This video is sponsored by Skillshare. So sometimes people will reminisce about an
old movie or TV show that they like and make a remark like, âThis couldn't have been
made today!â And usually when people say this, theyâre
talking about some irreverent or old-fashioned work that apparently couldnât exist because
of todayâs âPCâ culture, almost as if the mere quality of being offensive somehow
adds to its legacy. Films like Porkyâs and Revenge of the Nerds
with their brazen sexism. Or TV shows without outdated sensibilities
like âI Dream of Jeannieâ or âThe Dukes of Hazzard.â I think this notion is kind of dumb for several
reasons; firstly, this represents just another example of people resisting changes to the
cis-hetero white male focused status quo. If there are less characters like this in
TV and movies that marginalize and disparage certain groups of people, thatâs a good
thing, not a bad thing. I know itâs hard to imagine sometimes, but
other humans exist in the world, and those people should have diverse and realistic representation
in media. And so itâs a good thing that weâre moving
towards that. And secondly, yeah of course it wouldnât
be made today, why would anybody expect that? The culture and overall attitude of society
was way different in the 70s, and 80s as you would expect, so why would anybody think that
the media being created wouldn't also be different? And on top of that, this kind of implies that
in todayâs âPC culture,â nobody gets away with making irreverent or taboo content,
which is obviously ridiculous. Have you ever watched Big Mouth, or Two and
Half Men? Or Deadpool? Or South Park? Have you ever been on YouTube before? Itâs a madhouse. Beat. Anyway, perhaps the quintessential âThey
couldnât make this todayâ example is the 70s TV sitcom âAll In the Familyâ which
starred Carroll OâConnor as Archie Bunker, a white working class father whose most notable
characteristic is that he is kind of a huge bigot. Ironically, a TV special just aired the other
day where an ensemble cast of actors including Marisa Tomei, Jamie Foxx, Woody Harrelson,
and many others did a live performance of episodes from All in the Family and The Jeffersonâs. So I guess they could have made it today. But anyway this got me thinking about how
sitcoms throughout the years have handled the topic of race and bigotry. So yeah, thatâs what this videoâs about. Hi, Iâm T1J. [WEIRD VOICE:] Follow me! So I really, really, love the show Roseanne. Now of course Roseanne Barr herself has seemed
to not that great a person throughout the years, but you can pause and watch my video
about Separating Art from Artist if you wanna know how I feel about that. But anyway, beyond the fact that the show
Roseanne is hilarious, it attempted to paint a semi-realistic picture of what it was like
to be poor in America. Unlike most sitcoms, a fair amount of episodes
didnât have neatly wrapped-up happy endings, and the initial series as a whole didnât
even have a happy ending. And thatâs sort of the reality of most working
class people in America. You just kinda try to survive, but you usually
never really get to see the other side. Now Roseanne mostly dealt with class issues,
but it often delved into other topics such as domestic violence, homophobia, and racism. One of the most memorable episodes involved
the title character Roseanne scolding her son DJ because he didnât want to kiss a
girl in the school play because she was black. Only later to have to confront her own prejudices
when that girlâs father shows up at her restaurant late at night. I appreciated these scenes because they acknowledged
that a person who is essentially good or at least trying to be, can still hold harmful
prejudices that are not necessarily evident on a surface level. But I feel like depictions of racism and bigotry
on TV have rarely been this nuanced throughout the years. In the 80s and 90s, sitcoms became well-known
for their âVery Special Episodesâ that dealt with topics that were much more serious
than the average episode, usually touching on things like alcohol & drug abuse, bigotry,
sexuality, violence, and even sometimes death. I mean, they killed Sandy, yo! Growing Pains actually had a lot of these
special episodes. Like there was this other episode where Kirk
Cameron gets a job at a convenience store, and the racist shop owner gives him special
treatment over his nonwhite coworkers. And in typical sitcom fashion, he eventually
realizes the right thing to do and heroically confronts the bigot, and quits the job, and
so on. And throughout the years, many sitcoms would
have episodes tackling race and racism. Now of course you can analyze depictions of
