I am watching these remakes for the 3rd time. I am absolutely amazed at how relevant they still are and mostly, how little has changed in 48 years in America. All In The Family addresses racism, conservatism, liberalism, class war and a president that half of America thinks is a crook, doesn't care about America, acts like a king and is about to get impeached. Archie even defends Nixon by saying "he's not interested in making money during his presidency because he's got plenty of money already". I mean it's like a carbon copy of today.
What a brilliant way to present social, economic and political issues in a comedic way. Every character is lovable in their own way. In other words..."there are very fine people on both sides." We have ultraliberal Mike and Gloria and ultraconservative Archie Bunker sharing their points of view in an uncensored way. It sounds exactly like conversations I see happening in private right now. So much name calling. Honkey, Ni$%^(ridiculous that I had to hide that word), Polack, Hebe, Colored Person, Meathead, Racist, Pinko, Commi, etc. Just like now where we have so much name calling from the top down. Even now, aggressive conservatives call liberals, especially candidates favoring some socialist causes, such as universal health care, as 'commis' with the intention to paint them negatively. Aggressive liberals label conservatives as racists, etc. with the same intention. Both George Jefferson and Archie Bunker say bigoted things to each other and about each other's perspective races. Archie even says the blacks have as much opportunity, maybe even more than the whites which is something I continue to hear today. Even the theme song, "Those Were The Days" is a mirror of "Make America Great Again!" The beautiful thing about these old shows is that the family made it very obvious that they loved the person, even and especially when they did not love the rhetoric. These days, friendships are ending, families are breaking up and more, just because we have not learned how to disagree better. Each side still thinks the other side is wrong and they are determined to get them to see the light.
We have progressed in so many ways yet in some ways, our growth was stunted in the 60s and we have never grown past it. I think one of the major reasons we are so stuck is because of "rogue political correctness". Political correctness is dessert to most liberals but poison to most conservatives, yet society has been forcing it down everyone's throats. How wonderful that the original episodes did not censor the way we do now. As a compromise, the producers kept all the original dialogues but bleeped the most offensive things out since America has become so hyper-sensitive these days.
It's time to grow up America. We are not going to grow up if we are constantly protecting ourselves from facing our inherent differences. We need to get it all out on the table and my observation is that the last 3 years have brought so much darkness to the surface, that we might finally be able to do the work that it takes to heal our wounds. The band-aid is being ripped off and the healing air of transparency is finally getting to dis-ease.
Here's the deal...we are all different. We have different brains and lenses. Men and Women. Conservatives and Liberals. And all the other diverse people. We will have to learn to empathize with those that think, look and act differently. We will never think like them but their reality is just as relevant to them as ours is to us. Goodness will rise up in the long run and the quicker we get it all out in the open, the quicker we can move through it.
