures of Oaie and Harriet and The

Honeymooners consistently ridiculed the inept father, whose harebrained ideas would have wrecked the family were it not for the common sense and hard work of their ever- patient wives. Even in programs with strong father-figures which seemed to offer an unequivocal affirmation of patriarchy, Iike Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver, the father was covertly disadvantaged because of his position within the home. The real strike against lim Anderson and Ward Cleaver was that they were never allowed to meet us on their own turf. We know they had jobs, and it was clear fi-orn the luxury of their surroundings that they did well enough in their positions to provide their families with

--- '' Cantor "Prime Time Fathers." p.283. 'O Janice Radway in Reading the Romance develops a theoiy about women's perceptions of rnasculinity in romance novels. She suggests that the masculine images depicted therein reflected a fantasy of the way wornen wished men were, rather than any concrcte reality. This provides. I think, a parallel understanding of the way in which social scientists hoped rnasculinity wvas headed in the 1950s. IV Gender in Television: The Masculine 90 Malaise most middle-class advantages. However, the only time we saw them in action was at home in the traditional territory of moms and kids - confionting, reacting, and dealing with traditional household problems and crises. Even without explicit character Baws, they were situationally diminished, domesticated into fâintly cornical ineffectuality.

In one episode of Father Knows Bert, Jirn compared himself to his old college buddies and found his own success on the career fiont sadly lacking. Criticized by his boss for his excessive attention to his family, lim hears that "this is an age of cornpetition...[ in which] ...a man has to be physically and mentally alert." His boss chided Jirn for wasting time fixing Kathy's skates and Betty's belts, suggesting that he should be up at the crack of dawn exercising and making business calls. Later in the episode, Bud having read a book entitled How to Be a Strccess Ni Blrsi~~ess,inforrned his siblings that a "man's family can be responsible for his success or failure." While the children tried to think of a way to help their father, Jirn sat in the backyard bemoaning his fâilure. Margaret allayed his fears and provided the story's moral lesson. "You're a success as a man, as a husband and as a father ...1 love you for the way you are and for what you are." The episode validated the family as the key to happiness. Later lirn acknowledged his happiness with the way things were and renounced the cornpetitive corporate ethos: "1 want only enough money for a nice home, good food, and to provide for you children." Yet if the narrative seemed to confirm that success lay within the farnily, the social status attained by his boss and his college buddy suggested something different. Viewers were left with the nagging feeling that Jim had "settled for success within the family, rather than challenging hirnself to be

- -- ='Spigel. llake Roonijor 7T: (Chicago: Universi. of Chicago Press. 1992). p. 60. IV Gcnder in Television: The Masculine 91 Malaise

more competitive and aggressive in his work. To the extent that Jim represented the

domesticated masculine ideal, this prioritizing of farnily over work reflected the mid-

century male's perceived failure to reclaim the entrepreneurial spirit of his Amencan

individualist forefather.

The stress on conformity, the valorization of private satisfaction over public

success, and media emphasis on "togethemess" acted collectively to re-code ideas of the

traditional independent male. However, comedic episodes in sitcoms derided the dornestic

male, suggesting social anxieties surrounding his domesticated masculinity. One might

take note of the fact that so rnany of the men in the comic stnps of the 1950s, such as The

Flintstones, were shorter than, and bullied by, their wives. Images and expectations were

changing; however, these changes were not being celebrated.

Passivity was inherent to the medium. Mass media, and TV broadcasting in particular, was feminizing male viewers. In content and format, television viewing dismpted the normative structures of patriarchal culture and tumed "real" men into passive homebodies." Television's allure was 'seductive,' and its images penetrated consciousness with the hypnotic nature of the message." Cnticized for creating a feminized audience, and represented in tropes of passivity, consumption, penetration and addiction, the threat of television's hypnotic power sternmed From its association with the ferninine. This idea was voiced in Wylie's Generation of Vipers. Wylie targeted media - first in the form of radio and then television - as a source for lost male power. He

Spigel. Make Roorn for n,:p.6 1. " William Y. Elliott. Television 's lntpacr on =IniericanCuffure. (East Lansing: Michigan State Universih IV Gender in Television: The Masculine 92

declared, "Women will not rest until every electronic moment has been bought to seIl suds

and every prograrn censored to the last decibel and syllable according to her self-adulation

- dong with that of her de-sexed, de-souled, de-celebrated matesm2'

Mo vie Masculin ity

Images of masculine prowess, so much a part of the Hollywood ethos, were

excluded fkom the sitcom format. Because television was situated within the home, sitcom

narratives were substantially more conventional and family-oriented than those produced by other media during the period. A cornparison between the masculine ideal as seen on

TV and those which Hollywood promoted reveal a contested terrain. In a review of

Bonino, a short-lived sitcom starring Ezio Pinza, a writer asked,

now what have they done to our dream on Bonino? They have emasculated it. Jurgen has come home to his beer and his bathroom slippers. No longer the Phoenix lover, our Pinza is merely a father. .. where once was strength and the cornforting touch of power, now there is only the stereotype ofpater americarm, well-meaning, tenderly stupid and utterly inadequate... weep for ~donis.~'

In contrast to the domesticated ideal of manhood in television sitcoms were a myriad of other "types" on television, in the movie theatres, and in popular literature.

Cowboy shows such as Gunsmoke, Maverick and The Rifleman, and television dramas, as well as detective senes like Dragnet, provided very different ideals of machisrno on television. The bulk of television prograrnming, outside of the sitcom genre, featured men engaged in real questions of valor and the implications of action in a responsive and troubled world. Invariably they could be found curing the sick, coping with social

Press. 1956)- p. 15. '' Wylie. Generation of Cïpers. (New York: Rinehart & Winston. 1955). p. f 97. IV Ceoder in Television: The Masculine 93 problems, teaching the Young, active in nature as cowboys, solving human pudes as detectives and variously engaged as individuals in dramas that were concemed with something beyond the intramaritai relations of the "domcom" farni~~.*~

In popular literature, the bravado of lead characters, such as Micky Spillane's

Mike Hamrner, reveal a violent and uncompromising machisrno. The detective-hero occupied evely Spillane novel as sexual and crime-solving superman. He was always involved in imrnediate power struggles against evil and his sexual magnetism was uncontested as "he always triumphed in his conquests, whether over women or crooks.""

Americans bought some three million copies of Spillane's One Lonely Night which featured the Amencan hero as virulent anti-communist. In it Hammer brags "1 killed more people tonight than 1 have fingers on my hands. 1 shot them in cold blood and enjoyed every minute of it ... they were red sons-of-bitches who should have died long aga."" This contrasting depiction of masculinity certainly challenges the domesticated masculine ideal, suggesting an arnbiguity in the dominance of the middle-class domestic ideal.

Film's ability to portray more complex characters and narratives permiaed greater variance in the depiction of masculinity in the 1950s. Heroism and individuaiity were stock male characteristic in film of the era. The old-fashioned Amencan male in movies was a stnver and an achiever. He was hard as nails and definitely not cut out for mowing lawns or playing with his children in the game room. Moreover, he didn't really like women al1

Y Spigel. Make Room for TC.: p.64.

26 Bdty Frïedan. The Ferninine Mystique. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1963). p.272 " Miller and Nowak. The IVqv ive IVere. p. 168. Mickey Spillane. One Lone- Mghr. (New York: Pantheon Books. 195 1). p. 17 1. TV Cender in Television: The Masculine 94 Malaise that much - sure they served a purpose, but one always knew who the tough guys were because they were rni~o~ynists.~~in the movies, masculinity was multifaceted. Though the father-figure was cornmon, his domesticated image contrasted starkly with the more virile and domineering images of masculinity. Furthemore, domestic masculine images on the big screen were primarily the object of pity or ridicule, unlike the image of the television father. In such popular teen movies as Rebel Withotrt a Cause and Giant, the father was explicitly targeted as the source for emotional and familial distress. As a weak figure he failed in his responsibility as father. Nonetheless, the masculine character was foregrounded, as reconciliation between father and child was ultimately important to the narrative resolution of both films.

Individualkm and self-reliance comprise key elements of Amencan ideology and as a traditionaily important ingredient in an Amencan masculine ideal they proved central to the popularity of the western genre. Individuality and honour were key defining traits of male protagonists in such movies as neGunfighter and High Noori. which examined the length to which a man would go to defend his convictions. The popularity of Marlon

Brando in the 1950s with his rnix of power, strength and sexual energy presented a starkly contrasting masculinity to the domesticated Dad and reinforced the contrasting development of individual conviction in the face of conformity. Ever the loner who was configured on the side-lines of society, Brando's characters in The Wild One and Un the

Watr@ont, never conformed - he articulated the existential anguish of the outsider.

Peter Biskind. Seeing is Believing: HOw Hoi(wood Taught Us to Stop IVorpïng and Love the 1 950.5. (New York: Pantlieon Books. 1983). p.25 1. IV Gender in Television: The Masculine 95 Malaise

On the surface, masculinity in 1950s sitcoms seemed to conform to the dictates of

the domestic ideal. Men were happy to perforrn the tasks of father and husband. Middle-

class ideals were espoused and aspired to by the working-class with family harmony as a

central tenet of sitcom ideology. Dads of whatever class were given narrative dominance

in the lives of their children and wives. However, closer examination of this domesticated

image of masculinity reveals cracks in the surface. Class issues divided masculinity into

favorable and unfavorable images, and both middle-class and working-class males were

diminished by their domestic role. Furthemore, other media images of masculinity

suggested sharply contrasting ideas about masculinity in the 1950s. Confusion about what changes were occurring in the image of American masculinity, and whether these changes were desirable or not, have led observers to question the nature and direction of postwar

American masculinity. Chapter V Gender in Television:

The Ferninine

Mystique?

Aithough the television sitcom ideal served to instruct al1 family members on their

societal and familial roles, women were the prirnary target for the instructive message. In

the postwar Amencan domestic ideal family, working women wouid relinquish their claim

to the public domain of the workplace and retum to the pnvate dominion of the home.

Wornen, after all, were mled by a "fernale principle" which defined her as emotional,

irrationai, gentle, obedient, cheerfûl, dependent and, ultimately, nurturing. Her basic need, accordingly, was to be a wife, mother and hornemaker, and her only means of completion and fûlfillment lay in childbearing and in se~ngothers.' Criticism of independent and working modern women suggested that they had denied their femininity and this

"woman's role."

The implication that something was wrong with women who avoided the "natural" marital state was essential to the critique of the modem wornan. Modem Woma~~:The

Lost Sex identified women's role acceptance as central to the future of a healthy American

' Douglas Miller & Marion Now& nte mies: ïïze IV# Ifé IVere. (New York: Doubleday & Co.. 1975). p. 152. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mvstique? 97 nation. Woman's role lay at the base of the domestic and sexual pyramid. Kshe refused acquiescence the whole structure would collapse; hence she had to submit.* Media representations of woman's roles strongly reinforced this domesticity with their predominant depiction of women in the role of housewife. And while working women were a rare though persistent image, they were consistently depicted as striving to achieve the desired postwar ideal of marriage and children.

1950s sitcoms reinforced the domestic ideal in one of two ways -- either by presenting a positive image of the good wife and mother, or by conveying negative example in the errors and misfortunes of the "bad" housewife. Within both of these

"models" a narrative of dissent can be discerned, allowing for a subversive and contradictory reading of the ferninine ideal of the 1950s. The paucity of variance in female character types in popular television sitcoms of the era reinforced limited sex-roie expectation for women Mewers and contributed to a narrow understanding of 1950s' fernininity. ' Ironically the domestic role, which television sitcoms reinforced, was concurrently undennined in several ways. Although farnily formed the focus of the medium, with woman's role as mother at its center, the shadow of Wylie's neurotic and dangerous "mother" undermined this image of motherhood. On film, mothers appeared as manifestly evil; however, on teievision mothers hardly appeared at al1 as consequential characters. The destructive image of "mom" is unapologetic in movies such as Rebel

' Miller & Nmvak. The Woy CVe IYere, p. 155. ' Diana Meehan Ludies of the Evening (Meutchen: Scarecnnv, 1983). Mehan outlines a typology of female characters on television from the 1950s to the 1980s. Of the ten types she describes - Tlie Imp. The Goodwifk. The Harpy. îleBitck The Viaim The Decoy. The Siren. The Courtesan The Witcb The Matnarch - only two feature in 1950s sitcoms - the Goodwifc and the Imp. V Gender in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 98

Withmit a Cause, Giant and Tennesse Williams' Sz~dde~dyLast Summer. In al1 these films

"mom" was ". ..shrill, vitriolic, materdistic, suspicious and predatory.. .a thoroughly anti- life character totally lacking in sensitivity and incapable of functioning as a mother."'

Television, as a home entertainment medium, had a somewbat different ideological agenda regarding the social and familial statu of motherhood. It was necessarily rnuch less critical of women's place in the nuclear family and manifested its critique of motherhood through a consistent marginalization of morn. Television's tendency of "leaving mother out" revealed a concerted effort to de-emphasize the mother's importance in the lives of her children. Her role was uniformly diminished within the family to such an extent that she appeared primarily as a domestic sewant. Wylie's presence in 1950s television sitcoms, therefore, is felt not so much in evil or violent depictions of motherhood, but, rather, by obliterating mother's dl-powerful and harmfùl influence within the farnily by reconfiguring the father as the crucial molder of his children's psyches, and simultaneously dirninishing the role and effectiveness of television moms - with their symbolic annihi~ation.~

The Good Cornpanion

Talcott Parsons' "good cornpanion" mode1 shaped the middle-class, housewife de. This image of women was one of cornpetence, reflecting a positive portraya1 of women, and stmcturing a veritable "how to" lesson on good mothering. Donna Stone.