racism in any medium, but Iâm focusing on sitcoms in this video, because...I like sitcoms. But I fully acknowledge that the nature of
the format means that they usually want to have everything wrapped up in 30 minutes,
and when weâre talking about âvery special episodesâ, the easiest way to do that is
often to have a character who at least by the end is revealed to be an unambiguous villain,
that our protagonists can take the moral high ground over. [NICK:] You know, you've got a lot to learn
about the real world! [MIKE:] Yeah? Well I won't be learning it from you. I quit. [VOICEOVER:] Sometimes the villain is unnamed
or conceptual in nature but the moral is generally that there are bad people out there, and as
long as we donât spray paint the N word on someoneâs property weâll be all right. Even in the recent revival of the show Roseanne,
which I mentioned earlier, they revisited the issue of racism, but this time, instead
of a thought-provoking depiction of implicit bias, we have a scene with a cartoon racist
that Roseanne gets to play hero against. [CASHIER:] Maybe you can help her carry the
groceries out to her camel too. *register beeping* [VOICEOVER:] The âVery Special Episodeâ
still happens sometimes, but itâs mostly a relic from the 80s and 90s. These days, sitcoms usually exist in a vaccuum
where either serious issues like bigotry donât actually exist, or where they seem to be the only thing that
exists. Another thing you see in sitcoms a lot, especially
nowadays is racism and bigotry being played for a joke. Some of the time this qualifies as satire,
but I feel itâs mostly there for laughs. I did a whole video about how Tina Fey straddles
this line in 30 Rock, but itâs incredibly common. The trend here is the existence of a character,
often a main or recurring one, who under normal scrutiny would be considered fairly awful,
but they are generally tolerated if not excused for their behavior by the other characters,
and usually also by audiences. [JANINE:] Why would you think this is an appropriate
gift? [SHELDON:] Um..well..you are black right? *audience laughter* Usually the rationale for this casual acceptance
of their insensitivity is that they're well-intentioned, but just clueless and donât know any better,
usually because of their environment or upbringing. And while these characters may experience
a minor setback or awkward confrontation because of their behavior,
which demonstrates that being racist in these universes is, at the very least, socially
unacceptable: they are rarely given any longstanding reasons to change or improve. Likely because âclueless character says
something racistâ is an easy way to get a laugh, and when youâve got to pump out
a script every week, you donât want to give that up. Perhaps the most classic example of the âSympathetic
Bigotâ is the aforementioned Archie Bunker from All in the Family. And while Archieâs off-color and often unambiguously
racist commentary was definitely the source of a lot of cheap laughs, the show took a
decidedly more thoughtful look at racism and other controversial topics than many of the
other examples Iâve given so far. [GLORIA:] You never told us how you feel about
black people. [EDITH:] Well, you sure got to hand it to
em. I mean, two years ago, they was nothing but
servant and janitors. Now, they're teachers, and doctors, and lawyers. They've come a long way on TV. *audience laughter*
[VOICEOVER:] While Archie doesnât necessarily become enlightened at any point during the
series' run, the main theme of the show revolves around him constantly having his prejudices
challenged in a changing world. He almost never gets away with saying something
awful without something or someone calling him out on it. In some scenes he literally walks away and
tries to change the subject when confronted, an overt metaphor for many peopleâs stubborn
resistance to social progress. I especially enjoyed the interactions between
the Bunkers and the Jeffersons. Nothing forces Archie to tackle or maybe even
preserve his outdated sensibilities more then his black neighbors who are not only smarter
and more savvy than he is, but are also upwardly mobile; George Jefferson is a successful businessman
while Archie is stuck in a blue collar job on a loading dock. All in the Family was a bold show and as you
might imagine, most of the issues it discussed are still relevant today, unfortunately. People will continue to debate whether the
character of Archie Bunker actually helped normalize and justify bigotry rather than
fight it, but I do have to say, it's kind of hard to watch sometimes these days. Archie Bunker was depicted as an out of touch
old man, but his worldview sounds almost exactly the same as modern day white nationalists,
