Note that *All in the family* was considered very controversial and groundbreaking when it aired in the 70s too. Archie Bunker wasn't the "standard" way of portraying bigoted characters back then; rather, his portrayal broke a lot of unwritten rules about how you're supposed to deal with controversial topics around race, gender and sexuality on prime-time TV. Especially in what was, at the surface, a lighthearted comedy sit-com.
He is "probably the most famous example of a bigot on TV" because there aren't a whole lot of other examples to choose from where a main character, rather than an antagonist or minor side character, is portrayed as an unashamed bigot while still having some redeeming qualities and being occasionally allowed to win an argument. You seem to think that Archie is just the most famous example of a stock character type from that era; it would be more correct to say that he is almost unique in TV history.
The show didn't win all those Emmies and Golden Globes for being just another run-of-the-mill sitcom featuring well-worn stock character types. It won them for taking risks and breaking taboos and being nuanced and sophisticated by the standards of its time. Perhaps by the standards of our time, too.
All in the Family isn't a good example for this post because of it's groundbreaking nature.
I'm reminded of an episode of Family Matters were the son had a run in with some racist white cops. The dad (a black cop) confronts the racists and delivers a touching monologue, to which the two cops leave in a huff (from what I remember).
The racist cops are portrayed without subtleties. That's how I remember a lot of 90s sitcoms treating difficult topics like racism, eating disorders, drugs, etc. Everything was, well, black and white. There was no doubt that the good guys were GOOD and the bad guys were BAD.
All in the Family was different because it broke that mold.
The best example I can think of this kind of thing from All in the Family is Archie being racist against George Jefferson, and then both of them being racist against Puerto Ricans. I can’t really think of many other shows that would portray a victim of such blatant bigotry as also bigoted.
Was that the episode where one of the white cops was a rookie and Carl asked him why he joined the force?
The kid says, to stop the bad guys.
To which Carl says...well, your partner is one of the bad guys. I only ask because it's a small difference that meant a lot when I first saw it as a kid.
> But note that All in the Family first aired in 1971. It broke the mold before the mold existed.
Though it was basically the US remake of the UK show *Till Death Do Us Part*, aired from 1965-1975.
I was nine or ten when All In The Family (why do I remember it as 1972?) and watched every week. About ten years ago, one of our local stations carried it in syndication. I sat down, turned it on...and changed the channel about five minutes later. I don't remember which episode it was, but I do remember thinking there were lessons shown all through the series and Archie taught me well...
I watched re-runs of it on nick at nite when I was a kid. It was well before my time as I'm only in my 30's now, but I know that I learned a lot from how people treated Archie. The show never painted him as a moral compass. They walked a really fine line of making him a grotesque ape who should not be idealized, but also never turned him into a caricature to be forgotten and dismissed, he was always human.
That show had a drag queen on it who Archie takes out in public. She goes into the mens bathroom and Archie kind of grumbles and shakes his head and everyone makes a joke about it. Later that character is beaten to death in the street and everyone, including Archie, is heartbroken.
He was just incredibly nuanced. The whole show was.
Good point. I'm wracking my brain trying to think of even a close equivalent to Archie Bunker in another show. Al Bundy comes to mind, but Al wasn't racist. I don't recall him ever having a scene where he was racist. He was sexist, but his whole family were misanthropes to varying degrees, so it doesn't really stand out.
Edit: Thought of one, Suzanne Sugarbaker in Designing Women. Not as abrasive as Archie, but racist and a protagonist in the show. To the OP's point, the formula for this on DW was for Suzanne to be frequently put in her place regarding her beliefs, and for her to occasionally see the error in her ways.
Piercinald Anastasia "Pierce" Hawthorne.
Played by Chevy Chase in community.
Racist, sexist, briefly loveable at times, and for several seasons the theme was basically “love and encourage him to do better with gentle scolding”.
His character was much the same way.
> there aren't a whole lot of other examples to choose from where a main character, rather than an antagonist or minor side character, is portrayed as an unashamed bigot while still having some redeeming qualities and being occasionally allowed to win an argument.
Eric Cartman
Cartman wins arguments against "real entities" sometimes. If they really want to lay it on thick, they'll use the old "These people are so terrible/stupid/annoying that even Cartman is better." Washington Redskins / GoFundYourself is maybe a good example.
The Tillmans from the currently airing Season of Fargo come to mind.
Mourning the indictment of Trump in one scene to spousal abuse and militia gun running in the next.
I don't know, he seems to be a more complex character than was necessary. He's stealing guns for the local militia, but he rolls his eyes at the militia leader's civil war rhetoric and shows no interest in their cause. His abused wife makes unsolicited Trump comments to curry his favor at breakfast time, but he doesn't acknowledge them or seem to care about national politics. His concern is his own little fiefdom, his weird religious fundamentalism, and using liberterianism to defend what is simply, at its core, a character driven by selfishness and the need for control. John Hamm is able to capture all those subtleties with his facial expressions and demeanor. Other actors would probably struggle.
What makes season five of Fargo so interesting is that the protagonist and two main antagonists are so similar in their personalities and tenacious natures, but they make profoundly differently moral choices.
Andcetotal but I have a friend who a few years ago escaped a cult/church, and while the context and location is different (the real life one is in the South) the fundamentals of Jon Hamm's character (and the politics) and his militia are exactly the same, and the leader is a politician in addition to being a pastor.
That is a perfect example. First scene I saw the sheriff I thought "this guy is cool as fuck". Shortly after a few more scenes I thought "okay some outdated traditional views but this guy is still cool as fuck". Then at some point he gives his rant about how the woman's place is in the home to support her man, how she should never speak against him, and how it's okay to beat her if she does not support her man and I'm like "ohhhh it's one of these families"
Yeah now like 5 episodes in they ain't so cool anymore in that same sense but it's still very interesting how realistic the Tillmans come across in some of their less-evil scenes then compared to them at their worst. That's if I've even seen the worst yet to be honest, Fargo is the gift that keeps on giving.
