Traditional Values

I've been watching a lot of The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie lately.  Then I saw something about someone (Netflix?) rebooting Little House and, of course, there they were... the pearl-clutching army in the comments worried about THE WOKE AGENDA is gonna ruin it.  

I got news for y'all.  If this happens, and you don't like it, nobody says you have to watch.  I stopped watching the original TV show when they decided to divert from the "facts" of the books.  Mary never married and Albert didn't exist.  That's how you deal with offensive TV shows.  

Anyway, that got me to thinking about the question of how these wholesome shows might have handled certain topics. 

 I realized Little House did handle a lot of the topics.  Mary's blindness gave them the vehicle to show that the disabled are not so different from the abled.  They brought in nonwhites from time to time and, again, focused on the similarities more than the differences. Nellie married a nice Jewish boy.  I have come to the conclusion that, given the limitations of television in the 70s and 80s, that Little House is yet another example of something that was WOKE all along.  

I don't recall a lot of the specific storylines on The Waltons.  But in recent viewings, I saw Elizabeth deal with possibly being paralyzed and an attempt to heal her by a "gypsy".  The Waltons are friendly with a "colored" family.  Well damn, that's some DEI stuff right there!  

All of this led me to wonder how these shows would handle certain other topics.  

Homosexuality:  The Waltons made it a point to be historically accurate, but I guess they could have a couple of "confirmed bachelors" or "old maids" sharing a home.  Maybe they did and I just don't remember. Maybe the Baldwin sisters weren't really sisters!  Little House would probably take a similar route, but given the pattern of that show, it'd be some stranger who wanders into town just long enough to confess the deep dark secret to an Ingalls.  

Interracial Marriage: Maybe one of the Walton boys could bring home a Japanese bride after WW2.  Maybe some local natives want to court the citizens of Walnut Grove.  But I can't see how a black/white pairing would work without destroying any semblance of historical accuracy.  One takes place not long after the Civil War.  One takes place in the American South.  Both predate the Civil Rights Movement. 

Transgenderism: This would be handled much like homosexuality.  (The girl-disguised-as-boy-for-protection trope does not count here!)  Little House's setting could set up an Albert Cashier type scenario. Albert Cashier Hell, maybe Grandpa Walton served with an Albert Cashier... when did the military actually start examining recruits? 

Which leads me to why I gave this blog post the title I did.  Often when we hear about traditional values, it's people raving against the sort of things I just mentioned, but considering how these topics could have worked in the shows... some of our traditional values aren't bad.  

These fictions reflect the world as it once was.  Did Olivia Walton or Caroline Ingalls bother much about what the neighbors did in the bedroom?  Did Charles Ingalls and John Walton assume the the new guy in town was female because he had no beard?  I don't think so... not unless they were hurting people.  These are traditional values - if a person is harmless, what they do is none of my business. 

But maybe I'm just pushing that woke agenda. 

 

Representation and Mexican Mice

Representation in media is important, nobody in their right mind is going to deny that.  We all want to see people like us.  It struck me today that what we find representation in is not always obvious.  I am wearing my Slow Poke Rodriguez shirt as I type.  I don't match any of his demographics, so it may seen strange that I latched onto Slow Poke as a child.  

Because the sloth from Zootopia did not yet exist, you see.  Nowadays I get a lot of sloth jokes.  

I move slowly.  If you sneak up behind me and yell, there is a noticeable delay before I jump out of my skin.  I usually miss (by that much) when I try to catch something that's falling or thrown to me.  I'm not male, Mexican, or a mouse, but boy did I identify with Slow Poke Rodriguez.  

I've opined in the past about whether or not Slow Poke and his cousin Speedy Gonzalez are negative stereotypes.  I've opined about stereotypes in general.  None of that is what I'm talking about today.  At least not directly.  

All of this has got me musing on representation.  It's easy to see that we need to see heroes that meet our demographics.  There's a reason Spock has been arguably the most popular Star Trek character in the franchise's history when none of us are Vulcan.  We see something of ourselves below the surface.  And we need that. 