which is pretty creepy. [ARCHIE:] It ain't their problem, it's our
problem! These people are stepping up in life, but
we're moving down! [VOICEOVER:] The show made sure to emphasize
that Archie was good guy deep down, but the show was also from his perspective for the
most part, so we mostly saw his fear and discomfort and not much of the real-world impact of his
harmful beliefs. But All in the Family deserves credit for
tackling bigotry head-on in a way more nuanced than âgood guys versus bad guys.â Itâs one of the only sitcoms to accomplish
that in my opinion. You might expect such a popular show to influence
future shows to try similar things, and itâs true that many sitcoms in the years since
All in the Family have had overt social commentary, including its own several spiritual successors
and spinoffs, and spinoffs of spinoffs. And some shows have managed to address social
issues in an interesting way like the aforementioned Roseanne, and the more recent Black-ish, which
I personally think might be the perfect show. But in general, sitcoms since All in the Family
have relegated serious discussion of things like racism to one-dimensional Very Special
Episodes, if they donât avoid the topic altogether. And donât get me wrong, there are a lot
of undeniably great sitcoms that address political issues in a serious way. A Different World, Maude, One Day At a Time,
Golden Girls, Roc, The Carmichael Show, and even more dramatic
comedies like Dear White People and Orange is the New Black. The list could go on. But I feel like most of those shows generally
played it safe with depictions of race issues that were either too dumbed-down or too melodramatic
to represent reality. And look, the evil bad guy who spray paints
slurs on peopleâs cars exists in the real world. Iâve met people like that. But itâs such an incomplete story about
the reality of discrimination in America. Itâs so much more, itâs marginalization,
disenfranchisement, implicit bias, colorism, microaggressions, intersectionality, stereotype
threat, and lots of other things you can google after watching this video. I also understand that generally, discussing
nuanced social issues is not the aim of a sitcom. But why shouldnât it be, at least some of
the time? One of the reasons I love sitcoms so much
beyond the fact that I just love comedy and jokes, is how they can talk about real life
things like family, love, adulthood, and careers, and yes even politics, and they can bring
you into a world that you would not have otherwise experienced. And if done right, they can do this in way
that makes you feel positive and hopeful because youâve been laughing the whole time. And listen, I like a good drama show just
as much as anybody else but most of them just really leave you bummed out at the end of
the day. Like, does anything good ever happen on this
show! So sitcoms as well as stand up and comedic
films can play a very important role in social discourse, I think. Because while I appreciate the escapism of
political utopias found in shows like The Cosby Show and Parks and Recreation, I think
these serious discussions are needed now more than ever. DAS JUS ME DOE. What do you think? Thanks for watching, and thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video. Skillshare is an online learning community
for creators, with over 25,000 classes across many categories including art & animation,
music, finance, and productivity. Speaking of which, being more productive has
been one of my 2019 goals so Iâve taken advantage of several Skillshare courses to
help with that. Most recently Iâve been watching this Productivity
Masterclass from YouTuber and Author Thomas Frank. A premium membership will get you unlimited
access to all of these classes and more, so you can learn and improve in multiple areas
at the same time if you want to. Itâs less than $10 dollars a month, but
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For me, as a white guy, watching GLOW with my wife was pretty illuminating re: sexism. I'd never really thought about, for instance, the implications or expectations for when a woman is invited back to her producer's hotel room for a private meeting. So kudos for shows like that for presenting some examples to vivify what I had hitherto only understood on a theoretical level.
It's not a sitcom, but I credit Sense8 with helping me first start to understand trans issues. The scene in season 2 where Nomi's father tells the FBI agent to get his hands off his daughter hit me like a ton of bricks. And while I can't, off the top of my head, think of a sitcom that really hammered home racist issues for me in a way that allowed some illumination, Star Trek has managed that - especially Deep Space 9.