' Phillip Wylie. Generation of Vipers. (NewYork: Rinehart & Winston. 1955). p.208. Nina Leibman. "Leave Mother Out: The 1950s Family in American Film and Television." Cl'ide .4ngle 10 (1988). p. 30. Leibman provides an interesting analysis of the cornparison of motherhood on film and in television. documenting N mom's stmctuml elision from the narrative. ibid. p.3 1. V Gender in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 99

Margaret Anderson, Harriet Nelson and June Cleaver epitomized this ideal, with differing

degrees of intelligence, wit and effectiveness. The sitcom housewife, aside tiom being

cornpetent at domestic chores, was always attractive,' good-natured and wise. Within her

domain of home and family, she had a certain arnot.int of power in making decisions,

advising and chastising family members, and providing moral guidance to her family.

These qualities mirrored the domestic ferninine ideal of Modern Woman: The Lost Sex.

The first lesson this model taugl

was self-effacement. The dominant and

charismatic wornen of Father Knows

Best and The Donna Reed Show

reminded the viewer that the most

successfùl housewife did her duty

[ famil y togethemess. I receive accolades resulted in guilt and

self-recrirnination since self-abnegation was a key characteristic for the homemaker. A

second lesson required the continuai rewarding of the husband's achievement as both

breadwimer and parent.*

These "lessons" were "taught" in two episodes of The Donna Reed Show.

Ironically, one entitled, The Ideal Wve, the other The Male Ego. In 7he Ideal Wfe Donna

7 The attractiveness of sitcorn wives and their persistently tailored appearance opens up another venue of ferninisi conœrn regarding the limited notion of acceptable beauty and the emphasis on glamow in 1950s. Breines suggests that this pervasive image tesulted in training in self-hatred which "marreci a whole generation of wornen who grew up knowing they did not embody the [beauty ideal]." (p. 16 11 Nina Leibman. Living Rmm Lectures. (Austin: University of Tesas Press. 1995). p.200. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 100 was acclaimed an ideal rnother and wife for never punishing her kids for failing to do their chores, and for deferring to her husband's will. Finally, she declared, "enough," as she felt she had been exploited by her family. Donna then vocalized her needs as well as displayed general dissatisfaction with the treatrnent she received from family members. Yet her demeanor betrayed uncertainty in her new found self-promotion - evidenced in the twisting of her apron strings as she expressed her discontent. Donna declared that "no" was a new word in her vocabulary. Her husband's sarcastic retort that "it clashes with your personahty and your sunny disposition" demeaned her anger and diminished respect for her dissatisfaction. In the show's narrative conclusion, Donna reinforced this opinion by capituiating. Despite her justifiable anger, she succumbed to her guilt, declaring that

"the revolution is over and the people can go back to their peaceful ways." Donna's capitulation suggested self-indulgence in her articulation of personal needs and in questioning her family's abuse of her good nature. Furthemore, she appeared happiest when the family was at peace, regardless of the toll it took on her and the loss of self- respect she endured.

In The Malr Ego, MqStone, the daughter of the house, won an essay competition for a speech extolling the vinues of motherhood, and her own mother in particular, "Mothers are the strength of our nation, our comrnunity and our family," she wrote. The whole town was impressed with the essay and with Donna as wife and mother.

Compliments abounded and the local paper declared its intent to do a human interest story on her. Donna was praised by the postman for "running a house, raising kids, se~ngon cornmittees and working at the hospital, and yet you still find tirne to cheer your husband V Gcnder in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 10 1 up with a cup of coffee." Al1 this attention invoked her husband's jealousy, eliciting Alex

Stone's sardonic remark, "How lucky can 1 get? 1 have a wife that makes women sob and men dance in the streets." Meanwhile, Doma struggled to maintain focus on hirn -- she tkd to divert attention from herself to him as father and physician. The episode ended with a farnily dinner in which each farnily member gave a speech "in praise of Dad," with

Doma the moa enthusiastic supporter. Once again lessons in "good" mothering involved self-abnegation and the celebration of the father's centrality to the farnily and the community.

Some variability existed in the portrayal of the Goodwife ideal. By contrasting

Donna Stone and Margaret Anderson with June Cleaver and Hamiet Nelson, one notes some interesting daerences. June and Hamet were essentially peripheral characters to the main activity of the sitcom. They were the only females in male-dominated households but were not accorded rnuch respect by the men in their families. Hamet Nelson's character was a banal, though competent, image of motherhood. She was a secondary, somewhat passive, character, and her actions were limited to reacting to the behaviour of others in the program.

June Cleaver, like Harriet, was also peripherai to the socialization of her children.

She typically deferred to Ward in raising their sons, acknowledging the need for his guidance. Unlike the women in Father Knows Best and The Donna Reed Show, in

Leave it to Beaver June never provided the focus of the show. The program never focused solely on June's problems or concems; in fact, there were several episodes when she did not appear at all. As the only female character. her stmctural elision suggested a V Gender in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 102

peripheraiity in the importance of women to the show. Ironically, June Cleaver is the

television housewife who has been registered in the popular memory as "...the

quintessential American mother. If the Garden of Eden was starting anew as a suburb,

June would be the ideal Eve - [a] pretty, tireless wife, mother and h~memaker."~In June's

marguiality to her children's upbringùig and family decision making, she epitornized the

perfect antidote to Philip Wylie's fearsome, omnipresent mother: "She is non-threatening,

weak, and lives only on the penphery of her family circ~e."'~It is ironic that of al1 the

sitcom moms of the 1950s this "mother figure," has become one of the most mernorable

TV moms.

Margaret and Donna, on the other hand, though ultimately filling the same

housewife role, did so with more intelligence and independence of spirit. Nevertheless,

their position within the family continued to be subordinate to father's. This contradiction

of independent spirit with subordinate stature was perhaps more destructive to the feminist

idea of a powerfûl, female role rnodel. In The Donna Reed Show (afFectionately

nicknarned "Mother Knows Best"), Donna was oflen the locus for plot development. Her

intelligence and independence in solving her family's problems. her witty banter and

repartee with her husband, and her professional nursing qualifications assured the viewer

of her cornpetence and accomplishments as a woman. Yet they also suggested that Donna

chose the housewife profession - not for lack of an alternative option -- but because she

was happiest in this role. Similarly, Margaret Anderson emerged as a modem, intelligent college-educated woman content with her housewifely role. Though Margaret was Jim's

Leibman. "Lave Matlier Out" p.33 V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 103 equal in patience, good humour and confidence - and continually beat him at scrabble - her centrdity to the fhlywas undercut by the patriarchal hegernony of Jim's omnipotent character. While it was obvious that Margaret had both the ski11 and the desire to rear the children, her recurrent pattern of deferral to patemal authority emphasized her subordinate position. The fact that Margaret was intelligent and capable rendered her surrender even more distressing as it confirmed her choice of a subordinate status. Structurally,

Margaret's role was far more significant than either June's or Hamet's, as there were episodes that revolved solely around Margaret's activities or goals. These goals were, however, usually linked to her primary role as homemaker.

The "job" of housewife on television

was also paradoxical. The two main aspects of

a housewife's job were to bring up her children

and to maintain the home. The first

responsibility, as demonstrated, was usurped to

a large extent by the man of the house, while

1 The Donno Reed Showr Donna Reed rnodels 1 the second was either ignored or depicted as the appropriate cleaning garb for 1950s housewives. tedious. Although the primary job of June

Cleaver and Harrîet Nelson was to maintain the home, they rarely appeared actually performing the drudgery required to keep a house clean and a family fed. Indeed, the "real the'' activities of cleaning, vacuurning, and preparing dimer were "structured absences" on these programs that misleadingly suggested an ease and lack of drudgery with which

"' Leibman -Leave Mother Out.' p. 33. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 104 television housewives kept their homes neat, tidy and spotlessly clean. The eEortless housekeeping of sitcom moms contrasted with the messy realities of household cleaning.

Although the postwar era signaled afnuence and an increased access to household technology, women had less help in the home - in the fom of rnaids or servants -- while standards of cleanliness became increasingly stnngent. ' l In the 1950s there was more work for mother in the modem home because there was no one ieft to help her with it.

Consequently for almost al1 econornic secton of the population housework became an homogenizing force for women - it was compulsory manuai labour for al1 classes of women, except for the very wealthy.12

In Leave it to Beaver, for example, June's unhamed attitude, her housecleaning

"uniform" of pearls and shirtwaist dresses, and the absence of heavy cleaning, scmbbing, or moving of fùrniture dissipated any impression of the mother as a strong, powerful, individual. This depiction denied the actual hard work that "real" housewives performed as part of their daily routine. The homemaker's tasks in these domcoms were simple, unstressfùl and inessential in nature." They undermined the value of woman's contribution to society - even in their role as housewives.

' ' See Suellen Hoy 's Charing Dirt: The American Purmit ojCfeanliness. (New York: O.~ordUniversity Press, 1 995) for an extensive esamination of changing American standards of household cleanliness from the pre-civil war era to the mid-twentieth century. Hoy suggests that the transition in Amencan cleanliness standards reflects the tnumph of middie-class id& and habits. She particularfy focusses on the critical role of women as agents of cleanliness. " Ruth Schwartz-Cohen. 'The Postwar Years" in More WorkJor Mofher: The ironies offlousehold Technologyfrom the Open Hearfh to the bficrowave. (New York: Basic Books. 1983). p. 197. l3 MGM executive producer, Norman Felton. attempted to juwthe lack of verity in the depiction of the housewife's task suggesting that the rote of the housewife could not be depicted honestly because. "rnost of a housewife's life is too humcinim. If you showved it honestly, it would be too du11 to watch." [Frcidan p.27.1 V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 1OS

In this supposedly positive depiction of women, their marginality to the family's fiinctioning and decision-making system was inherently unappealing. As popular women's joumals and the Literature of the the extolled the virtues of motherhood, the importance of maintaining the home and the necessity of being a good wife, paradoxicaily the media did not celebrate them. In fact, both cinema and domestic sitcoms had an anti-maternai tone to their portrayais of motherhood. The housewife role, rather than being celebrated, was portrayed as peripheral and boring. Betty Friedan cnticized the television housewife, suggesting it was an insult to women of the 1950s to be continually subjected to this image:

Consider that drab, repulsive Iittle housewife one sees on the television screen. She is so stupid that she is barely capable of doing the most menial household tasks. Her biggest problem is to get the kitchen sink or floor really clean, and she can't even do that without a kind, wise man to tell her how.14

The vehemence of this denunciation underlined dissatisfaction with the narrow depiction of women as housewives in television sitcoms and critiqued a bland image of the housewife which reinforced the undesirability of this role.

Small Yicton'es and Everyday Rebellions

Although sitcoms were fairly consistent in portraying women as homemakers, enough gaps and contradictions existed to establish the feasibility of an alternative reading of their character. On the surface these sitcoms promoted women's domesticity and inequality while unconsciously reflecting the malaise of domesticity and the untenably narrow boundaries of the female role. While their efforts went largely unacknowledged by V Cendcr in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 106

their families, sitcom housewives often employed sarcasm and wit to bring attention to their dissatisfaction. Even the mild mannered June could be gently but incisively sarcastic with Ward. Arriving home from work, in one episode, Ward's query of, "How was your day?'was met with a cynicd response. "Dear, why do you aiways ask me that?"15 Her response suggested that the drudgery and predictability of her daily routine was not worth discussion - in the same way that the routine and drudgery of housecleaning was omitted fiom the sitcom's depiction of women's work. Furthemore, June's wisecracks to the obnoxious neighbour, Eddie Haskell, seemed out of character for a motherly type?

In Father Knows Best, Betty's (the eldest daughter) repeated attempts to break free of traditional roles suggested a negative reading of the housewife image. In fact,

Betty's character acted as a foi1 to Margaret's. Her frequent atternpt to rebel against domesticity by exploring educational and career possibilities, indicated a dissatisfaction with her expectations for the future. Betty embodied ail the suppressed hopes and desires that Margaret had as a youth. In their juxtaposition we see youtffil idealism and expectation contrasted with the mature resignation to a domesticated destiny.

At times Margaret expressed dissatisfaction with her domestic role through sarcasm and humour. In one episode, entitled Fumily Reunion, she was disappointed with her family's lack of enthusiasm to attend her extended family's yearly reunion. She only succeeded in motivating them by reminding them of al1 the things she did for them on a regular bais and reacting to their subsequent problems and concems with caustic quips

" Betty Freidan. The Ferninine ,I./vstique. (New York: W. W. Nonon & Co. 1963). p.268. l5 Leibman "Leave Mother OUI." p.40. l6 ibid. p.40. V Cender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 107

and indaerence. As with Doma Reed's Ideal Wife, the mothers on these shows expressed

their dissatisfaction with their family through sarcasm and guilt.

Contested Tetrain

Although the predorninant female image on television was that of the housewife, it was, in certain depictions, undermined and subtly ridiculed. In other sitcoms, contrasting images of dissent developed: those of the working wornan, the independent older woman, the strong matriarch and the dissenting daughter. The ideal of domesticated bliss and fernale satisfaction with the role of mother and housewife, could be interpreted, through the image on the screen, as highly contested. Though the dominant image of the medium seemed to reinforce domestication, the subtly reinforced message suggested an alternative.