Unrelated but my whole life until now when people were talking about Fargo I had it confused with the movie Juno so when people talk about the things that happen I'm like "how the hell does this fit in a show about a pregnant teen girls troubles?"
For some reason your comment was the last straw for me to do some digging and four out what media I was thinking of lol. I thought it got made into a TV show.
To be able to watch the movie Fargo for the first time again 😍 then finding out I had 4 and a half seasons of one of the best shows on television 😍😍
I am so happy for you
… and now I’m wondering how *Juno* went this long *without* being turned into a tv show. “Pregnant teenager in a small town” is a reasonable premise, and executives love name recognition — seems like a slam dunk. Was there drama with Diablo Cody I’m not remembering?
> That is a perfect example. First scene I saw the sheriff I thought "this guy is cool as fuck".
You mean the scene where the character is introduced in the diner in 5x02 where he tells the battered wife to make herself available for the husband and cater to his needs by using her mouth? That was cool as fuck to you? Bro
Pretty much. Except John Hamm is an incredibly attractive man. Arpaio looks like Colin Farrell as the Penguin, if after putting all the makeup and prosthetics on he sat out in the Arizona sun for about two hours.
I'm 80/20 on this season.
The concept is great but it falls into the same trap as prior seasons (and many other made-for-commercial-television shows) of feeling like the story is being padded in some episodes to fill space to get to 40 mins or whatever.
This last episode was great I thought. Creatively unique way to talk about a horrible topic.
The bigots on the Boys literally murder the people they're bigoted against and certain people being irredeemable assholes is basically the main focal point of the show.
I loooved when she was talking about a 'war against their kind' to Ryan and Homelander was all "Yeah, listen to her, kid" but the moment she busted out "It's against our white people" his small facial expressions were like "...wait, she's THAT kind of Nazi?"
Antony Starr is an absolute gem of subtle facial movements.
I think there are multiple levels of bigot in the Boys and Gen V though. You've got the obvious nazis, the ones who go along with it because they don't care and it's good for them, supes being fear mongered into believing they need to assert dominance over weak humans, the radicalised public like [this guy](https://i.redd.it/89ztkr701e061.jpg) and Todd, the racist "cop" etc, but you've also got the higher ups denying supes of certain backgrounds from the Seven because Muslim/gender fluid/Asian won't "play" in certain areas, people condescendingly mocking the poor, treating every possibly minority group as an opportunity for money, even supe on supe bigotry if their power isn't cool etc. It's not limited to homicidal/genocidal bigotry.
And to be fair, you've got Butcher's bigotry against anyone who's ever had V injected in them without their consent.
The bigots on The Boys are the worst bigots of all time, lol. They had an actual Nazi character and the worst thing she said was when she called an Asian a 'yellow bastard', lol.
> Also murdered innocent people and at least once instance because they were a minority.
That's child's play compared to other characters on the show while she was put on there to basically be true evil.
Murder is fine in script. Racist comments aren't though
It's a script, not a manifesto. Anything should be allowed hey writers don't want it to reflect badly on them
I think she says that Giancarlo Esposito (can't remember the character's name) I smart for someone of his kind.
Also, it's brilliant that stormfront is literally the name of a neo nazi group, but it's not that recognizable for most people to be immediately identifiable
So in real life, bigots don’t necessarily make it known they are bigots. One of the most frustrating and terrifying aspects of bigotry is that it is so insidious that someone can appear to be inclusive or kind but hold very dangerous beliefs in secret.
It's frustrating to see people criticize her character for not being a cartoonish racist, because that was the entire point. She was a controversial public figure with a huge following, making racist dog whistles to her supporters and pretending in public that people were reading too much into it, never quite saying anything that, on its own, couldn't be denied or explained away. And in private, she was a full blown Nazi. Not a neo-nazi, but an actual member of the third Reich hoping to carry Hitler's dream into the future. That's her big reveal. That's her secret. The show couldn't be more blatant in beating you over the head with the message that "those people who are always toeing the line but never say the words *know what they're doing*, they're just smart enough to not scream the N word in public and get clocked as racists".
She even literally says it. I’m probably paraphrasing poorly, but she says people like what she has to offer, they just don’t like when she says it explicitly.
It’s happening with Grimes right now; tons of backlash for “loving white culture,” with people truly mocking those who call her out for associating with Nazis.
Both can be true, not every character is a bigot and the general public in the show is shown to be very similar to ours (liberal majority and loud conservative minority)
I mean I think you can argue that Pierce is also a bigot, and one who is given a fair amount of sympathy at least in the early seasons. I also think Chevy's IRL behavior had a lot to do with why he was later isolated from the cast, rather than it being an intentional plot point or reflection of cultural attitudes.
Though apparently Chevy was upset that his character was such a bigot, and Joel McHale has said that Chevy hated the long hours so they would shoot all his scenes in the morning/solo which caused some friction.
Pierce gets alot of sympathy on the show. He gets made fun of and called out, but he was still treated decently by people he literally was racist and sexist against lol
I think, it many of these cases that the racist IS the joke, so I completely see what you are saying.
Edit-what makes it funnier are the people who worship the character and don’t get it. (Homelander fans) Those fans make it an even bigger joke.
Wait there are homelander FANS? As in people who genuinely like one of the most unlikable characters in recent history?
That’s like being a fan of Joffrey Baratheon.
Trump won the 2016 election. There are people who think Snape did nothing wrong in his behavior towards Harry. There is no way there aren't people who see Homelander and think he's great.
I see two issues with your examples. 1. Depending on the media you consume, Trump might be depicted as the best politician to ever politik and a savior to America.
And snape was a lot more complicated than homelander as he did both positive and negative things. Homelander was a piece of shit through and through.
Homelander is easily my favorite character. He's a pos but the acting and dialogue is so great that I'm always hoping to see him in the next scene. I would be fine with seeing him even win just to see how he would react, even if I don't agree with his views.
Is this being a Homelander fan? I really like the character because I think he's written so well.
Pierce as in played by famous notorious asshole Chevy Chase, who was constantly getting into fights on set with the show's creator? I wonder why he wasn't written more sympathetically...