Sequel Series

 I've noticed a couple of trends: First, the number of television shows getting not so much spinoffs or reboots, but sequels.  Second, a lot of fussing about older shows that haven't "aged well".  So I'm dusting off my Entertainment Soapbox. 

A casual list I threw together while pondering this blog post includes:  Roseanne/The Conners, How I Met Your Mother/How I Met Your Father, Boy Meets World/Girl Meets World, Full House/Fuller House, That 70s Show/That 90s Show.  In the case of Big Bang Theory/Young Sheldon, we have a prequel series.  Many of the complaints I see from viewers are along the lines of "they're pushing a liberal agenda" or "they've betrayed the original".   (All writers are pushing an agenda, whether we know it of not.  See my previous rant on that subject.)

I think, at least in certain cases, these complainers are wrong.  The Conners seems very much in the spirit of the original - only the political climate has changed. It was okay for Roseanne to encourage young DJ not to be racist, but now that he's married to a black woman, that's offensive.   The character of Gina has a history with the family and seems to be as well written as any secondary sitcom character. 

A sequel series that does seem to be guilty of "pushing a liberal agenda" is That 90s show.  There's been a lot of talk among fans about timeline inaccuracies, but I don't let that bother me much because the original show's timeline was wonky as hell and because some of these questions might be explained eventually.  My problem stems from Ozzie.  The rest of the gang is as well written as the original in the first season, and are racially diverse, but poor Ozzie seems to exist simply as "the gay boy".   I'm all for diversity, folks, but I don't want it to be the entire character!

Now let's talk about the aging problem.  Personally, I think the entire sitcom genre is based on less-than-perfect characters.  We laugh at the character's faults, which are of course blown out of proportion for comedy.  We should keep this in mind when discussing what is or isn't offensive.

One that hasn't aged well and does have a sequel in How I Met Your Mother/Father.  The character of Barney Stinson alone gets a lot of the "not aging well" press.  Some viewers note that Ted was an unreliable narrator and had reasons to paint Barney badly. I stopped watching HIMYM when Robin and Barney divorced, and I've not seen HIMYF at all, but I hear that Barney has appeared - so maybe they can redeem him somewhat.  

The sitcom I loved that gets hate for not aging well is Friends.  Homophobia in particular is rampant in the show, but a lot of it comes from Chandler's own insecurities (remember, exaggerated for comedy).  Now, suppose they were to make a Friends: The Next Generation.  The offspring of the original gang - Erica, Jack, Emma, and Ben were all born during the run of Friends.  On his spinoff, Joey mentions that Phoebe and Mike had at least one child.  If we want racial diversity, Joey could have married or adopted any ethnicity.  If one or more of the core group is LGBT, that gives Chandler a chance to deal with his issues and redeem himself.  

I guess what I'm getting at is that these sequel series, if done well, can correct some of the problems with older shows.  But, again, these are sitcoms and by definition shouldn't be taken too seriously. 

 

Being "Woke"

 One thing I notice a lot lately is people complaining about TV shows and movies "going woke".  I can understand the complaints to a point.  If the work is historical, changing the demographics of the characters can drastically reduce the engagement of an educated audience.  Gone With The Wind gets a lot of hate for racism, but change any of Scarlett's demographics and the story does not work in a historically accurate setting.   

 I've opined in previous blogs about diversity for diversity's sake.  Tokenism is another term for it.  I think this is what a lot of the complainers are referring to. As writers are building the world of their fiction, diversity can happen naturally, as it does in the real world.  It doesn't need to be shoehorned in.  

There are shows I think of as having diversity for diversity's sake.  I just don't watch them.  If asked why I don't watch them, I would avoid using the word "woke" because that's become perceived as the cry of the -ist or the -phobe.  

All "woke" really means is aware of social injustice.  Not everyone who is woke is a fanatic about it, seeing the KKK around every corner.  Not everyone who feels a show or movie is diverse for the sake of diversity is a hater.  People, talk to each other.  Communicate in a respectful manner.  You might learn something. 