Outrugeous Acts - The Rule of Humour

Comedy proved one avenue througb which dissent emerged. It allowed a certain fieedom from constraint both for actresses and character development. Because the cornedieme was not supposed to be taken seriously, she could explore the boundaries of femaie expectation without endangering the postwar domestic ideal, while exposing real issues through ridicule. These performances became subtexts within narratives. Even if they resulted in making a comic spectacle of the women, they nevertheless expressed anxieties about postwar notions of domesticity. Many programs drarnatized the unequal distribution of power between the sexes using comedy to highlight the inequity of these V Gender in Television: The Feminiae Mystique? 108

domestic relations, as in The Honeymooners' Battk ofthe Sexes. Comedy allowed for

flexibility in developing female roles within television's paternalistic gaze.

Female comics like Lucille Ball, Gracie Allen and Joan Davis were not typicaliy

criticized, as were male clowns, for being abrasive, rude, or licentious even though these

female comics cross-dressed and got into cornprornising positions with the opposite sex,

like their male counterparts. Their antics were not deemed threatening to social mores of

the time, because, as women, they were not meant to be role models. The sitcom

smoothed the female comics' abrasive edges by embedding their physical humour in

domestic scenarios, and their comic interludes were tempered by story and

characterization that assured viewers of their essentially female nature. 17

The comic female appeared most ofien as the imp, the female counterpart of the buKoon of the working-class male figure. In the female characterization she usually appeared in the middle-class rather than working-class comedic programs. Her rambunctious, rebellious, adventurous nature was seldom womanly and often childlike, and conflicted with society's expectations that she be a passive and dependent woman. She was the antithesis of the dornestic ideal, and therefore constantly failed in her endeavors.

Impish characters appeared in 1 Love Lucy, 1 Mamed Joan, My Little Margie, and

The Burns and Allen Show. Men in these shows were constantly tolerating, rescuing and admonishing the female characters for their screwball schemes. Lucy Ricardo was the most prominent character of this type, constructing a paradoxical relationship between dissent and complicity. Lucy's antics, on one hand, articulated a willingness to flout

'' Lpn Spigel. Lfake Roonifir 77,. (Chicago: Chicago University Press. 1992). p. 152. V Gender in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 109

patriarchal oppression by revealing the insipidness of the housewife role and by explonng

the boundaries of acceptable female behaviour. On the other, her consistent failure to

achieve her objectives seemed to maintain the patriarchal order of the domestic ideal,

sustainhg the idea that her nghtful place should be within the home fùlfilling her

housewifely duties.

A conventional reading of the "Lucy" image would suggest that incompetence was

central to her character. Not only was she inept as a housewife, but she was equally

incapable of succeeding in the public realm. Her ineptness had disastrous results, and her

absurd schemes ofien threatened the economic security of her family and the emotional

stability of marriage - her own or someone else's. Her distraction Ied to destmction and

her incompetence was the cause of chaos, disorder and ~onfusion.'~The central dynamic

of 1 Love Lucy was the division between the sexes. In a typicd situation, Lucy and Ethel

scherned to gain the upper hand against Ricky and Fred. The boys tned to outmaneuver them and were nearly beaten, but Lucy's hubris caught up with her and she ended up

humiliated. Domestic harmony was restored but not compromised and the wayward wife show her place by the humiliation her role-transgression caused her. Lucy was child-like while Ricky was the authority figure who must and did tolerate the antics of his "little wife" .

18 Meehan Ladies of the Evening p.26. V Cender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 1 IO

Lucy Ricardo epitomized the problem of

female energy with no outlet. Her search for

excitement and her fascination with show business

suggested a dissatisfaction with her life as it was.

She illustrated the quanday of the 1950s

Amencan women with no power, no job, and no

success in fulfilling her potentiai. She was "the

comic demon called forth fiom the boredom and

1 I Love Lucy: Lucy's rebelliousness is repeatdy hstration of an entire generation of lubaud"and conuokd bs hUSbanb l house~ves-11 19 1 L~~~ L~~~ allowed the

modem woman's hstration with the constraint of the domestic ideal to be acknowledged,

but never endoned. The show simuItaneously legitirnized the yeamings of women for

fûller lives and reinforced societal claims that they were better off keeping their dreams in

their heads. Lucy endured mamiage and housewifery by transfoming them into vaudeville.

Her dissatisfaction with the domestic life emerged in her desire to work in show business

but was ultimately concealed by happy. trite endings.

Lucy's discontent and ambition forged a sustained weekly narrative which formed

the show's working premise. The contradiction between her desires and the reality she

faced was shrouded by the audience's pleasure in her performances, and by their

understanding of her television star tat tus.^' The supreme irony of the program was that

.. l9 Gerard Jones Honey I h Home. (New York: Gmve Weidenfeld 1992). p.68. Pacricia Mellencamp. "Situation comedy. Feminism and Freud: Discounts of Gracie and Lucy." In Tania Modeleski [ed]. Studies in Entertainment: Critical .-lpproaches to 5lass Culture (Indianapolis: V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 111

Lucy was not star matenal and hence needed to be confined to domesticity. In the weekly repetition of the narrative, Lucy never got what she wanted - a job and recognition. For nine years she accepted domesticity as her "punishment," only to try to escape domesticity the next week. Yet during each program, Lucy not oniy dorninated the show; she managed to demolish Ricky's act - pre-empting his patriarchal dominance, upstaging every other performer and getting exactly what she wanted -- the role of star -- performing off-key. crazy, perfectly executed vaudeville routine.*'

Lucy Ricardo's character structured a counter-hegemonic view of the female sitcom image. Not only did she dictate the development of the plot; she also constantly occupied "public" space, flouting authority and creating her own opportunities through her ingenuity or disingenuity for that matter. Lucy was an active dynamic character whose

" wifely image" was unconventional. She constantly contested Ricky's aut hority, made fun of him, and ofien told him what to do? The relationship between Lucy and Ricky structured an ever-shifting locus of power, their relationship was characterized by constant struggle. In the premiere episode, discussion about where to go for Fred and Ethel's anniversary turned into a war of position between the two couples, with Lucy arguing for the nightclub and Ricky for the boxing ring. Though Ricky eventually got his way, Lucy proved effective at contesting his patriarchal dominance and certainly showed no outward respect or deference for his position as head of the household.

Indiana University Press, 1986). p.87. " Mellencamp, "Situation Comedy." p.88. " This "disobedience" was facilitatecl by Ricky's ethnicity. The racial implications of his Cuban ongin detracted from his ability to act as an authority figure and his emotional Latin tempcramcnt furthcr diminished his patriarcha1 mle. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 112

In I Love Lucy, as in other comedic sitcorns, the institution of marriage was not

venerated; however, in Lucy both the male and fernale characters disparage it. In

unconventional fashion both Lucy and Ethel contest the domestic idyI1. In one episode

Lucy complained, "Ever since we said I do, there are so many things we d~n't."~In

another, Lucy refemng to wax tulips asked "How can you live with a substitute when you

can have the real thing?" Ethel replied, "I've been asking myself that since 1 mamed Fred."

This contestation of the desirability of marital domestication by married women

contravened the 1950s ideal of tme happiness.

In one exceptional episode of 1 Love Lucy, entitled Ricky Asks For A Raise,

Lucy's character demonstrated important "masculine-aggressive" traits and a capacity for

problem solving which was unexpected in sitcom wives. Ricky's boss Mr. Littlefield was

coming to dimer, and Lucy wanted Ricky to ask for a raise. She instructed. "If you're

afiaid to ask for a raise, you're never going to get it." They decided to rehearse the xene

with Lucy coaching Ricky into a more aggressive approach, informing him that nobody

wants to give a raise. One has to demand it. After dinner, lauded as Lucy's success, Lucy

pushed Ricky into action. He started aggressively, but soon petered out into, "You

couldn't give me any more money next year could you?" Lucy jumped in, bluffing, to

inforrn Mr Littlefield that Ricky had many other ofers. Littlefield called the bluff and

Ricky was out of a job. Lucy failed. Yet she eventually saved the day with her scheme to

convince Littlefield that he had lost the best bandleader in tom. She and Ethel booked the joint (under various different names) and in a wondefil scene which demonstrated Lucille

" Lucy Thih Ricky is Trying to do Away With Her/ Lucy Raises Tulips. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 113

Ball's talent as a character actor, she, Ethel and Fred play different people who go to the club and then leave in haste exclairning in dismay "What, Ricky Ricardo is no longer at the

Tr~picana!?!~'Her scheme worked as Littlefield ofliered Ricky his job back at a much higher salary. But Ricky declined, believing in his "fdse" popularîty. The episode highlights two important details - the first was Lucy's business acumen and obvious awareness of negotiating tactics, and the second, her successfbl scheming on behalf of her husband. Not surprisingly both go unacknowledged.

1 Love Lucy was significant as the first show that allowed a pregnancy to nin its coune on screen. When Desi announced that Lucy was pregnant afker the first successful season, network officials were appalled and planned to cancel the show. But Lucy and

Desi talked CBS into allowing Lucy's pregnancy on the air. They shot seven "pregnancy shows," and though the sponsors encouraged Lucy to "hide behind chairs" the "event" did nin its course on television.*' The idea of a pregnancy within a sitcom was so novel that the network insisted on having a minister, a priest and a rabbi look over and approve the scripts for the seven episodes deding with the pregnancy. This was a major event in sitcom history, with more than forty-four million Amencans watching -- far more than the twenty-nine million who tuned in for the inaugural speech of President ~isenhower.~~Yet

Lucy's rnotherhood was rarely developed in the show's narrative as an object of study.

Little Ricky never had a significant presence on the show, and Lucy's role as a mother was therefore rarely explored in detail. This lack of ernphasis on motherhood in the show

'' Rick Mie The Grm iTV.SitconiBook (New York: Richard Marek 1980). p.45. '5 Jones. Honey I iri Hme. p.73. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mvstique? 1 14

allowed Lucy greater freedom from the conventional noms of the feminine domestic ideal

to trespass actively into public space.

Though Lucy failed in her ventures, she nonetheless explored the liminal space of

role-expectation and articulated an unlimited capacity for action. The show's character and plot intersected repeatedly to give the viewers a heroine who always bounced back to test the lirnits of the traditional role required of her. In this way she "normalized" the possibilities for active women to the Arnerican viewer, and for this they loved her. Lucille

Bali's vehicles reached Nielson's top ten for an incredible fifleen years ninning.26Lucy constructed a dissenting narrative, no matter how irnperfect it may have been. This was

Lucy's most powerful message to women, for regardless of how often she failed, viewers could expect her to retum week after week constantly contesting her domestic role and undermining patriarchal dominance.

The role of Gracie Allen in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show permits a fiirther examination of the role of "humour" in the development of a narrative of female dissent. While Lucy used physical comedy to undennine patriarchal order. Gracie used, or, rather, misused the conventions of language and logic to undermine conventional order.

She baflled al1 the male characters on the show, concocting improbable stories which inevitably turned out to be tme. In the process she created the narrative plot for the show.

Interestingly, her "version" of redity was validated over the masculine - thereby contesting the convention of feminine illogic. Her character was crucial to plot development, so much so that after she retired from the show, George Burns' attempt to continue with a spin off

26 Lichter. Lichter & Rolhman. Prime The: How Television Portruys .-inrerican Culture. (Washington: V Cender in Television: Tbe Ferninine Mystique? 115

was unsuccessful. Despite being burdened with al1 of the clichés applied to women -- she

was illogical, nonsensical and incomprehensible to the men on the show - she nonetheless

seemed to be beyond their control and censure. While George controlled narrative

development, Gracie did not revere him. Nor was she intimidated by his clevemess. In

fact, Gracie rarely paid attention to him or to any authority figure. In this marner she unmade decorum and unraveled patriarchal lawsm2'Yet, like the male leads in most sitcoms, George always got the final and controlling look and laugh.

In both "Lucy7' and "Gracie," humour acted as a substitute for anger. Quoting

Freud, Patricia Mellencamp suggested that "... humour is not resigned, it is rebellious. It signifies the tnumph of not only the ego but the pleasure principle... it repudiates the possibility of s~fferin~."~~Within the restrictive conditions of the 1%Os, humour was a weapon, a tactic for su~valto ensure sanity. Gracie and Lucy were rebellious and humorous; however, by refusing to acknowledge injustice in their lives and by making comedy out of their own misfortune, comedy replaced anger, if not rage, with laughteraD

That neither audience nor the critics noticed Lucy's feminist strain is curious and suggests that comedy is a powefil and unexarnined weapon of subversion. 'O Allen and Bal1 unmade "meaning" and overtumed patriarchd assumptions, stealing the show in the process, yet neither escaped the confinement and tolerance of kindly father-figure

Regnely PubIishing. 199.1)- p. 1 12. '' Mellencamp. "Situation Cornedy." p.83. " ibid. p.93 'bid. p.94 'O However. the Saudi Arabian govcmment did dctect an elernent of mbvcnion in the series. banning the show because Lucy dominated lier Iiusband. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 116 husbands." They highlighted the paradoxical relationship, in 1950s sitcoms, between the creation of narratives of dissent and the maintenance of the domestic ideal.

Women as Central Characfers

Critics of early television maintain that women were marginalized and under- represented in every genre. Although this was to a large extent tnie, within the sitcom genre women appeared prominently in narrative familial space. Furthemore, using the domestic ideal as the measure, women characters did transgress certain assumed noms.