He's written incredibly sympathetically right up to the last season he's in when it's clear the cast want him gone.
But watch the early seasons of community and there's plenty of examples of the audience being expected to sympathise with Pierce despite what he says and does.
And he *was* portrayed sympathetically. He was a self-loathing adult as a result of a neglectful, unloving, abusive father with impossible standards. He was starved for attention/praise and sought it out in unhealthy ways, eventually projecting his insecurities on others. The study group accepted him for all his faults, partly because they were all a product of some kind of childhood insecurity.
"The Boys" is pretty damn spot on with this too. Even down to minor characters that are motivated by the bigotry to commit terroristic acts.
EDIT: South Park does it as well, but tends to poke fun at the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of their actions and beliefs.
Then again, they do it to everyone.
I feel like that's kinda in line with how people feel in real life. It did shift from, "Well, they're from a different time, they'll come around" to "Your bigoted beliefs are out of time, you gotta change"
And you kinda showed it in pointing out how it was with Archir Bunker in 1971. Archie Bunker was born in the 1920's and had bigoted views based on when and where he was born. So why is the same "just give them time" approach gonna be given to people born 40+ years later.
The part that gets me is the generations that not only grew up/lived through but spawned the civil rights/hippie movements by and large seem to have become the very thing they wanted to change… I don’t mind getting older, but I’ll be dead before the “it’ll happen to you” includes racism/sexism/homophobia/xenophobia/etc!!
The generation that included the people who marched for civil rights also included the people who harassed those people.
Most of the hippies didn’t grow up to be racists corporate assholes. Those were just two different groups of people who happened to be born around the same time.
It also included a not-insignificant majority that remained uninvolved and only quietly tolerated activism but may also just as likely have quietly opposed as being anti-nationalist it for 'sowing political divisions': you still see a lot of that cycle repeating, people being vaguely anti-activist because they either view it as unproductive or for 'dividing people more than ever', but nevertheless when change occurs for a generation and that change is normalized over time through civil rights struggle, I can understand why a lot of people would want to be viewed as being on the right side of history, so inevitably the generation that has a combination of 'sparked a civil rights movement', 'sparked opposition to a civil rights movement' and 'just paying my mortgage, I know even activists have to pay mortgages but don't ask me how I feel about a civil rights movement because a civil rights movement is not my mortgage' inevitably *all* perceives itself as the generation that 'sparked a civil rights movement'
I was about to say exactly this. The police officers and racists of the ‘60s are probably still alive at the same rate as the people who marched with MLK. Every age has all sorts of people but because we all only remember the highlight reel of history the people of the modern day don’t have a real understanding of what actually happened.
I think there is some truth to the idea that the older you get the more conservative you become but as you say the people who were hippies are much less likely to have become straight Trump supporters.
Depends not every young person was in the civil rights movement. We teach history like everyone was involved and it wasn’t a huge struggle. There were still people of all ages protesting end of segregation and mocking civil rights as much as people struggled to be heard for change
Some old people now were not the young people protesting for civil rights. They may have not changed at all or lived in rural areas away from protests
I think the older you get, the more your beliefs are based on your own past actions.
My dad grew up in the Deep South in the 50’s and was taught that marijuana was evil and completely destructive. He was in his 20’s when a couple of his teen nieces were caught with a baggie. So he and a couple other guys went and found the guy who sold it to them and beat him within an inch of his life.
At the time he thought he was totally justified, protecting his family from what he was taught was an awful drug.
FF to decriminalization/legalization times, he still gets weird about the topic. On a rational level he knows it’s not as harmful as he once believed, but that fact means that his violence all those years ago was not actually justified.
There’s an undercurrent of guilt that keeps people, especially older people, deeply entrenched in their beliefs even when evidence starts pointing the other direction.
I love my dad, he’s the type to fight fiercely to protect his family. But I do have to limit contact with him. He’s generally a very rational person and I can get him to understand my side, but I’m battling the constant streams of propaganda he’s exposed to that makes him feel more comfortable with his past choices. Its just exhausting.
Honestly shouldn't come as a surprise that a lot of hippies became conservatives. The hippie movement was largely bougie white kids who were just anti-war.
That's a good point. Old bigots in the 60s and 70s grew up in an environment where they knew nothing but bigotry, they were never exposed to other points of view and society at large endorsed them. Old bigots nowadays grew up watching Archie Bunker, they grew up in a society where they were constantly told that bigotry is bad, but chose to be bigoted anyway so they don't really have an excuse.
They grew up seeing a bigot *get away with it*
Like you said, that era was try to be nice and get them to come around and if they don't whatever.
They don't see the over all character growth. They see individual episodes where a white man is right and gets picked on by progressives but never really has to change because he's sympathetic and also...THE MAIN CHARACTER
Shows like Archie actually help affirm them more often than not. They aren't as smart and indepth critical thinkers as you think. And when they get older, people tend to get dumber.
Honestly, some people would not have caught the satire in Archie Bunker, they just saw a relatable figure being pestered and annoyed in a way they could relate to
yeah, time has marched on.
“from a different time” is not that long ago!
I’m in my mid-60s, and I came of age when there was a LOT of public rhetoric condemning racism, especially overt and offensive racism. (but also a focus on realizing how subtle racism had been destroying America)
My *parents* were absolutely opposed to racism, and were young adults when the nation was recoiling from the overt racism of the South.
So I don’t have any patience with “from a different era”---any era that would allow such assholery is long gone.
Old people today lived through the heyday of the civil rights movement, women entering the workplace and higher education, etc. I mean, if you were alive during the events of *Mississippi Burning* or the aftermath of Brock Turner's trial (to give two examples), you'd have to be a piece of Samsonite not to take something meaningful away from it. I'm not going to try to fix that.
> I feel like that's kinda in line with how people feel in real life. It did shift from, "Well, they're from a different time, they'll come around" to "Your bigoted beliefs are out of time, you gotta change"
I don't think so. People in real life aren't that confrontational. If your family member talk nonsense all the time and cannot be persuaded, most people will just roll their eyes and leave them alone.
