If you don't remember The Donna Reed Show and the Stone Family household, maybe you've seen re-runs. The Donna Reed Show premiered on September 24, 1958, on ABC. The show revolves around upper middle class housewife, Donna Stone, husband Alex who is a pediatrician and their children 14 year-old Mary and 11 year-old Jeff. The Stone family resides in the Midwestern town of Hilldale. Donna was the perfect American housewife and mother. She was always neatly-groomed, lovely, good-natured, thoughtful, and capable. Alex was handsome, well-respected in his profession, usually thoughtful and sometimes ill-tempered. The episodes involved the usual family problems and adventures, with Donna usually saving the day in her quiet, capable way. Prior to ending in 1966, the show won many awards from various civic, educational, and medical groups due to it's wholesome nature and it's handling of topics like adoption, prescription drug abuse, home safety.
What about Father Knows Best, another classic wholesome "family" situation comedy? The show ran on radio from 1949 until it aired T.V. on October 3, 1954. It was set in the typical Midwestern community of Springfield, where Jim Anderson (Robert Young) was an agent for the General Insurance Company. Every evening he would come home from work, take off his sport jacket, put on his comfortable sweater, and deal with the everyday problems of a growing family. Common sense wife Margaret and children Betty aka "Princess", Bud and baby girl Kathy. As you watched the different episodes, you soon learned that father didn't always know best. Although wife Margaret Anderson, played by Jane Wyatt, was stuck in the drudgery of domestic servitude, she was nobody's fool, often besting her husband and son, Bud.
Let's not forget The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. The real-life Nelson family - Ozzie, his wife Harriet and their sons David (16) and Ricky(13) - played themselves in this long-running sitcom, where Ricky got his start as a teen idol. When the Nelson boys grew up and married their sweethearts, Kris and June, their real-life wives played their TV wives. The series began as a radio program in 1944 and aired on ABC on October 3, 1952. Here's how the Museum of Broadcasting Communications described the show:
The genial, bumbling Ozzie was the narrative linchpin of Ozzie and Harriet, attempting to steer his young sons into the proper paths (usually rather ineffectually) and attempting to assert his ego in a household in which he was often ill at ease.
That ego, and that household, were held together by wise homemaker Harriet. Although she may have seemed something of a cipher to many viewers, clad in the elegant dresses that defined the housewife on 1950s television, Harriet represented the voice of reason on Ozzie and Harriet, rescuing Ozzie--and occasionally David and Rick--from the consequences of over-impulsive behavior.The Nelsons embodied wholesome, "normal" American existence so conscientiously (if blandly) that their name epitomized upright, happy family life for decades.
I guess these are the family images that public policies are legislated to support. One man, one woman working together, focusing on specific task (one in the workplace earning the family's living and one at home taking care of children and household). The problem is that Donna Reed is Missing or Dead in the Twenty First Century. These images do not portray the modern family and the corresponding public policies don't address the needs of today's families.
More in Donna Reed is Missing or Dead-Part Two.
0 comments:
Post a Comment