Female leads had an important structural role in the sitcom narrative. And television atlowed many actresses to continue working after a career in the movies. This was the case for many television actresses who made their start in the movies before migrating to te~evision.~~

Age was an interesting factor in the ferninine television image because, unlike other entertainment media which fed off the beauty of young female stars and "put them out to pasture" after a certain age, television provided a place for "olde?' women to continue to work. Lucille Bal1 was thirty-eight when 1 Love Lucy began, in the second season, at forty, she had a baby (rather old for 1950s motherhood) and continued the 4cLucy"

3 I Mellencamp, "Situation Comedy," p.90. 32 Donna Reed acted in more than forty rnovies. including an academy award winning roIe in From Here to Etemiîy in which she played a prostitute - a deshe had ho@ wouid change her wholesome image. but obviously did not. Lucilie Ba11 started her career as a Ziegield folk girl and had many secondas. roles in HoIIywood as well as a successfid radio mr.Eve Arden of Our Miss Brooks \vas also a onc- time Ziegfield folly girl and pIayed Joan Cmvford's friend in Mildred Pierce. Private Sec rctary 's Ann Sothem \vas notable in a number of broadway shows and lesser roles in movies of the 1940s and 1950s. Spring Byington appeared in several Broadway shows and made many movies including hfutiny on the Bounty (1935). Jezebef(1938).and You Can 't Take it With You (1938). Joan Davis. one of Amcrica's favorite comediennes. made on average sis movies a year during the 1940s before moving her talents IO V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 117

tradition through three further incarnations." Joan Davis was also in nid-life during 1

Married Joan, and Spnng Byington was sixty-one when December Bride first aired. Not

only did these women spend their lives building careers in the entertainment industry, but

they stmctured an age bracket considerably older than the familial ideal in Arnenca, where

couples were marrying and starting families in their early twenties.

Within the sitcom genre, variability in the ferninine role existed. Lucy established

the tradition of the female comic - contesting the placidity of the domestic housewife

character. This was a role later taken up by Joan Davis in 1 Mamed Joan. In December

Bride, another Desilu production, Spnng Byington contested rnyths about older women.

Women in the work sphere stmctured a further locale for strong female characterization.

Connie Brooks and Susie McNamara played women who had access to a dynamic and

changing public sphere and effected change in the world around them. They were strong characters, with intelligence and ambition. While they maintained their femininity, they nonetheless exercised independence and autonomy. Both had marriage as their ultimate goal -- upholding the ideology of the 1950s; however, they were not diminished by this need and did not wallow in self-pity at their single-status. They were, in fact, enviable in the amusement that they found in Iife and in the vaganes of their situation.

Perhaps critics of early television have fallen victim to their own stereotypes of the

1950s in analyzing the image of women in ~itcoms.~~Despite the many images of

television. 33 1 Love Lucy. The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy aired on prime time until 1974. 3.1 Literature on gender in tetevision focused on women within domestic sitcoms on1y. While most of thcse studies [ such as Leibman. Mellencainp. Meehan. Press and Spigel1 aimed at destabilizing the "Happy Houscwife" image. none of them esamincd images of women outside the domcstic sitcoms structure. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 118 domesticated females, unconventional female characters also appeared on television dunng this era. Not only did these women dominate the visual space of the screen, they also formed the catalyst around which action and plot was formed. One of the more interesting roles of this vein was the role of Lily Ruskin played by Spring Byington in December

Bride. In this very unusual role, Byington played an elderly mother-in-law who came to visit her daughter and ended up staying.

What was unusual about the

series was its depiction of the elderly.

She destroyed the myth of the elderly as

being dependent, infirm and a burden to

the younger generation; in fact she

pulled the "young" along with her in her

schemes and ploys for amusement. She

was charming, attractive and most

importantly young at heart. She had 1 December Bride: Lily and Hilda demonstrate their 1 1 adventmus carehee spirit to the sensure of her son- more energy, imagination and in-~aw. I joyfulness than other characters half her age. December Bride was the oniy sitcom in history - before The Golden Girls - to show an old person who was not decrepit and the object of pity or ridicule. In fact, Lily was the perfect old person, she was never sick, never complained about anything, she was self-sufficient - she even had a job as a columnist in the local paper. She loved to try new things and above al1 enjoyed a good adventure. Then there was her "Ethel," her partner in V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 113

crime Hilda who was a rounder, less attractive and more caustic version of Lily. Hilda was

a man-crazy girlfiend with an equal nose for fun and adventure. Whenever they plotted a

new scheme they locked anns and danced a spirited jig. Audiences adored the show and

wrote "love letters" to Lily by the hundreds every day.3' In an episode entitled Auni Emiiy,

the juxtaposition of Lily and Hilda's "active" old age to a more conventional image of the

elderly highlighted the show's original content. Aunt Emily, a contemporary in age,

cautioned 'the girls' that, "at our age we shouldn't be too active, we've got to slow

down." Lily ". ..can't image anyone thinks like that." In an effort to Iiven Emily up, Lily and Hilda concocted a plan to introduce a liale romance into Ernily's life. The plan works, and a younger looking, more boisterous Ernily ends up running off with the local p harmacist .

Females in sitcoms of this era were always attractive, trim and elegantly dressed -- suggesting acknowledgernent of the glamour pattern descnbed by Talcott ~arsons?

Interestingly an emphasis on the physical attractiveness of women carried over into the depiction of "the elderly woman." Lily was always very elegantly dressed - her figure was tnm and her hair was always carefully coifed. From the premiere episode her attractiveness to men was emphasized; in fact, Lily was never without a date. In the premiere Lily's entrance was juxtaposed against a verbal critique of the c'mother-in-law" as a fate worse than death. Far ftom being needy and dependent, Lily amved off the train surrounded by a bevy of adoring men, anxious to help her with her bags, and touting a

35 Mitz, The Great TVSitcont Book, p. 104. 36 panons outlined several patterns of female behaviour. In the "glamour pattern." women focused their drive for success in the realm of sesual attractiveness instcad of competing with men in the workforce, V Cender in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 120 rnarriage proposal fiom a wealthy man - which she declines. She is confirmed as being attractive, mamageable, and yet she obviously has chosen to remain single.

This upbeat depiction of the elderly, however, did not escape the stereotypes of farnily dynamics. Men remained the head of the household and Lily was treated like a teenage girl in constant need of supe~sion,restraint and caution. Matt, Lily's son-in-law, was like a father to her, counseling her on problems of the world. Nor did she escape the expectation that females be demure and domestic. "It so happens 1 like my mother-in- law," Matt exclaimed. "Lily is kind, sweet, and considerate. There are hundreds of things she does for me, she even presses my tro~sers."~~Lily was thoroughly ferninine, flirtatious and codonable in her domestic role -- an interesting incarnation of the domestic ideal in an elderly women. The continuous focus on her sex appeal and desirability to men opens up an interesting perspective on sexuality and aging. Decernber Bride suggested that a woman could stay desirable well into old age, yet that desirability was invariably comected to domesticity and physical attractiveness. The show reinforced the ideology that objectified women, and stressed that "trapping" a man remained the central objective of the female characters in the show.

Sirong Women - Burnbling Men

In working-class sitcoms, such as 1 Remember Marna, The Honeymooners, The

Goldbergs, and The Life of Riiey, female images were generally strong, dominant and responsible. The working-class world was the world of the matriarch. Yet the female

Their ambition [vas thcrcfore contained within acceptable femininc parameters. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 12 1 characters in these shows were also usually secondary characters, while male figures dominated the narrative plot development. This working-class matriarchy did not endure.

By the mid- 1950s both the working-class and the idea of matnarchy were shunted off the air. The middle-class ideal dominated.

A cornparison of middle-class representations of women with the working-class images in The Honeymoonen and 1 Love Lucy shows a reversa1 of gender roles. Ralph

Krarnden played Lucy and Alice Kramden played Ricky Ricardo. The Honeymooners

featured the same struggle

between the sexes that appeared in

1 Love Lucy. Alice and Trixie

were pitted against Ralph and Ed.

While Alice and Trixie shared

many activities, they rarely

conspired or schemed in the same

The Honeymooners: Alice's dominance is clearIy evidenced by way as Lucy and Ethel. They had her body language and physical presence. no need to do so, as Nice was so powerful a character that she was able to stand up to Ralph on her own. Instead, Ralph and Norton fiequently conspired against Alice, and in a reversa1 of roles, Ralph needed allies in his attempt to subvert the voice of reason which Alice represented." Lucy and

37 Prerniere, December Bride. 38 Andrea kPress, Women Matching Television: Gender, CIass and Generation in the tlnterican D' EKperience. (PhiIacielphia: University of Pennsylcamia Press. 1991). p.32. V Gender in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 122

Nice were oppositional, as Alice was the real boss in her farnily and Ralph the

incompetent.

Nice gave as good as she got, and she never backed dom f?om a confrontation with Ralph. She emerged fiom their arguments as the repository of reason and sensibility despite her husband's size and temper and his weekly threats to sock her so hard she'd go nght to the moon. Their body Ianguage, revealed in their combative stance and fiequent face-offs, were indicators of a battle of the sexes manifested in a very physical form.

However, Alice showed no fear of Ralph. Furthemore she was quick with sarcastic quips and never deferred to his masculine pride. In fact, the power dynamic worked in the reverse. Ralph's scherning and blustering indicated Alice's position of power. Alice was

"she who must be obeyed."

Working Wumen in TV Sitcoms

Contrary to expectation, positive images of the working woman appeared with some regularity in sitcoms of the 1950s. Early sitcoms focusing on women on the job included the popular Our Miss Brooks, featuring Eve Arden as a school teacher, Boss

Lady with Lynn Ban in the unconventional role of owner of a constmction Company, and

Private Secretary, starring Am Sothem in a far more conventional role as the 'brains behind the operation,' an executive secretary to a theatrical agent. There were also a slew of short-running prograrns featuring young women in unchallenging secretaria1 and actress V Gender in Television: The Femininc Mystique? L 23 type jobs.3g The roles these women played have not been exarnined in depth in media literature and comprise an interesting area for fbture research.

One obstacle to analyzing the genre is the scarcity of these sitcoms in media libraries, partly due to the fact that many of the shows had relatively short runs and were not among the more popular shows of the tirne. These shows were paradoxical because although they had short runs - suggesting that they were not popular -- their recurrence as a type throughout the 1950s suggests that there was a definite demand for an image of the young, single working girl. Though each show did not last long, the type rernained a constant throughout the era -- an image persistently recreated and repackaged in sitcom after sitcom.

The lack of acknowledgrnent of the image of the working women mirrors the dominance of the domestic ideal in our historical memory of the 1950s. In the same way that, until recently, conventional histoncal analysis of the 1950s ignored the fact that mamed women entered the work force at an increasing rate der World War II, the television ideal also suggested that women's postwar migration was out of the workplace and into the kitchen. 'O Domestic sitcorn andysis reflected the 1950s ideology of togethemess and the dominance of the parental, and in particular, the patemal role in the smooth functioning of the family home.

Working women in sitcoms were primanly featured in "jobsyyrather than "careers."

Most frequently they were ernployed in the position of secretary, model, aspiring actress

" This program type included about sixteen shows in the 1950s including Meet Millie. Young and Gay. My Fricnd Irma. and Those Whiting Girls amoung others. " William Chafe. The dnterican l170nran. (New York: O.dord University Press. 1972). p. 182. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 124

or broadway hopefiil, with a few notable exceptions. Among the exceptions were Miss

Brooks of Our Miss Brooks who was a successful, witty and well-loved school teacher."

There was dso the unusuai sitcom Willy, which featured a small town femaie lawyer, and

Boss Lady, which had a woman running a constmction Company. These were certainiy unconventional roles for women to play especially in the context of 1950s home theatre.

An important observation about these sitcoms was that the female characters were al1 single and looking for a mate. In fact, for the most part the "dating ritual," or the search and pursuit of an acceptable male, comprised the primary interest of many of these sitcoms. The social significance of these single wornen was more likely to be their man- hungry state rather than their independent, working situation. It was acceptable that these unmarried female characters were featured as part of the work world orzly because they were not ignoring their families in order to do so. In the case of Our Miss Brooks and

Private Secretary, which featured "older" women (in their late thirtiedearly forties), this was more unusual as these women, though still attractive and dating, were "past their prime."

The crisp, mordant wit of Connie Brooks added a facet to her character which gave the school mistress an ''unferninine" edge. Her good-looks, smart dress, and tart- tongue allowed for an unconventional and desirable change in the "image" of school tea~hers."~Her special rapport with her students revealed her success as a teacher, and fan

'" Miss Brooks was unusrial both because she had a career - though not an unusuai one for a woman - and because her show was quite popular. '' Faniham and Lundberg would have mggesteci a more drastic change in the image of the school teacher - they advocated barring unmamieci wvomen. "spinsters" frorn teaching chiidren. arguing tliat "a great many children have unquestionably been damaged psychologically by the spinster teacher. wlio cannot bc an adcquate niodel of a complete wonun for boys and girls." Farnham & Lundberg chapter "Ways to a V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 125

mail for the show documented viewers' appreciation of her depiction of the profession.

"Thank you for recording the fact that we are not a11 poker-faced Ieftovers," one viewer

wrote." Interestingly, though she remained

unmarried, she remained faitffil in her pursuit of

Mr. Boynton, the Biology teacher - reassuring the

companionate focus of the domestic ideal. She

filfilled her "ferninine" nature as "mothei' or

caretaker of children, as she had a classroom fil1

of kids. Thus while on the one hand her

cornmitment to career marked her as

unconventionai, in severai ways her character 1 her affiections for the illusive Mr Boynton. I conceded to the ferninine mystique of the 1950s. In the suggestively titled, Private Secretary, Ann Sothem's depiction of the more

conventional role of secretary, Susie McNamara,

allowed for a traditional illustration of female power.