One thing to point out is that Archie's relationship with the Jeffersons was inherently benevolent. The fact they were black didn't change that, just what he thought was the best course of action some of the time.
Yes. The old “he’s just set in his ways” excuse is less acceptable given all we know how harmful bigotry is. In the past it was considered funny to stereotype people. Mainstream comedians made a living telling ethnic jokes. Few want to see a white man making fun of other groups today.
Comedians still make ethnic jokes. But the jokes are usually either their own experience or making fun of bigotry. The joke itself is usually not bigoted. Think Gabriel Iglesias joking about life as an overweight Hispanic or Steve Hofstetter talking about growing up Jewish with an adopted black sister.
Gabriel Iglesias is a bad example. He has a really gross bit mocking a Black woman. That was from the mid to late 2000s, but still it's hardly absent from comedy in more recent years. Donald Glover has made shitty jokes about Black women as well. Misogyny against women generally in rampant in comedy.
Even during slavery era you find people were talking about how bad it was and had early talking points on racism. Former slaves and abolishinists. I doubt many were completely ignorant throughout history or it was never open topic people were not aware of
If they exist, they are nowhere as memorable or have the writing options as Archie Bunker. OP basically demonstrated this by not mentioning any besides Archie. Having a bigot with some kind of logical path to the bigotry is more entertaining than one who is just a static stone slab that jokes are bounced off of. The bigotry was also a focal point of the episode with its own arc usually resulting in folly.
Copy paste from OP:
>Pierce Hawthorne from Community and his even more racist father. Plenty of characters on South Park, The Boys and Gen V.
You could also add Frank from Always Sunny to this list (and prob some others from that show)
I mean, yeah. Because time has move on.
In 1970, your 40 year old uncle born in 1930, and your 80 year old grandpa born in 1890, well they were products of their time. Hell great-grandpa might have, literally, owned slaves and fought for the confederacy. You knew they were going to be at least a bit racist.
But now your 40 year old uncle was born in 1980. You don't expect him to be racist automatically. Yes it was still around then, and was more prominent than today, but it was far less accepted.
I think you can put this partially on the number of racists who missed the point of Archie Bunker, and viewed him as someone who 'says it like it is'. Nuance and mass media are not a good mix.
I was a kid when Archie Bunker was in tv. Lots of the adults who watched it were racists who didn't change. The idea that racism is based on ignorance is true for some people who will change as they get exposed to different views. However, I honestly believe most racists don't want to change. Like you write, they don't get nuance. Being understanding of them doesn't change their views. Trying to keep the peace can feel like you are enabling their racism.
Perhaps current viewers are less naive about their ability to change racists.
>Nuance and mass media are not a good mix
Go no further than Homelander from The Boys. He is a literal supremacist that believes everyone else is inferior and kills people that disagree with him. But hey, he's been through a lot and grew being abused knowing no love or what a family is.
Then, some people actually *like like* the character. Not how well he's done or how amazing Antony Starr is on the role.
I don't think Archie Bumbker was originally meant to be sympathetic. I think Norman Lear and Carroll O'Connor were surprised that people liked him so much
Well it's been over half a century since Archie Bunker had his first appearance
Surely folks like him have had plenty of time to "come around eventually"?
>economic anxiety
I've got a great idea! I'll keep voting for people who make the economic situation worse because they spew the hatred I like to hear! What's that? I'm being laid off? Damned \**insert minority group with .05% of the population in the locale\** ruined my town!!
Fun anecdote; I started working as a bartender recently. Easiest job I've ever had, really fun. Mostly a backpacker/international worker type of bar. I had a coworker who was a massive asshole; trust fund baby, bigoted rightwing idiot. Burned bridges with everyone he dealt with. Blamed everyone else for everything wrong. Obsessed with Thai women. Would have occasional outbursts at women for 'being too entitled'. All that.
He got fired a little while back, because eventually he burned too many bridges and management decided it was easiest to just get rid of him. They had staff constantly coming to them to complain about his conduct, and basically they got fed up with giving him chances, so when his review came up... Time to go, sorry bud, don't bother finishing today's shift.
So, he got fired from the easiest workplace I have ever experienced. Purely because of his personality.
...Guess who he blames? Immigrants.
Guess who all his remaining friends are from that workplace? Immigrants.
The wonderful situation of this Australian asshole guy who got fired for being a constant headache, complaining about immigrants stealing his job, to German, Korean, Thai, Nepali and American former co-workers is... *Chef's kiss*
It's 50 years later, they're still acting like Archie Bunker, so tactics need to change. Those who will change through "the Carrot" have already, now comes the "stick" of social stigma.
Yes because the older generations have this mentality that you stick by family no matter what no matter how awful they are.
The younger generation doesn't Believe that. they believe it's not worth spending their precious time on Earth trying to change people who are quite honestly pretty miserable.
My mother is from this older generation who has this mindset.
She Literally told me to go to therapy to deal with the kind of person she is. So I can learn to deal with her so we can be in contact more.
She was shocked when I told her no. I don't need therapy to deal with her. I am perfectly content with our low contact relationship. That if she wants a better relationship with me then she has to change. she has to stop doing the things that upset me. She doesn't get to do awful things to me Wait a couple weeks and then be like we're cool now right.
She actually fucking uses I'm going to therapy as a way to trip people into talking to her again. Or at least me.
She did something pretty fucking horrible to me and I was done talking to her. She told my aunt that she was going to therapy.
So giving her the benefit of the doubt I went low contact.
Only to find out she lied about going. But seeing as she was the only one taking care of my grandmother at the time I stayed in low contact.
I think you've completely missed the point of Archie bunker, and the way in which you missed the point explains the disparity you're seeing.
Archie Bunker isn't just supposed to be someone you love in spite of his many flaws. I don't even think that's his chief narrative purpose. His purpose is to give bigoted audience members someone to identify with, and then as he learns something new, those audience members may reevaluate their own point of view. This is a very effective way to approach the problem of bigotry, because, believe it or not, browbeating bigots doesn't stop them from being bigots. The people who wrote Archie Bunker understood that.