(And some of these fictional worlds were woke from the get-go, there was no becoming or going about it.  Just saying.)  

The Watcher on Netflix

 I'm into the true crime thing and one case that's always fascinated me is John List.  How does that have any bearing on the Netflix show about an unrelated case, you ask?  I will explain, I promise.  Oh, yeah, and SPOILER ALERT for the movie in question. 

The Watcher is an unsolved case from 2014.  A family bought a nice new home and started getting letters from someone calling themselves "the watcher".  Knowing they were being watched even by a harmless person would be creepy enough, but these letters escalated into talking about "young blood" and "what's in the walls".  The letters also claimed that watching the house is a family tradition - the letter writer's forebears did the same thing.  DNA testing on the envelope flaps revealed the writer to be female, but nothing more is known.  They moved out of the house and that was the end of that (to the best of my knowledge).

The John List case happened in the 1970s but he wasn't caught for nearly twenty years.  John List was a devout Lutheran who lived with his mother, wife, and three children.  He lost his job as an accountant, but pretended to go to work rather than tell his family.  He funneled money from his mother's accounts to cover the bills.  Eventually, he made some phone calls to establish that the family was going out of town for an extended period of time.  Then shot his wife and mom.  He shot two of the kids when they got home from school, then went to the third kid's game and shot him when they got home after.  He put all the bodies in one room (except Mom, she was too heavy and on the third floor), put on gospel music, and vanished.  Oh, and he cut himself out of all the family photos.  Also bear in mind his wife was Helen and his daughter was Patricia.  After the murders were discovered, there were rumors of teenaged Patricia being in a relationship with a teacher.  Letters left behind with the bodies indicated that his motive was to save their souls -- they were falling into sinful ways.  

Both real-life cases happened in the same town, but decades apart and otherwise there is no connection.  

Now the movie:  It's a fictionalized account of the 2014 case.  It starts out sticking largely to the facts -  Dean and Nora buy the place and move in.  They plan to renovate the kitchen and basement.  They have two children and a ferret.  And the letters start arriving.  At first, they dismiss it as a prank, but then the kids start hearing music from an intercom and the ferret is found in the upstairs hall with a crushed skull.  

Suspects include two of the neighboring families, alienated by Dean's hostile response to misunderstandings, the realtor - a college friend of Nora's who keeps pushing her to sell the house she just bought, a local teacher who is into old houses, and John List  Graff.  

John Graff used to live in the house. He was a devout Lutheran who lived with his mother, wife, and two children.  He lost his job as an accountant, but pretended to go to work rather than tell his family.  He funneled money from his mother's accounts to cover the bills.  Eventually, he made some phone calls to establish that the family was going out of town for an extended period of time.  Then shot his wife and mom.  He shot daughter Patricia when they got home from school, then went to the son's game and shot him when they got home.  He put all the bodies in one room, put on classical music, and vanished.  He cut himself out of all the family photos. His wife was Helen.  At one point, it's implied that Patricia was in a relationship with a teacher.  (Said teacher is later found dead, shot by a different gun.)  I'm particularly taken with the name List becoming Graph with just a spelling change.  Both are ways of sorting information. 

When Dean discovered this news, I had to pause the show and text a friend.   From there, it just kept getting more ridiculous.  The show, not the weak attempt to hide that this dude was John List.  

Because Graff removed his face from the family photos, no one knows what he looks like.  The neighbor couple is murdered, but not really.  The Dumbwaiter guy was totally normal until the same year Graff killed his family.  There are tunnels between the houses, a remnant from the Prohibition Era.  Toss in a false confession and some family drama (teen daughter, ya know).  

Had this show been advertised as a satire or parody, it would have lived up to the hype.  But it's supposed to be a thriller.  They never solve the case and leave lots of loose ends, probably for future seasons of the show.  Honestly, I'll probably watch.  It's hilarious.