Susie was clearly the power behind the throne. She was

the alert, sharp-tongued secretary, always scheming to

keep her boss, Mr. Sands, out of trouble. By the end of

each show, Susie always got her way. Even in the most Privote Secretary: Susie outrageous situations she was self-a~suredad poised. McNamaraVs for ber boss, Mr. Sands, is evident.

Happier Ending"] '' Mitz. The Great ïT~'SitcomBook. p.78. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 126

It was clear early on in the show who was really the boss. Though she brought Mr. Sands coffee, it was eMdent that ifhe did not treat her with respect, he was liable to get the coffee poured on his head "by accident."" She was a woman to be reckoned with - a strong role mode1 for other secretaries.

A nascent "single-girl" scene emerged in the 1950s which developed into a genre, in the 1970s. with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Laveme & Shirley. In the 1950s a fair number of shows featured "the lives and loves" of young girls living together trying to find work in New York. This genre is of interest because it was overwhelmingly unsuccessfùl. None of these shows lasted more than a season or two, and none of them were "Front Rumers." Shows, such as Young and Gay - The Girls, My Friend Ima, and Those Whiting Girls, for example, featured young, attractive, single girls happy in their search for love and adventure while experiencing the challenge of trying to ''make it" in Manhattan. Even if they focused on the pursuit of man-iage, they presented to the

American viewing audience a portrait of capable young women. Though work was only infrequently the focus of an episode, their self-supporting status formed an important subtext to their romantic and platonic relationships.

The fact that these girls were mostly young reflected, to a certain extent, conventional noms as it was "acceptable" for young wornen to work before they were married. They did not contravene societal mores. Moreover, the expectation penisted that these young girls would work only until they met the man they were going to marry.