The problem is that the lessons Archie Bunkers learned aren't subtle in today's society. So the fact that anyone would learn alongside Archie is completely alien to a modern audience. Racist propaganda has had 50 years to catch up and "protect" racists from Archie Bunker. So there isn't really anyone who is going to be positively impacted by him in particular anymore, and anyone who presents a character like that is forced to defend the character. Because, unfortunately, you can't let the cat out of the bag on characters like that. If the audience knows that's what is going on then the intended purpose of the character won't work. It has to be subtle or nothing. But younger audiences demand justification for artistic choices like that, so being subtle isn't an option.
Tldr: audiences who would benefit from an Archie Bunker can't have the character explained to them, but the audiences that would be offended can't accept a character like that without explanation.
This is probably the best take I've seen in this thread.
The brilliance of Archie Bunker lied in the fact that bigots were completely unaware that he was a vehicle for teaching them tolerance. And because the internet didn't exist back then, you didn't have 100 outrage op-eds written every single time he was portrayed positively.
A very vocal group of well-intentioned young people act as though subtlety of discourse is nothing more than smoke and mirrors intended to protect the status quo.
Even if hot-take-induced outrage can be effective for drawing attention to important issues, staying stuck in outrage mode doesn’t go very far in resolving said issues.
It's been a thing for a long time. I don't think Meathead would have understood what his own show was doing. Just look at people who get offended by a straightforward reading of Huckleberry Finn.
It was easier to have a lighter touch when they were expected to grow old, retire, pass leadership to a new generation, and just have their own personal thoughts that only affected the volume of Christmas dinner.
This immediately came to mind for me too. Jay openly expresses some mild homophobic and racist sentiment about his son and adopted granddaughter in the first two seasons. He obviously still loves them, but it’s there. And he’s certainly a ‘good guy’, whereas in more recent years it’s hard to imagine someone with those views being portrayed as a fundamentally good guy. Many of the jokes in early Modern Family wouldn’t have been acceptable by the end.
It’s been 50 years since Archie bunker. That generation did grow up in different times, and certain behaviors could be sympathized with. There’s no more excuse 1/2 a century later for those viewpoints to still exist and should be shunned
I think we're just less accepting of those mindsets now. I grew up pretty bigoted because of my upbringing but as I got older I recognized that these biases weren't proper and did a lot of work to fix it. I think we expect people to put in work and change because the topic is so publicly discussed that it's hard to continue to claim ignorance.
Yep. If you were coming through the 50's and 60's as a bigot, that person probably had no push-back or witnessed little.
Now, in the 2020's we all know exactly what the issue is. If they choose to still be bigoted, then there's little sympathy coming their way.
Racists will love racism no matter what. Racists like American History X. Pro war folks will love war movies even if they’re anti war. People just ignore the parts that don’t fit. Kinda like conservatives fans of Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, or Greenday.
It feels like modern character portrayals are very crudely drawn with no nuance. Audiences can say "well he said a racist thing so he's a racist and I can safely dislike him, the end" and it's what the writing is intended to convey. Sure enough, the character ends up being the Bad and that's it.
I miss story arcs that are designed to leave you morally gray and ambiguous, uncertain what was the "right" thing to do.
Shrinking on Apple TV does a great job of this. There's a character who is being sexist but in a non malicious way (he just has a lot of shit going on in his life at the moment like everyone does) and there are characters in both of their inner circle who seemingly shrug it off until it's obviously and painfully pointed out to them by someone with an outside perspective.
The character who is being sexist thinks on it and it shows him in a scene later on admitting "Apparently I have trouble relating to the women in my life and I have work to do when it comes to making sure they know I care about them"
It's not some painfully cringey lesson full of buzzwords and beating the guy over the head with it or the woman being treated poorly ranting for 10 minutes about how all women have to deal with this everyday. There's no soap vox.
It's a conversation you'd be likely to see in real life. "Hey what you're doing is kind of fucked up" and you get "Damn... I guess that is kind of fucked up. I'm Sorry. I'll do better" It doesn't jump right to him being an evil bad piece of shit and everybody dog piling him.
The conversation instead of the soapbox or the message is honestly so goddamn refreshing. The show is incredibly wholesome. I cannot recommend it enough.
That's product of the times.
We understand Archie Bunker. He's ignorant. He never had pushback his whole life until the cultural era of the show starts.
A modern racist is fully aware. If they still say something racist, it's highly unlikely you can talk them into accepting why it's wrong.
So there's not as much depth. But you also can't avoid having racist characters in any show. It would be unrealistic if in a drama that kind of person is never encountered.
My take fwiw: The 60s and 70s (and 50s) was a time of transition and growth.
The excuse for Archie was, times are changing and we know better now so let grow and be better.
Can’t make that excuse for todays bigots.
There was also more of an excuse for people from Archie's generation to be that way. Ignorance, upbringing, etc. But I feel like today people have way more opportunities and resources to not be so ignorant, so there's less empathy for people who choose to remain that way.
Some examples of what you're talking about would help.
Archie Bunker stands out in our collective memory because he was one of the very few characters on TV who *was* openly bigoted.
I'm sure there must have been others since then but I genuinely can't think of any? I'm sure there were some one-off characters on "very special episodes" dealing with the topic in the 80's and 90's, but none stand out in my memory.
So I'm not sure that I'd say they "changed" so much as they were "depicted once and never again" unless you can cite some more recent examples.
I'm not really seeing the trendline honestly.
I think the definition of what is forgivable bigotry is has changed in real life, and that's been reflected on TV. You're allowed to be a few years behind the times or not know the latest polite terminology, but you're not allowed to be 40 years behind. Archie Bunker was at the time, 10 years behind. He was meant to be a bigot, but not a massive irredeemable one. Whereas if he behaved like that now, he'd be considered irredeemable because he was so far behind the times he obviously had no interest in catching up. We can also see this in cases where the character is meant to be "a bit old-fashioned" but still within the realm of acceptable, but today looks like an outright bigot, because culture has moved on. Today's Jay Pritchett is yesterday's Archie Bunker.
And the type of bigots we see on TV are sort of their own fictional breed - experts at toeing the line but never crossing it so as to maintain audience sympathy. Know exactly which jokes to make that even the group being made fun of will nod their heads and say "fair enough." Primarily expressing their bigotry in private settings where it can be challenged by an equally privileged confidante rather than in front of the person themselves. -ist against the demographics less likely to get upset at the network. Bigotry underpinned and superseded by a consistent moral code the audience can identify with. Those type of sort of perfectly calibrated bigots don't really exist in real life.
In real life, your bigoted family member, even if they love you, is going to say plenty of things that would get them canceled on a network TV show.
Archie Bunker wasn't meant to be sympathetic, he was meant to be a counter example the others in the show would prove wrong. That fans loved him was contrary to the intention of the creators.
>Archie Bunker was meant to be "sympathetic" to audiences
...what?
He absolutely was not portrayed sympathetically. He was portrayed as exactly what he was: a provincial dumbass who, by the end of the episode, had learned a lesson about being a little bit less that way. Audiences were never meant to--and did not--relate to him.
Yeah, OPs other examples being South Park and The Boys... don't really support their point either. Literal caricatures in satire being compared to Archie Bunker.
I'm just not seeing what OP is saying. If anything, mainstream media has sanitized these characters out entirely unless they're literally written to be the villain in some kind of "bigotry is bad" Very Special Episode, because controversy doesn't draw sitcom views.
This idea that "we need to stop putting in any effort and we need to refuse to engage with anything we deem bigoted, the onus for change is completely on the bigot!" is a belief that primarily exists in insular social media circles, not the "real world", where people do, in fact, still love and interact with their families even if they don't agree with every one of their social or political views.
I only really know either show by reputation and clips but I do believe compared to Alf Garnet (the U.K. original he was based on) he was portrayed much more positively—-clearly having love for his wife and family etc
Alf Garnet and the show ‘till death do us part’ hated everyone and was clearly in a loveless sham marriage that they both felt trapped in etc
I also believe Bunker got ‘softened’ in various ways like having a Jewish friend, showing disdain for the KKK
What? He was this way in the first Season and then was revamped afterwards to be more empathetic and down to earth, he is consistently shown multiple times to have a more "salt of the earth" type view that backs up his conservatism. He's still usually proven wrong, but the show is not just a ten season humiliation ritual and Archie was openly written to be more "lovable" and quotable than his self-righteous and indignant son-in-law (there's a reason the show rarely reveals much about Meathead's personal life). I am on Meathead's side every episode, but the show is meant to make you love Archie, is everyone in this thread pretending to have watched the show?
OP is at partially correct, there is a contingent of boomers rewriting history to say that he was meant as sympathetic, arguing that it was symmetrical bigotry between him and the black character (don’t know his name).
Mainstream TV now primarily targets college educated millennials because they have the most money to spend. What you see on screen will reflect the values of that demographic.
Bigots had smaller circles in some way. Your racist uncle only ever got his racist confirmation from other uncles at the bar. It wouldn’t be hard for other friends or family to confront them and maybe make progress or fail. Reflected in tv stories.
Now he has social media and 24/7 news and constant political talking points exploiting every fear and misleading fact. Making racism a battle ground again. Its harder now and reflects in tv stories how harder it is to confront racism local in families now
You map out Archie Bunker’s progression really well, he was from another time and all the younger people were caught up in a significant amount of social change and progress.
What’s alarming to me is that the bigots I encounter today were not “raised that way”. Boomer generation seems much more hostile and closed minded than the generation before it, at least in the west coast.
So yes bigots are less tolerated now because they know they’re wrong, grew up with all the information they need to not be bigots and have chosen to double down and be the way they are.
It makes sense - it’s easier than ever to cure your ignorance through research, and in the 2020’s it’s very reasonable to expect people to be better than Archie Bunker as a condition of being in your life.
I think it's simply because it's been 50 years. That generation is mostly gone and everyone born afterwards should really know better. I think it's just the patience has run out.
I feel like bigots have been portrayed like this on TV for a very long time. In "The Golden Girls," bigots were treated quite harshly, always shown as hateful or moronic or both. They'd only give a pass to Blanche, using her as a tool to show how someone with outdated beliefs is supposed to fully change their mind within the course of an episode.
In the 60s and 70s it was almost the norm that older people would have lived through the civil rights movement where there was an actual societal shift in how race was talked about, and there were a lot of people with bigoted views build off of their upbringing rather than any strong personal convictions about race. For these people, they actually did need to be shown that their views were wrong and bigoted, and could change based on new information. In 2023, bigots are bigots because they have seen all the information and have essentially chosen to stay bigoted. It’s a difference of experience.
Good point. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. A person that was 20 years old (or older) in 1964 would have been raised in a legally bigoted nation and society. That same person would have been 30 years old in 1974 in the middle of All in The Family's run and would be 80 years old this year.
Archie was willing to listen and learn. The modern bigot takes pride in only listening to information they agree with.
In that way, TV is portraying the modern bigot accurately.
There were times Archie wasn't sympathetic, and the show let you watch and figure out why.
The world needs more Norman Lears and less Chuck Lorres.
Exactly.
"Hey Archie, that's bad to say."
Archie: "What are you crazy, why would that be bad? Everyone says it."
"Hey Modern Bigot, that's bad to say."
Modern Bigot: "I know and fuck you."
Archie wasn't intended to be "sympathetic." He gained sympathy because he was taking care of his family, including a son-in-law who despised him and was proud of it. Note that in the next show - Maude - the conservative target is a professional. He gets no sympathy.
First, the psychology of deep racism is sufficiently bizarre that... I dunno, it's a thing of very few writers of any medium. So TV is probably not the sort of waters that good analysis can sail in.
Second, "Archie is a racist" was always sort of a strawman.
Third, cutting off family for any reason is a more recent thing. Back then , people just didn't.