Hence, they worked at jobs, not careers. The fact that the shows were short lived

~~~~~ - 44 Mitz. The Great 77,' Sitconr Book, p.83. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 127

reinforced this idea. The pretext of them looking for a husband only lasted for so long. If

these girls continued to be happily umarried for too many semons, they would threaten

the conventional ideal of marital bliss and would become "old maids" with questionable

attraction-power. In conventional terms this would make them failures as women --

abjects of ridicule, not objects of entertainment.

Reality of Television Women

The incongmity of the "happy housewife" image in domestic sitcoms and the denigration of the career woman were ironic given the strong-willed, ambitious career women who acted their parts. Donna Reed, Lucille Bali and Jane Wyatt were al1 central to the sitcoms in which they played and well-known stars in their own nght. This contradiction of strong actress/passive role resulted in a number of episodes in which

"mother" questioned her domestic career, only to establish that even women with intelligence, fortitude and creativity were happiest when seMng men.'" Patricia

Mellencamp, who studied both 1 Love Lucy and The Burns and Allen Show, commented on this incongniity, highlighting the importance in early 1950s comedy of idiosyncratically powerful femaie. The 1950s marked an era of "pacification" in the depiction of women in sitcoms. Their image shifted from comedic rebel to the contented housewife without "a single critical mention that the genre's terrain had been altered.""

Both Lucille Bal1 and Doma Reed's personal lives contradicted their domestic television roles. Reed, often epitomired as the most ideal of the ideal housewives, both

4 5 Leibman. Living Roont Lectures, p. 19 1. V Cender in Television: The Femiaine Mystique? 128 starred in and CO-producedthe show with her husband, yet she did not have much control over the show's content. In 1966 she quit the show and began speaking out on feminist issues. She announced that she had "contempt for the two-dimensional, stereotyped woman" she had played on television, and had "disdain for the male mentalities that control TV programming."47Television actresses posed an interesting intemal contradiction to the ideal. Though they represented the domestic ideal, in doing so they ofered its most blaiant contradiction. These were hard-working career women who were immensely successtùl in "masculine" tems - in wealth, accessibility and public respect.

Furthemore, their success was structured solidly in the public sphere.

Lucille Ball's obvious talent as a comic actress and her tenacity in negotiating the show she wanted contrasted starkly with the screwball character she played on television.

Clnlike Lucy Ricardo, who never managed to break into the industry, Bal1 was the consumrnate career woman who had made it in show business -- and on her own tems. In

1950, CBS offered to bring Ball's radio show, My Favourite Husband, to television.

Lucy, in an effort to Save her mamage to Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz, insisted that her real-Iife husband play opposite her. The networks did not believe that the viewing public would accept a thick-accented Latin as the husband of a typical Arnerican wife. Through

Ballts pe~istenceshe managed to get the show off the ground in the format she desired.

Not only did Lucy's character introduce an unconventional image of the "housewife," but

Lucy and Ricky were an untraditional couple. They were the first inter-ethnic couple on

J6 ~ellencam~.'*Situation Comody." p.8 1. " Mik The &nt 7T7Sirconi Book, p. 15 1. V Gender in Television: The Femininc Mystique? 129 television. In an era of homogeneity and "whiteness," 1 Love Lucy managed to make

Arnerica's favorite couple a mixed couple.

Lucille Ball was an independent-minded woman whose cornpetence, talent and success contrasted sharply with the image she portrayed in the show. With her desire to keep her marriage together, work with her husband, stay in Los Angeles and provide a home for her daughter (and later son), Bal1 had definite yeamings for a domestic existence.

Yet at the same time she was extraordinarily ambitious, daring and hardworking. She stood her ground against the networks in order to create one of the highest rated shows on the air." She and Desi were also successful in television production with their

Company, Desilu productions. Desilu successfully produced several other sitcoms, including December Bride and The Danny Thomas Show. They continued to mn it together after their divorce in 1960 until 1962 when Lucy bought out Desi for the surn of

$2,552,975."

Ann Sothern, the "blonde" behind the success of Private Secretary, also proved to be more than just a pretty face. By the time the show went off the air - Sothem was president of five corporations and had nearly one million dollars invested in an Idaho

Cattle anc ch." Joan Davis of 1 Mamed Joan also managed her career quite successtùlly, raising a daughter on her own while exploring comedic screen opportunities.

Davis recognized the unique career oppominities which a comedic role allowed women.

She also lived quite an avante garde lifestyle for the 1950s, which paradoxically did not

" Jones, Hona, I hi Hom p.69. " Mitz. The Great TI7Sifconi Book. p.49. "' ibid. p.8 1. V Gendcr in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 130 affect her acceptability as an actress. Divorced, she had rnany men in her life, one to whom she was engaged for two years was eleven years her junior? The domestic ideal seerningly did not confine or restnct these "public" women whose real Iives transgressed the images they portrayed on television.

The power that television gave women as public personalities was evident in the story of Betty Fumess, an advertising success as the "Lady from Westinghouse7'for eleven years. Fumess gained leverage and financial recompense as the advertising representative for one of America7slargest household appliance manufacturen. She becarne a celebrity of notable import during the 1952 political convention. Westinghouse had bought a significant amount of air time and Fumess consequently, made as many as twenty to twenty-five appearances a day.'2 As the Queen of American Appliances, she negotiated a three year non-cancelable contract with Westinghouse for an impressive $100, 000 a year.53~urthermore, despite enormous pressure from the Company to enhance her domestic mystique, she refùsed to Wear either an apron or a wedding band. The power

Betty Furness had as a commercial symbol for Westinghouse reflected the growing power of television as a vehicle for women to access public space and significant success therein.

Television allowed wornen a level of success and power unparalleled in any other industry at the tirne. The entertainment industry was perhaps the only place in which women could with some regularity achieve status and income equal to men. Even though roles for women in entertainment were relatively superficial, especially in television, the

" Ibid. p.70. '' David Halberstam. The F$ies.(New York: Villard Books. 1993). p.498. " ibid. p.498. V Gender in Television: lBie Ferninine Mystique? 13 1

industry gave actresses an enormous amount of freedom, accessibility and public

recognition. Television increased actresses' exposure, allowed them longer careers and

gave them some flexibility in the articulation of their image. 1950s sitcoms featured severai

important actresses who were successfùl career women and who are remembered today as

having established a unique contribution to their genre. These women were important

role-models and continue to be so. The ultirnate irony of their success is that they achieved their status by playing at domesticity.

Image and Real@

Television's image of women was paradoxical and in rnany ways contradictory. In its persistent focus on the narrow image of the housewife, it failed to represent the complexity of women's lives in the 1950s. However, sufficient conflicting images which critiqued the domestic ideal existed suggesting confusion in television's message to women. To borrow a phrase fiorn Susan Douglas, television's contradictory message served to create "cultural schizophrenics" of its female viewers." While the domestic ideal was strenuously upheld in the plethora of housewifely roles for which domcoms were renowned, not oniy was this image subtly underxnined, but alternative images were also explored in the sitcom depictions of working women and the comic rebel. Images of dissent were explored in the liminal spaces of the dornestic ideal.

Y Douglas Ip.8. J uSed the terrn "cultural schizopluenics" to derribe American women who grew up with mass media. Slie suggested that wornen exhibited contradictory behaviour because of the mised messages about what worncn should and siiould not do. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 132

Media portrayais of women were not just entertainment but also a litmus of what it

meant to be fernale in society. The types of characters women portrayed and the

stereotypes attributed them conveyed beliefs and attitudes about women and the kinds of

behaviours women could be expected to enact? Sitcom characters impacted on the real

world by establishing expectations, validating preconceived notions, and providing viewers

with models of behaviour for their own lives. Betty Friedan bemoaned this concem,

suggesting that television was creating millions of u~ecessarilyrnindless, martyred

housewives, who squandered their education to start a "frantic race to "trap" a man."56

She argued the need for images of women to reflect reality: "Television badly needs some heroines. It needs more images of real women to help girls and wornen take themselves serio~sl~."~~To some extent, sitcoms were beginning to do this by providing unconventional roles for women to play and revealing a variety of strong characterizations of femininity. Yet the Iack of concrete images of female strength was in large part due to the networks' reluctance to contravene the domestic ideal. Bemoaning the lack of female leads in serious programming, Friedan quizzed MGM executive producer Norman Feiton, who captured 1950s thinking on the subject.

If you have a woman in a television series, she has to be either mamed or unmarried. If she's unmamed, what's wrong with her? After all, its housewives we're appealing to, and mariage is their whole life. If she's married, what's her husband doing in the background? He must not be very effective. He should be making the decisions. For drama there has to be action, codict. If the action is led by a woman. she has to be in conflict - with men or women or something. She has to make decisions; she has to triumph over opposition. For a woman to make

55 See Jackie Byars Al1 Thar HollywoodA Ilows. for an interesting discussion of stereotypes and their discursive power. Elyars suggests tliat stemtypes "are ideology made tangible." [p. 72-73 1 56 Friedan. The Feminine Alvstique, p.275. '' Ibid p.275. V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 13 3

decisions, to triumph over anything would be unpleasant, dominant, masculine. In comedy its al1 nght. You're not supposed to take her senously; you laugh at her.58

Women and Work

In the 1950s the contradiction between the popular image of wornen as homebodies and the reality of their situation was marked. More women than ever joined the work force. By 1956, 22 million women held jobs, a figure representing a third of jobs in Amerka -- half of these women workers were married.59Moreover, the war had prompted a boom in pink-collar occupations considered "respectabley' for middle-class women. Evidence suggests that as the decade of the 1950s began, work for women had become an integrai element in the lives of many rniddle-class families. More and more women sought jobs even though their husbands earned enough to support them. The

National Manpower Council reported, in 1954, that in 40% of families receiving a total income of between $6,0004 10,000 a year, both the husband and wife worked. These statistics reinforced the idea that for many Americans, female ernployment was a crucial means by which families achieved middle-class status and luxunous living ~tandards.~'And with the influx of middle-class wornen into pink-collar jobs, the meaning that had been implied by a married woman's work - lower-class status or a husband in financial hardship- was altered. Work outside the home gradually became legitimated for women of al1 ages, classes, races, and marital and matemal statdl

58 ibid. p.27.

59 Miller & Nowak. The IVq We Were. p. 162. fin Chafe. The Anierican Itonian. p. 183. 6 1 Byars. .4 Il Thar Hoi!~vood.-l iloirs, p. 80. V Cender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 134

Working women of this generation also faced a double shifi of work. In addition to working outside the home, they had prirnary responsibmty for the maintenance and upkeep of the home and family, aspinng to Ievels of household cleanliness that were particularly stringent during this era. Moreover, unlike sitcom families where Dad was always around to help, if not in household duties, at lest in the realm of childcare, most fathers were not around the house much. Susan Douglas suggests that mothers were "pissed off." Not only did they work al1 day so that their families could fiord their middle class luxuries; they were also expected to do everything around the house with little or no acknowledgement.

Al1 the while, television images told them and their families that good mothers were like princesses who never cornplained, were constantly glamorous, good-natured, and srniling.

Furthemore, when they sat dom to relax in Front of the tube they were bombarded with allegories about rnasculinity and fatherhood -- with rarely a suggestion that the incessant, mundane and often painful contortions of a woman's daily routine rnight be heroid2 Thus, while television began to acknowledge the existence of working women, the reality of their work went largely unrecognized and unrewarded.

Educating the Young

An interesting confluence of image and reality appeared in the education of young women and their expectations in life. Girls were equally as capable of learning as boys, and, indeed, they excelled in school at a young age.63Yet, the contradiction between their training and their expectations for the future was striking. Girls and boys received the same education, yet boys were expected to go on to become doctors, lawyer, engineers --

6' SunDougIas, IF3ere the Girls Are. (New York: Times Books. 1994). p.44. V Gender in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 13 5

actors in the modem business world - while women were expected to tend the house and

raise kids and perhaps get a little job on the side. Their education would not lead them to a

more challenging and satisfactory Me. This idea was mirrored in the three generations of

Anderson women on Father Knows Best. The Anderson women reflected three difFerent

stages of life. Kathy the youngest was more or less unrestricted. A tomboy and "happy"

child, she was allowed to run about in pants and play outside - gender specific behaviour

was rarely enforced -- she was taught respect and generally how to get along in society,

how to interact with others, that is, until she reached the age of maturity. Margaret, the

mother, was an intelligent, carhg and solicitous housewife who occasionally expressed

dissatisfaction with her position in life but on the whole appeared satisfied with her domestic existence. Betty, the teenager, was the pivotal character, for in her anxieties one saw many of the concems and hstrations of young girls in the 1950s. Betty provided an earlier version of Margaret - before the latter's resignation to the "ferninine" role. Betty had aspirations for the future, she was intelligent and capable like her mother, and she had ambition. Yet she was consistently made to realize that her expectations were unrealistic.

Two episodes clarify her stniggle. In Be~iy,Girl Engineer, she determines her desire to be an engineer after scoring well on an aptitude test. Her family was appalled.

Jim predicted that &er one day of vocational training she would give up the venture,

Margaret was much more concemed -- wringing her hands she expressed her anxiety:

"Jim, 1 can't see how you can be so cornplacent ...1 hardly feel we have a daughter anymore. 1 don? know what kind of towels to bring in her bathroom, 'his' or 'hers."'

" Mirra Komarovsky. IC'unien in the Modern I170rl

Later in the program Betty's young, handsome supervisor badgered her into quitting, subsequently revealing his romantic intentions towards her. While Betty hid behind the door, ashamed of her jeans and boots, Jim and Doyle, the supervisor, discussed women's proper place, Doyle proclaimed:

Its a dirty trick to play on some guy...who works hard al1 day in the dust and the heat. Why does he do it? So when the day is over he can come home to some nice pretty wife ... If the Nce, pretty girls are there in the dust and heat too, who're you going to come home to?

Betty, chastened, learned her lesson, with tears in her eyes she realized that her ideal vocation was not engineering but as engineer's wife. She ran upstairs, domed a dress and, while her parents smiled in relief, she capitulated to Doyle's romantic intentions.64Time and again, Father Knows Best structured female expectation as the domestic ideal.

Although the program introduced interesting options for women, these options were proven ultimately undesirable.

In Betty S Grudtratiot~,Betty's education once again provided the focus of the show. Betty had the responsibility of delivering the valedictonan speech. This honour made clear the fact that she was indeed a very bright and promising young women, smarter than any of the males in her class. Yet Betty was troubled by the idea of graduating because she felt she that going to the dance and delivering the speech would be saying goodbye to the happiest point in life. This was an astute observation on Betty's pan because it probably would be the "happiest" time clfa young girl's life - ahead were imagined al1 the possibilities of life with none of its disappointments or limitations - which her mother and domesticity embodied. When Betty ran off confused and unhappy, it was V Gender in Television: The Ferninine Mystique? 137

Jim not Margaret who found her and comforted her. In a scene which demonstrated a total lack of respect for Margaret, Jim comforted Betty by reading a passage fiom Margaret's pilfered diary. The diary reveaied the similar emotions Margaret felt at the same point in her life --despair and confusion about the future - the diary entry was intempted and recornmenced, "sorry for the interruption... but Jim called and we had a picnic, it was a most wondemil tirne." The inherent suggestion that Betty's future would be soothed by the appearance of a man reinforced the ideal of family and domesticity. Ironically, though much importance attended Betty's education and her going to college, the goal of her education remained unclear. The unstated assumption was that she would receive an

"MRS" Iike her mother and culminate her four years of college with a career in ho~sewifery.~~

Even though Betty seemed to take solace in her father's words, there was an undercurrent of dissatisfaction. While Betty adrnitted that she was afiaid of the anonymity of the world, Jim suggested that "the future is rougher and more chailenging, but the rewards are greater." Yet the "reward which the show suggested was Margaret's fate - husband and children - a "fate" which was not celebrated or revered. Margaret was unable to cornfort her daughter, despite having gone through the same anxieties henelf - perhaps because she cannot "sell" the outcome as desirable she therefore cannot offer the solace her daughter required.

M Leibman. "Leave MotIier Out" p.35 65 lbid. p.35. V Gender in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 138

Reading the Image

In their books on growing up female in the 1950s Wini Breines and Susan Douglas seek to readjust the lens of history to reveal how girls dealt with the teen rebellion of the era and how their experience was reflected in popular culture media. Both authors argue that girls were ieft out of the rebellious image of the 1950s. Such male icons as James

Dean, Marlon Brando, and Elvis Presley, reflected the discontent of a generation of young men; however, there are no lasting images for young women which reflected their rebellion. In fact, Douglas analyzed the transition from the suffocating sex-role stereotyping in 1950s popular culture which had girls singing "1 want to be Bobby's Girl" to chanting, in the seventies, "I am Woman, Hear me ~oar."~~Mass media imagery was filled with mixed messages about how to behave. While this imagery reinforced a certain feminine ideal, it also introduced a contradictos, image, suggesting women could be

"rebellious, tough, enterprishg and ~hrewd."~'Furthemore, much of what was watched was porous, allowing the viewer to accept and rebel against the same image. While television images instructed young women that their main goals were to become wives and mothers, Wini Breines concluded that many girls, like television's Betty Anderson, only ambivalently intemalized these values and sometimes rejected them outright. Regardless of the blissful image of a housewife's role, many daughters rejected their own mother's domestic Iives as dull, stagnant and selfless. One woman wrote that her mother had

66 Douglas, IP7rere the Girls .-Ire, p.6 6' 6' Ibid. p.9. V Gcnder in Television: The Femininc Mystique? 13 9

"stayed at home for twenty-three years and raised four children... the emptiness of her Iife appalls mef8

The image that television generated of the domestic ideal clearly did not match the reality of mothers' lives. As part of the baby-boom generation. girls came to believe that they were members of a new privileged generation whose destiny was more open and exciting than their parents. Yet at the same time girls were told that they could not expect rnuch more than to end up like their rn~thers.~~Girls were confùsed by mixed messages on how to act. As Amencans, the popular culture messages encouraged them to be individualistic, competitive, aggressive, achievement-oriented, tough, and independent.

Yet as wornen they were encouraged to be nurturing, self-effacing, passive, dependent, primarily concerned with the welfare of others, and indifferent to persona1 success. These contradictory expectation were repeatedly reinforced by media images in 1950s television.

While the news depicted anxiety over the cold-war, American international intervention and rising racial tensions, network entertainment offered up harmonious nuclear families with wasp-waisted, perfectly groomed moms who never lost their tempers.

By the early 1960s this domestic image of fernininity conflicted with real life popular culture icons in the world of politics and culture. Thirty-one year old Jackie

Kennedy symbolized a new kind of intelligent, active, working woman; Marilyn Monroe opened up a new reading of female sexuality; and Cosmopofi~an's Helen Gurley-Brown's

- -- -- " Wini Breines. loung [Rite and Miserable: Growing Up Femole in the I95Os. (Boston: Bacon Press. 1992). p.77 69 Douglas. H'here the Girls .-ire. p.25 V Gender in Television: The Feminine Mystique? 1JO

1962 book, Sex md the Si@ Girl, narrated a singles culture which celebrated the

erstwhile "spinster" of the 40s and SOS as the "newest glamour girl of our times." The

dissenting images of 1950s sitcoms began to take real shape in the culture of the 1960s.

Anyone who rnight have thought that the "woman question" was safely buned in a

suburban dream home would have to acknowledge "a crack in the picture ~indow."~~Not only did ferninine images in television sitcoms allow for contradictocy and dissenting readings of the domestic ideal, but these images clearly spoke to the discontent many women felt about the conventional suburban ideal. Although dissenting images were not clearly condoned in television images of the era, they were nonetheless introduced in the working girls, the comic rebels, and in some images of strong women and rebellious teens.

The persistence of the domestic ideal in the housewife image of 1950s sitcoms cannot be disputed. Yet, even within this image there were fissures. Traces of dissent against the ideal emerged within the "Goodwife" ideal in the moments of anger and expressions of wit and sarcasm of Maragaret Anderson and Donna Reed. Though television was certainly not a revolutionary medium in its depictions of women -- it did not, in this penod, openly endorse dissent against the ideal -- it did, however, open up subversive narratives of dissent.

'O Ehrenreich & English. For Her OIvn Gooci, p.285. Conclusion

tt is not my purpose in this study to argue that the narrow gender definitions of the

1950s or the elusiveness of the family ideal set forth in the domestic sitcom were instrumental in the upheaval of the 1960s. Subsequent history, however, does form an important subtext to the way in which we read and interpret the cultural narratives of these images. Because the 1960s witnessed such an upheaval in social and cultural mores one cannot but interpret the 1950s in ternis of their ultimate rejection - witnessed in the civil rights movernent, the student movement, and the womenfs movernent. In vast numbers, Americans discarded the political assumptions of the cold war, along with the domestic and sexual codes of their parents' generation. The idealized television images of the family and its patriarchal dominion no longer resonated as the cultural ideal. The hegemony of the white, middle-class was contested.

Even so, nostalgia for 1950s family ide& emerged almost immediately fier the decade ended. The "Golden Age of the Family" structured an ideal which has been accessed again and again in shows like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and more recently in The Wonder Yean and even in the traditional family dynamics and father- centnc focus of The Cosby Show. Revival of family values in American culture draws on the allegorical images of the era, which have evolved over time into narrative tropes Conclusion 142 stmctunng Our collective memory of the 1950s. These narratives are so entrenched that

Joanne Meyerowitz entitled her book Not Jime Cher,and this title immediately conjured the feminist nightmare, the "mythic image of ..the quintessential white rniddle- class housewife. " '

Indeed, the 1950s have been rejected by feminists in particular, as a reactionary and regressive era in woman's social and political evolution. Yet the roots of the 1960s rebellion grew out of the freedoms, education and employment that women were explorhg in the postwar era. The 1950s were a necessary precursor to the 1960s. signaling the unraveling of social institutions. Women worked, the farnily structure began to change, previously sacrosanct gender roles began to alter and struggles over the meaning of female and male became apparent in the cultural atrnosphere. Change was imminent, evidenced by the upheaval in the cultural documents of the period. Television texts of the penod suggest discontent with the domestic idyll and dissent fiorn traditionai gender roles further underlined this trend.'

In an examination of gender roles and the changing position of women in the social structure, Joshua Meyerowitz posits an important role for television in assaulting the dividing line between the sexes by destroying the segregation of spheres. Television's exposure of the separate male and female information systems to a general public allowed for the creation of a common information environment.' The process of socialization

Jeanne Meyerowie [ed]. Not June Cleuver: JVonien and Gender Ni Postwor Anierica, 1945-60. (Plliladelphia: Temple University Press, 1994). p. 1. ' Byars. p.8. ' Joshua Meyerowiiz No Sense ojPlace: 7ne lnipact of Electronic hfedia on Social Behavior. (New York: O.dord University Press. 1985). p.2 17. Conclusion 143 within this environment, which had previously segregated each sex in the development of distinct male and female gender systems, has become increasingly interlinked with television's exposure of both gender systems. Television has whittled away at the dividing lines between male and female worlds, destroying the segregation of spheres that supported traditional notions of masculinity and femininity by revealing the "secrets" of each sex. In giving both sexes a "sidestage" view of each other's role, television dernystified the differences between the sexes.

An implicit theme in descriptions of the rise of feminist consciousness in the 1960s was women's sudden new ability to "see" beyond their individual problems and concems and to acquire an outside view of the world, a shared understanding of al1 women's problems and a sense of comection with other women.' As an arena for news and entertainment, television altered women's perspectives. It gave women access to "out side standards" and it provided a knowledge of "how things work." The shared arena of television also invited a public cornparison of the male and female characters portrayed in it with female characters usually occupying an infenor position. In exposing women to male biases television also liberated women infonnationally, planting the seeds of discontent that would flower into revolt. The perspective offered by television of a male- centric world with male adventures, and male opportunities, corn which women were barred, had a great deal to do with women's new found ability to "perceive" themselves as a "minority" - isolated fiom a world they could see but not enter.

' Joshua Meyemwitz p.2 10. Concfusion 144

Television generally, and sitcoms in particultir, revealed the rigidity of gender ideals of the 1950s. Yet they also paradoxically ailowed images of dissent to grow and fiounsh. What becomes clear fiom an examination of gender Ui 1950s sitcoms was the importance attributed to defining these roles within the social stnxcture of the time.

Indeed, the struggie to reinforce the ideal in image after image of domesticated happiness reveals the anxiety of the era and its need to establish security, if not for the nation, then in the behavioral expectations of men and women. APPENDIX 1

TELEVISION SITCOMS OF 'THE 1950s

The Goldbergs [ 1 949-SW] This was the first TV program focusing on a Jewish family in New York. It was part of the 'ethnic shows' of early TV. Mer it enda Jews did not feature as fdpoint for a sitcom for a firrther 23 years. It featured a strong matriarch figure in the persona of Molly Goldberg. Philip Loeb, the first Jake Goldberg, targeted by the McCarthy era's Red Channels crackdown on Hollywood.

1Remember Mamu [ 1939-561 The program depicted a nostdgic look at Amerka's Golden era. It was a warm soft-hearted story of a Norwegian family living in San Francisco during the tum of the century. It featured a strong matriarch & gentle buffoon father-figure. It was a pioneer for morality lessons in domestic sitcoms - acting as a pmrsor to shows like. Father Knows Best & The Donna Reed Show.

The Aldrich Family Apartment 3-C The Hartmans Heavens tu Befsey The short-lived story of hvo girls who were broadway hopeiüis looking for a career in show business.

The Li/e of Rifey [ 1949-501 It was the story of a bwnbling riveter, Chester A. Riley, play4 by Jackie Gleason, and lus wife Peg. It only lasted one season the first time round, but was mecteci in 1953. It depic:& the classic working-class male buffoon type.

Lurn and Abner The PieLee Show Wesley Wren's Nest Young and Gay - The Girls Basd on the autobiograpiucai novel Our Hearts Were Young and Gay it depicted the lives of hvo young girls, Bryn Maur graduates, who moved to the Village where one hoped to be discovered as an actress, whiIe the other aspireci to be a writer.

Amos 'n'An& [1950-531 Brought over fmm radio to TV by CBS. It featured an all black cast and the white writerlproducer tearn of Gosden & Correll. It elicited an immediately negative response from the black rniddle&iss. A campaign by NAACP caused the show's dernise. It would be another 15 years before blacks would be the focus of another sitcom. Andrew Halt Brown (Andy) - Spencer Williams Jr. George "Kingfisli" Stevens - Tim Moore Amos Jones - Alvin Childress Sapphire Stevens - Ernstine Wade Marna 1 Lightnin' 1 Algonquin J. Calhoun / Ruby Jones Appendix 1 146

The George Burns and Gracie Allen Shmv [ f 950-581 The cockamamie comedy featured the real marrieci couple, about a dazzlingly ditzy housewife involveci in domestic schemes, ofien waged against her tolerant and knowving husband. George Bum played straight man to a very bent woman.

Beulah [ 1950-531 This "race sitcom." Iike Amos 'n Andy was witlrdrawn from syndication ivith help of NAACP protests. Beulah was the Queen of Kitchen in the wealthy, white, Henderson's New York househoId.

The Hank McCune Show Meet Corliss Archer Menasha the Magniflcent The Petcr and Mary Show The Ruggles The Stu Envin Show: The Trouble with Father That Wonderfiil Guy

I Love Lucy [ 195 1-601 One of the most popdar sitcoms in the history of television. It featured the antics of Lucy Ricardo's zany liousewvife to straightman Ricky. Lucille Bal1 fought hard to make the show what she \vanteci it to be and to get the networks to allow her to play against husband. bandleader Desi Amaz. The show wvitnessed a lot of "firsts" for W: the first pregnancy on tetevision. the first interracial marriage, and the first really popular femalecentered sitcom. Their divorce ended the show in 1960 but not LuciHe Ball's TV presence - she continued to top the ratings charts in several consequent spinoffs. The show's focus wvas on interactions behveen the Ricardos and their neighbours. the Mertzes. with a definite gender divide and an ongoing ivar of the scses.

Lucy Ricardo - Lucille Bal1 Ricky Ricardo - Desi Arnaz Fred Mertz - William Frawtey Etlie1 Mertz - Vivian Vance

My Little Margie 11952-19551 Focussed on the romantic adventures of a widower and his daughter living in a sivank New York apartment. Margie, played by Gale Storm was 'perky and cute and friendly' and scherned up wild shenanigans - intervening in her father's romantic life and wvreaking havoc. Margie was a dimc store version of Lucy.

Mr Peepers Boss Lady In this rare depiction of a woman in a non-traditional role, the protagonist Lynn Bari. plays the owner and operator of the HiIlendale Home Construction Company. The show ran unti1 1954.

A Date with Judy The Egg and I It's a Business? Those Two Appendix 1 147

Two Girls Nanred Smith Depicted the lives of two small tom aspiring models who had moved to New York to seek fame and fortune. Young Mr. Bobbin

The Adventures cf Odeand Harriet [ t 952-661 Real FarniIy television. The Netsons played thernselves on TV for 14 years - alIowing for character additions with the marriages of David and Ricky. It was the longest running sitcom. Wewas fumbling, Hamet capable and the boys were basically good kids. if TV sitcoms at that time were cheesy, Ozzie and Hamet was definitely Velveeta! ! (Mitz p.63)

Chie Nelson - Hirnscif Hamet NeIson - Herseif David Nelson - Hirnself Ricky Nelson - Himself lune Nelson (David's Wife) - Herself (6 1-66) fisNelson (Ricky's wüe) - Herseif (6446)

I Married Joan [ 1 952-55 3 In the same tradition of 1 Love Lucy, the show featured a comedic liousewife and her straightman judge-husbarid. A former screen cornedienne and radio star. Joan Davis was the star of this show featuring a high incidence of physicai comedy - outrageous gestures. hard falls, and raucous vocals characterized loan's style.

The Life of Riley [ 1353-581 Resurrected by NBC after its one year stint in 1949-50. It devetoped the prototypicd idiot-father type - a Mr. Average Joe America.

Chester A. Riley - William Bendix Peggy Riley - Ma rjorie Reynolds Babs Riley - Lugene Sanders Chester Riley Jr. - Wesley Morgan Jim GilIis - Tom D'Andrea Honeybee Gillis - GIoria BIondell

Our Miss Brooks [1952/53 - 19561 Featured Eve Arden in the role of school mistress. It as an immensely popular show. featuring Connie Brooks, a working wornen. The show garnered quite a bit of support for its iiumoristic and humanistic depiction of a school mistress. Arden's good Iooks and quick wit went a long way in channing not only her "students." but audiences as well. This show, along with December Bride, was a Desilu production.

Privafe Secretaty [ 1952/53-571 Featured Arui Sothern as Susie McNamara a sharp-tongued secretary to theatrical agent, Peter Sands. Susie is aiwvays xheming and scamming to rescue her boss from trouble. Here \vas a lady who always got her way - in effect shc \vas her boss' boss. She was independent and self-assured and Iiad dignity - even tliough she brought Mr Sands liis coffe - you knew that if he didn't treat Appendix 1 148

her well she just might dump the pot over his head "by accident."

Dave and Charley Doc CorkIe Dm'sTavem Ethel and Aibert Heaven for Betsy Lave it to Larry Life with Lui@ Meet Millie As the credits put it '-... a gay comedy about the life and love of a secretary in Manhattan." ,C& Friend Irma The story of two girls - a scatterbraineci blond and her level-headed friend. Both secreCanes in New York - the show revolved around the romantic interests of these two young girls. My Hero My Son Jeep

Make Room For Daddy - The Danny Thomas Show Topper Bonino Colonel Rack The Duke Jarnie Life with Elizabeth Life with Father Marge and Jeff The Marriage The Ray Milland Show My Favorite Husband Pride of the Family Take it from Me Where's Raymond

December Bride [1954/55-19571 Another Desilu production, this program \vas unique in its focus on an older wornan as the narrative lead. Spring Byington starred in the television version as well as the previous radio incarnation of the story of an oh so loveable mother-in-law. Boundless energy. unening good- humour and harmiess scheming chafacterized the show's plots - Lily Ruskin was the perfect old peson. Noteworthy wvas the caustic sarcasm and wit of their neighbour Pete Porter played by Hany Morgan of ,ZIA .SH.fame. Lily Ruskin - Spring Byington Matt Henshaw - Dean Miller Ruth Henshaw - Frances Werty Hilda Crocker - Verna Fetton Pete Porter - Harry Morgan Appendix I 149