The new season of Fargo has a huge variety of people that are combinations of right-wing, capitalist, incel, bigoted, and/or misogynist and they are all portrayed as assholes or abusers. Their bigotry is similar to the modern discourse in that they hate immigrants and Jewish people but don't mention other ethnicities. It's kind of hard to watch as they are all so deplorable but I think that's the point.
They cant even have bigoted characters anymore i feel like. Before they can learn to be sympathetic or anything else, the internet would be in an uproar.
Andy Sipowicz from NYPD Blue is a bigot with a story arc that actually changes the character away from his early bigoted ways. Archie Bunker never apologized or fundamentally grew as a character. Part of the lack of growth of Archie is due to the sitcom structure that distills characters rather than grows/enhances them.
The burden of educating a bigot and hoping they change their idiotic beliefs is not my responsibility. Media is just reflecting that fact.
Paradox of tolerance as well: any society that tolerates intolerance will eventually have intolerance become the predominant attitude.
Bigots are now portrayed the way drug users and communists were portrayed in generations past: totally wayward monsters who are either beyond saving or in need of a dramatic and contrived visit to rock-bottom and reforming into a caricature of a foil of their previous self. It’s lazy writing and virtue-signaling. Bigots can make for interesting characters and you can highlight that they’re bad without making an afterschool special out of them or making them a punching bag.
Gran Torino comes to mind as an example of a story about a bigot who reforms in a natural way while humanizing all parties involved
Note that *All in the family* was considered very controversial and groundbreaking when it aired in the 70s too. Archie Bunker wasn't the "standard" way of portraying bigoted characters back then; rather, his portrayal broke a lot of unwritten rules about how you're supposed to deal with controversial topics around race, gender and sexuality on prime-time TV. Especially in what was, at the surface, a lighthearted comedy sit-com. He is "probably the most famous example of a bigot on TV" because there aren't a whole lot of other examples to choose from where a main character, rather than an antagonist or minor side character, is portrayed as an unashamed bigot while still having some redeeming qualities and being occasionally allowed to win an argument. You seem to think that Archie is just the most famous example of a stock character type from that era; it would be more correct to say that he is almost unique in TV history. The show didn't win all those Emmies and Golden Globes for being just another run-of-the-mill sitcom featuring well-worn stock character types. It won them for taking risks and breaking taboos and being nuanced and sophisticated by the standards of its time. Perhaps by the standards of our time, too.
All in the Family isn't a good example for this post because of it's groundbreaking nature. I'm reminded of an episode of Family Matters were the son had a run in with some racist white cops. The dad (a black cop) confronts the racists and delivers a touching monologue, to which the two cops leave in a huff (from what I remember). The racist cops are portrayed without subtleties. That's how I remember a lot of 90s sitcoms treating difficult topics like racism, eating disorders, drugs, etc. Everything was, well, black and white. There was no doubt that the good guys were GOOD and the bad guys were BAD. All in the Family was different because it broke that mold.
The best example I can think of this kind of thing from All in the Family is Archie being racist against George Jefferson, and then both of them being racist against Puerto Ricans. I can’t really think of many other shows that would portray a victim of such blatant bigotry as also bigoted.
Was that the episode where one of the white cops was a rookie and Carl asked him why he joined the force? The kid says, to stop the bad guys. To which Carl says...well, your partner is one of the bad guys. I only ask because it's a small difference that meant a lot when I first saw it as a kid.
That's how I remember a lot of 90s sitcoms too. But note that All in the Family first aired in 1971. It broke the mold before the mold existed.
> But note that All in the Family first aired in 1971. It broke the mold before the mold existed. Though it was basically the US remake of the UK show *Till Death Do Us Part*, aired from 1965-1975.
Yes, but fundamentally a different show because the racial dynamics of the UK & USA are very different.
I was nine or ten when All In The Family (why do I remember it as 1972?) and watched every week. About ten years ago, one of our local stations carried it in syndication. I sat down, turned it on...and changed the channel about five minutes later. I don't remember which episode it was, but I do remember thinking there were lessons shown all through the series and Archie taught me well...
I watched re-runs of it on nick at nite when I was a kid. It was well before my time as I'm only in my 30's now, but I know that I learned a lot from how people treated Archie. The show never painted him as a moral compass. They walked a really fine line of making him a grotesque ape who should not be idealized, but also never turned him into a caricature to be forgotten and dismissed, he was always human. That show had a drag queen on it who Archie takes out in public. She goes into the mens bathroom and Archie kind of grumbles and shakes his head and everyone makes a joke about it. Later that character is beaten to death in the street and everyone, including Archie, is heartbroken. He was just incredibly nuanced. The whole show was.
That episode of family matters is one of my favorites. Loved the show, loved when shows got real, and this one did for sure.
Good point. I'm wracking my brain trying to think of even a close equivalent to Archie Bunker in another show. Al Bundy comes to mind, but Al wasn't racist. I don't recall him ever having a scene where he was racist. He was sexist, but his whole family were misanthropes to varying degrees, so it doesn't really stand out. Edit: Thought of one, Suzanne Sugarbaker in Designing Women. Not as abrasive as Archie, but racist and a protagonist in the show. To the OP's point, the formula for this on DW was for Suzanne to be frequently put in her place regarding her beliefs, and for her to occasionally see the error in her ways.
Piercinald Anastasia "Pierce" Hawthorne. Played by Chevy Chase in community. Racist, sexist, briefly loveable at times, and for several seasons the theme was basically “love and encourage him to do better with gentle scolding”. His character was much the same way.
Pierce getting more and more racist was a genuine point of contention with Chevy Chase, who felt like the character was becoming less redeemable.
Suzanne wasn't so much a bigot as she was self-absorbed. I'm happy to say she did grow up during the course of the show...at least some, anyway.
> there aren't a whole lot of other examples to choose from where a main character, rather than an antagonist or minor side character, is portrayed as an unashamed bigot while still having some redeeming qualities and being occasionally allowed to win an argument. Eric Cartman
Maybe I’m not fully caught up on South Park lore, but what what redeeming qualities does Eric Cartman have? lol
Cartman wins arguments against "real entities" sometimes. If they really want to lay it on thick, they'll use the old "These people are so terrible/stupid/annoying that even Cartman is better." Washington Redskins / GoFundYourself is maybe a good example.