Faîhm Knmus Besf [ 1954-601 The quintessentiai family sitcoin of the ffies. It epitomized the era of "Family Togethemess." It was tbe first sitcom success to have an emphasis on moral tessons; and acted as a vehicle for teaching Arnerim gdfamily values. Jim Anderson was the mode1 of the Superdad trope; Margaret Anderson was nothing to sneeze at either as "perfect"fifties parents go.

Jim Anderson - Robert Young Margaret Anderson - Jane Wyatt Betty Anderson (Princess) - Elinor Donahue James Anderson Jr. (I3ud) - BiUy Gray Kathy Anderson (Kitten) - Lauren Chapin

Love That Bob More than any sitcom in the fifties, it was a show about how men looked at women. The sto- of a bachelor photographer and the beautifid women in his Me. Dear Phoebe The Donald O'Connor Te-xaco Show Halls of Ivy Hey Mulligan Honest/v Celeste The show lasted ody 3 months. It was the story of Celeste Anders, a Minnesota college tacher living in Manhattan. who tries to get jomlism expience by working on the New York Ekpress. It's a Great Life The Joe Pdooka Story Mayor of the Toum Norby Professionai Father So This is HoIly~vood The Soldiers That's My Boy Those CYhiting Girls Two sisters, one student at UCLA the other a singer and their romantic misadventures in Hollywood. CVih'y The story of Willa Dodger. a fernale lawyer in a small New Hampshire tom. In 1955. Willy moved to Manhattan to become legal counsei for the Bannister VaudeviIle Company. Unfortunately the show oniy lasted one season. The World of Mr Sweeney

The Honrymooners [ 195Y56 - ?] Was the story of a little man who happas to be big in size and dreams. The show focused on the b&n husband's get-rich quick ploys that dways failed and his capable wife who continually tried to talk sense into him. Jackie Gleason calleci dl the shots on this show - producing. witing. directing. conducting, composing, and acting - Gleason ruled with a clenched iron fist. His show was immensely popular and continued to gmer enthusiastic appreciation many years into reruns - it featured the quintessential Battle of the Sexes routines. Ralph Kramden - Jackie Gleason Alice Kramden - Audrey Meadows Ed Norton - Art Carney Trixie Norton - Joyce Randolph

The Phi1 Silvers Show: You'll Never Get Rich The Charlie Farrell Show The Great Gildersleeve It 's A lways Jan The story of three girls living and working in New York. Centered on the troubles of Janis Stewart, a widow. nightclub owner and Broadway hopehil trying to raise her ten-year old daughter. She shared an apartment with Valerie Malone - a cuivaceous blonde secretary and Pauicia Murphy, a secret;uv with a heart of gold. Joe and Mabel The People's Choiçe

Adventures of Hiram Holliday Blondie The Brothers A Date with Angels He-v Jeannie! Story of a Scottish immigrant adjusting to Me in New York and looking for work. His Honor, Homer Bell The Marge and Gower Champion Show Mr Adams and Eve Oh! Susanna This show took offwhere hfargie leR off. Gaie Storm played the trouble-prone social director of the Iu..mry liner SS Ocean Queen. Stanley

Leave ir Io Beaver [ 1957431 It ivas a show about kids growing up with warmtli, wit and wisdom. It \vas a domestic comedy that \vas not parricularly fünny. The show articulateci ideal parental role figures for Amenca. Barbara Billingsley emerged from faes lore as an ideai housewife. She wrote advice for housewives, in domestic jourxtals.

Ward Cleaver - Hugh Beaumont June Cleaver - Barbara Billingsly Wally Cleaver - Tony Dow Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver - Jeny Mather Eddie Haskell - Ken Osmond

The Real McCoys Bachelor Father Dick and the Duchess The Eve Arden Show Appendix 1 15 1

This show was unsudin trying to bring Eve Arden back to TV after the success of Our Miss Brooks Love that Jill The story of Liza Hammond. a mother - of twins. ividow and travelling lecturer. Saiiy The story of Sally TruesdaIe a travelling cornpanion to the rich, elderly widow. Myrtle Banford. who's young at hem. Tugboat Annie

The Donna Rced Shmv [ t 958-661 It continued the ideal of domestic sitcom fairyland. Honever. in this show it tvas Mother who hnew best. Father is a very busy doctor who nonetheless aiways seemed to be avaiiable for the family. Donna Reed was a myth of the perfect mother. The show was a classic of ideal family Me.

Doma Stone - Donna Reed Ales Stone - Cari Betz Mary Stone - Shelley Fabares (58-63) Jeff Stone - Paul Peterson

The Rnn Sothern Show [ 1958/59-6 i ] Same premise as Private Secretary - this sitcom had Ann Sothern playing Katy O' Conner in a hotel. By the second season. Don Porter came back to play her boss and the cast wvas reunited.

The Ed Wynn Show

The George Burns Show The story revolved around George trying to bring sanity to chaotic situations. Sans Gracie. this show didn't last too long

How to hfarry a hi'iiiionaire [ 1958/59j Based on the movie of the same name, the show revolved around three girls living in Manhattan al1 trying to snare a rich husband. Featured Barbara Eden Iater of I Dream opeannie fame.

Peck's Bad Girl Story focussed on twelve year-old girl, Torey Peck who got in a lot of trouble. The Pecks were a 'typical middleclass' famiIy with a daughter who was part tomboy part pre-pubescent teen. The show didn't last a season. BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Adler, Richard. [ed. ] Understanding W:Essays on Television as a Social and Culfuraf Force. New York" Praeger Publishers, 198 1.

Alexander, Charles C. Holding the Line: The Eisenhower Era, 1952-61. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975.

Basinger, Jeanine. A Wommz S Viw: HmHollywood Spoke io Women, 1930-60. New York: Aified A Knopf, 1993.

Breines, Wini. Ymuig, White and Miserab le: Growing Up Frmale in the Fifties. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.

Byars, iackie. A lI Thar Hollywood A llows: Re-reading Geiider in 1950s Melodrama. Chape1 Hill: North Carolina Press, 199 1.

Cantor, Mun'el G.Prime- Time Television: Cot~te~ztand Control. London: Sage Publications, 1980.

Carter, Paul. Another Part of the Fflies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

Chafe, William Henry. ne American Woman: Her Changing Social. Economic and Political Roles, 1920- 19 70. New York: Odord University Press, 1972.

Chapman, Rowena & Rutherford, Jonathon.[eds] Male Order: Unwrapping Masczdinity London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1988.

Coontz, Stephanie. The Wq We Never Were: American Families and the Nostafgia Trap. New York: Basic Books, 1992.

Douglas, Susan. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Fernale with the Mass Media. New Bibliography 152

York: Times Books, 1994.

Dubbert, Joe L. A Man 's Place: Masnrlinity in Transition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1979.

Ehrenreich, Barbara and English, Deidre. For Her Own Go&: 150 Years of the Experts Advice to Wometi. New York: Anchor Press, 1979.

Elliott, William Y. Television's Impact on A merican Culture. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1956.

Engelhardt, Tom The End of Victory Cirliwe: Cold War America and the Disihsiotiing of a Generatiot~~New York: Basic Books, 1995.

Fiske, John. Television Czîltrrre. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1987.

Friedan, Betty. The FemitNnt? Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1963.

Grkwold, Robert L. Fatherhood bl America: A Histoty. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.

Halberstam, David. me Fifties. New York: Villard Books, 1993.

Harvey, Brett. The Fifiies: A Woman's OraiHistory. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1983.

Jones, Gerard. Hotiey I'm Home: Silcoms Selhg the American Drearn. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1992.

Kaledin, Eugenia. Muthers md More: Arnericmt Women in the 1950's. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984

Kimmel, Michael. Mm~hoociN1 Americo: A Czdtrrral History. New York: The Free Press, Bibliography 152

York: Times Books, 1994.

Dubbert, Joe L. A Man 's Place: Musczdinity in Trmsition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1979.

Ehrenreich, Barbara and EngIish, Deidre. For Her Own Go&: 150 Years of the Erperts Ahice to Women. New York: Anchor Press, 1979.

Elliott, William Y. Tek vision's Impact on American Culture. East Lansing: Mc higan State University Press, 1956.

Engelhardt, Tom The End of Victory Ctilfure: Cold WmAmerica and the DisilI11sioniiig ofa Generation. New York: Basic Books, 1995.

Fiske, John. Television Cdtt~ra.London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1987.

Friedan, Betty. ntr Fernitzine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1963.

Griswold, Robert L. Futharhood i~zAmerica: A History. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.

Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Villard Books, 1993.

Harvey, Brett . neFifties: A Woman's Oral History. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1983.

Jones, Gerard. Homy I'm Home: Sircoms Selfing fhe American Dream. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1992.

Kaledin, Eugenia. Mothers and More: American Womeir in the 1950 's. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984

Kimmel. Michael. Mm~hoodir1 Arnarica: A Cdtiîrai Hïstory. New York: The Free Press, Komarvosky, Mirra. Women in the Modem World Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1953.

Ko tt ak, Conrad Philli p. Prim Tirne Society: An Anthropo logical AnaZysis of Television. California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1990.

Leibman, Nina. Living Room Lecture: me Fvfies FmiIy in Film atzd Televisionz. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.

Lichter, Robert S., Lichter, Linda S., & Rothman, Stanley. Prime Time: How Televisioni Portrays Arnericcn CzrItt~re.Washington: Regnely Publishing, 1994.

Li psitz, George. Time Passages: Collective Memory and Americarl Popilar Cziltzire. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.

Lundberg, Ferdinand and Famham, Marynia F. Modem Womarz: The Lost Sm. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1947.

Marling, Kara1 Ann. As Seen ot~TV: 7ne Visual Ciilture of Everyday L@ irz the 1950's. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.

May, Elaine Tyler. Homrward Bozmd: American Families in the Cold war Era. New York: Basic Books, 1988.

May, Lary. [ed.] Recastitig Arnerica: Ctdttire ami Politics in the Age of Cold War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Mead, Margaret. Male and Femaie. New York: William Morrow & Company. 1949.

Meehan, Diana. Ladies of the Evenirrg: Wornrn Characters of Prime- Timr te le vision^ . Meutchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1983. Mellencarnp, Patncia. High Amieiy: Cutastrophe, Scandai. Age and Comedy. Bloomington Indiana University Press, 1992.

Meyerowitz, Joame [ed]. Not Jtme Cieuver: Women ond Gender in Postwur Americu, 19-15-60. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994.

Meyerowitz, loshua. No Sensr of Pluce: Thr Impact of Electrotiic Media on Social Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Miller, Douglas & Nowak, Marion. The Fijks: ne Wczy We Really Wm.New York: Doubleday & Co. 1975.

Mitz, Eck. 77ze Great TV Sitcom Book. New York: Richard Marek, 1980.

Montagu, Ashley. The Natirrai Strperiority of Womeir New York: Macmillan Company, 1956.

Parsons, Talcott. Essays il? Sociological Thought. New York: Free Press, 1954.

Parsons, Talcott and Baies, Ro ben. Fumily. Sociafizatioti and interaction Process. New York: The Free Press, 1955.

Piercy, Marge. "Through the Cracks: Growing Up in the 50s." in Parti-CoIoredBlockrfor Quill Ann Arbour: University of Michigan.

Press, Andrea Lee. Womeiz Watchi~zgTY. Gender, CIass, and Generution Nz the American TV Fqerietice. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 199 1.

Riesman, David. neLoizely Crowd. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950.

Rothman, David & Sheila. Soicrces of the Americarr Social Tradiiio~z.New York: Basic Bibliography 155

Books, 1975.

Seeley, John. Crestwow' Heights. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1956.

Skolnick, Arlene. Embattled Paradise: The Americm Fmiiy NI an Age of Llncertainty. New York: Basic Books, 199 1.

Spigel, Lynn. Muke Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideai in Postwar America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Sussman, Warren 1. CzilZt4re as History: me Tmsformatiotz of Americm Society in the Twetitieth Cet~trrry.New York: Pantheon Books, 1973.

Taylor, ElIa. Prime-Time Families: Television Ctrlllrre in Postwar Arnerzca. Berkeley: University of California, 1989.

Tuchman, Gaye; Daniels, Arlene Kaplan & Benét Hearth and Home: Images of Womeri iti the Mass Media. New York: O>dord University Press, 1978.

Whitfield, Stephen J. 73e Cdture of the Cofd Wor. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 199 1 .

Whyte, William H. 7%rOrganizatiotz Mali. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 19%.

Wylie, Phillip. Generatio~rof V's.New York: Rinehart and Winston, 1955.

Birmingham Feminist History Group. "Feminisrn as Femininity in the Nineteen-Fifiies?" Fcminist Review. 3, 1965, 48-65. Bibliography 156

Breines, Wini. "The 1950s: Gender and Sorne Social Science." Sociological Irtpiry. 5 6 (winter) 1986, 69-92.

Butsch, Richard. "Class and Gender in Four Decades of Television Situational Comedy: Plus Ca Change. " Critical Studies in Mars Communications. 9 (4) 1 992, 3 87-99.

Cantor, Muriel. "Prime Time Father: A Study of Continuity and Change." Critical Studies in Mms Cummtrnication. 7 ( 1 99), 9.27 5-28 5.

Cnpps, Thomas. "The Amos and Andy Controversy" American Historyi Arnsricatl Televisi0n.p. 33-54.

Crispell, Diane. "Myths of the 1950s.'' American Dernographics. August, 1992, 3 8-43.

Frazer, June M. & Frazer, Timothy C. "Father Knows Best and The Cosby Show: Nostalgia and the Sitcom tradition." J011rmzlof Popdur Cufture. 27 (winter) 1993, 163-

Friedan, Betty. "Television and the Ferninine Mystique. " TV Grride: ïhefirst 25 Yeurs. New York: New American Library, 1980.

Gerbner, G. "Television: The New State Religion?" Et Cetera. June 1977, 145-50.

Glennon, L.M. & Butsch, R. "The Family as Portrayed on TV 1946-78." in D. Pearl [ed]. Television and Behaviot~r:Terz Years of Scientzjic Progress and implications for the Eighries.

Haralovich, Mary Beth. " Sitcoms and Suburbs: Positioning the 1950s Homemaker." Qzrarteriy Review of Film and Video. 1 1 no. 1 (may 89) 6 L -83.

Horowitz, Susan. "Sitcom Domesticus: A Species Engendered by Sociai Change." Channeis. Sept/Oct 1984. Joslyn, J. & Pendelton, J. "The Adventures of Ozzie and Hamiet." Jorrrnal ojPopzdar CuItz~re.7( 1 ) 23 -41 .

Larson, Mary Strom. "Sibling Interactions in the 1950s vs. 1980s Sitcoms: A Cornparison."Jozrnzatism Qzrarterly. v.68 (Aut, 9 1) 3 8 1-7.

Leibman, Nina. "Leave Mother Out: The Fifiies Farnily in Amencan Film and Television." Wide Angle. 10 ( I988), 24-4 1.

Lipsitz, George. "The Meaning of Memory: Farnily, Class and Ethnicity in Early Network TV. " Cameru Obscrtra no 16 (Jan '88) 79- 1 18.

May, Elaine Tyler. "Cornmentary: Ideology and Foreign Policy: Culture and Gender in Diplornatic Kistory." Diplornutic History. (Winter) 1994, 7 1-78.

McGregor, Gaile. "Domestic Blitz: A Revisionist History of the Fiflies." Arnericait Stardies. 34 (Sprïng) 1993, 5-33.

McNeil, Jean C. "Feminism, Femininity, and the Television Senes: A Content Analysis." Jocrrrtal of Broadcastit~g.1 9 :3 (S umrner) 1 9 75, 2 5 9-2 7 1.

Mellencamp, Patricia. "Situation Comedy, Feminism and Freud: Discourses of Gracie and Lucy." in Modleski, Tania (ed). Strrdies itz Etztertainment: Criticof Approaches to Mass Crrltzrre. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986, 80-95.

Podhoretz, Norman. "Our Changing Ideas, As Seen on TV." In Brossard, Chandler (ed). Theescene Bejore YOII:A New Approach to American Cirlfiiree;New York: Rinehart and CO., 1955, 92-1 04.

Postol, Todd. "Reinterpreting the Fifiies: Changing Views of a "Dull" Decade." Joirrr~al of Arnerican Czhre. 8 (Sumrner) 1985, 39-45.

Schwartz-Cowan, Ruth. "The Postwar Years." In More Work for Mother: The Ironies of HotcseholJ Techtzologyfrom the Open Hearth to the Microwave. New York: Basic Bibliography 158

Books, 1983.

Smith, GeofEey S. "Commentq: Secunty, Gender, and the Histoncal Process." Diplornatic HiW.(Winter) 1 994, 79-90.

Smith, Geofftey S. "National Security and Personal Isolation: Sex, Gender and Disease in the Cold-War United States." me Infen~afionaZHisfory Review. XV, 2, May 1992, 307- 337.

Spangler, Lynn, C. "A Histoncal OveMew of Female Fnendships on Prime-Time TV." Jotrnral of Popdar CirIfi~re~22(4) 1989, 1 3 -23.

Spigel, Lynn. "The Domestic Economy of TV Viewing in Postwar Amenca." Crilical Sfzrdies in-Mas Corn~itricatio~rs~ 6( 1 9 8 9) 3 3 7-54.

Thorbum, David. " Television as an Aesthetic Medium. " Crifical Sfudies irr Mass Comrnzmicatior.~s.4(June 1 9 87) 16 1-73.

Zemach, Tarnar & Cohen, Akiba. "Perception of Gender Equality on Television and in Social Reality." Jmrt~aiof Broadcasfitrgand Electronic Mail. 3 0 (4) Fall, 1 986, 427-444. SITCOMS:

Father Knows Best [719 Archives]

Margaret Learns to Drive Adopted Daughter FdyReunion Calypso Bud Fathets Private Life Betty's Graduation Seminar Senes - retrospective

The Donna Reed Show [4/4 Archives]

Miss Lovelace Cornes to Tea Weekend (Prerniere) The Male Ego The IdeaI Wife Mary's Driving Lesson Now You See It Now You Don't A Way of Her Own

Leave It To Beaver [9/3 1 Archives]

Family Scrapbook Eddie Spends the Night Beaver on TV The Haircut WaUy's Pmcticai Joke Beaver Won't Eat Beaver's Poem (Prerniere) Seminar Series

The Adventures of Orne & Hamet [2]

Premiere Final Episode

My Three Sons [Z2 Archives]

Premiere @ad's Vacation) Bibliography 160

I Love Lucy [12/52 Archives]

Lucy Goes to the Hospital The Girls want to go to a Nightclub (Premiere) Lucy Raises Tulips Lucy's Italian Movie Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to do Away with Her Ricardos Visit Cuba Riciq Asks For a Raise Job Switching The Diet L.A. at Last The Tour Lucy Does a TV Commercial Labor Pains The Audition The Freezer

Amos and Andy [6]

Premiere Rare Coin Christmas Episode Cousin Effie's Will

December Bride

Baby Reheard Chicken Farm Auplane Show Aunt Edy Premiere Final Episode Liiy and the Prowler Homecoming

I Married Joan

Secrets Fireman The Honeymooners

A Man's Pride 1953/09/22 Better Living Through TV 1955111/12 TVORNot TV 1955/10/01 Battle of the Sexes 195411 1/15 Nice and the Blonde 1956/06/02 Young at Heart 1956/02/11 The $99,000 Answer 195610 1/28

My Little Margie

1 Remember Marna

Queen of the Bee

The Mamage

Horizons: The Future of the FamiIy 1952/06/1 5 Round Table discussion with Margaret Mead as mediator.