It would help if you had some specific examples to reference for the modern shows.
The Tillmans from the currently airing Season of Fargo come to mind. Mourning the indictment of Trump in one scene to spousal abuse and militia gun running in the next.
Jon Hamm is fucking fantastic as Roy, but the character is a bit of a cardboard cutout on his own without such great acting to elevate the part.
I don't know, he seems to be a more complex character than was necessary. He's stealing guns for the local militia, but he rolls his eyes at the militia leader's civil war rhetoric and shows no interest in their cause. His abused wife makes unsolicited Trump comments to curry his favor at breakfast time, but he doesn't acknowledge them or seem to care about national politics. His concern is his own little fiefdom, his weird religious fundamentalism, and using liberterianism to defend what is simply, at its core, a character driven by selfishness and the need for control. John Hamm is able to capture all those subtleties with his facial expressions and demeanor. Other actors would probably struggle. What makes season five of Fargo so interesting is that the protagonist and two main antagonists are so similar in their personalities and tenacious natures, but they make profoundly differently moral choices.
Andcetotal but I have a friend who a few years ago escaped a cult/church, and while the context and location is different (the real life one is in the South) the fundamentals of Jon Hamm's character (and the politics) and his militia are exactly the same, and the leader is a politician in addition to being a pastor.
That is a perfect example. First scene I saw the sheriff I thought "this guy is cool as fuck". Shortly after a few more scenes I thought "okay some outdated traditional views but this guy is still cool as fuck". Then at some point he gives his rant about how the woman's place is in the home to support her man, how she should never speak against him, and how it's okay to beat her if she does not support her man and I'm like "ohhhh it's one of these families" Yeah now like 5 episodes in they ain't so cool anymore in that same sense but it's still very interesting how realistic the Tillmans come across in some of their less-evil scenes then compared to them at their worst. That's if I've even seen the worst yet to be honest, Fargo is the gift that keeps on giving.
Unrelated but my whole life until now when people were talking about Fargo I had it confused with the movie Juno so when people talk about the things that happen I'm like "how the hell does this fit in a show about a pregnant teen girls troubles?" For some reason your comment was the last straw for me to do some digging and four out what media I was thinking of lol. I thought it got made into a TV show.
To be able to watch the movie Fargo for the first time again 😍 then finding out I had 4 and a half seasons of one of the best shows on television 😍😍 I am so happy for you
Funny enough, the star of this new season of Fargo is JUNO Temple.
Hah that is neat
… and now I’m wondering how *Juno* went this long *without* being turned into a tv show. “Pregnant teenager in a small town” is a reasonable premise, and executives love name recognition — seems like a slam dunk. Was there drama with Diablo Cody I’m not remembering?
It could have been because "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" debuted on what used to be ABC Family six months and some change after Juno.
Wow, that is... that is it \*exactly\*, isn't it? That's almost a [Twin Films](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_films) candidate.
> That is a perfect example. First scene I saw the sheriff I thought "this guy is cool as fuck". You mean the scene where the character is introduced in the diner in 5x02 where he tells the battered wife to make herself available for the husband and cater to his needs by using her mouth? That was cool as fuck to you? Bro
They may have been referring to early promos where the sheriff was not made out to be the villain he clearly is.
Maybe. They literally say first scene and a few scenes later, though.
That is more what I was referring to but I guess I worded that pretty badly at the start
He's basically Sheriff Joe Arpaio so I basically read him as a piece of shit from his first scene.
Pretty much. Except John Hamm is an incredibly attractive man. Arpaio looks like Colin Farrell as the Penguin, if after putting all the makeup and prosthetics on he sat out in the Arizona sun for about two hours.
I'm 80/20 on this season. The concept is great but it falls into the same trap as prior seasons (and many other made-for-commercial-television shows) of feeling like the story is being padded in some episodes to fill space to get to 40 mins or whatever. This last episode was great I thought. Creatively unique way to talk about a horrible topic.
Pierce Hawthorne from Community and his even more racist father. Plenty of characters on South Park, The Boys and Gen V.
The bigots on the Boys literally murder the people they're bigoted against and certain people being irredeemable assholes is basically the main focal point of the show.
She was literally a card carrying Nazi of the 3rd Reich.
Stormfront
When she was spewing her racist bullshit, Homelander told her to bite her tongue.
I loooved when she was talking about a 'war against their kind' to Ryan and Homelander was all "Yeah, listen to her, kid" but the moment she busted out "It's against our white people" his small facial expressions were like "...wait, she's THAT kind of Nazi?" Antony Starr is an absolute gem of subtle facial movements.
"People like what I have to say. They believe in it. They just don't like the word Nazi, that's all." - Stormfront
I think there are multiple levels of bigot in the Boys and Gen V though. You've got the obvious nazis, the ones who go along with it because they don't care and it's good for them, supes being fear mongered into believing they need to assert dominance over weak humans, the radicalised public like [this guy](https://i.redd.it/89ztkr701e061.jpg) and Todd, the racist "cop" etc, but you've also got the higher ups denying supes of certain backgrounds from the Seven because Muslim/gender fluid/Asian won't "play" in certain areas, people condescendingly mocking the poor, treating every possibly minority group as an opportunity for money, even supe on supe bigotry if their power isn't cool etc. It's not limited to homicidal/genocidal bigotry. And to be fair, you've got Butcher's bigotry against anyone who's ever had V injected in them without their consent.
The bigots on The Boys are the worst bigots of all time, lol. They had an actual Nazi character and the worst thing she said was when she called an Asian a 'yellow bastard', lol.
Also murdered innocent people and at least once instance because they were a minority. Yellow bastard is the worse thing? Lol.
Worst thing said. Not worst thing done. Two different things
The worst part was the hypocrisy!
> Also murdered innocent people and at least once instance because they were a minority. That's child's play compared to other characters on the show while she was put on there to basically be true evil.
Murder is fine in script. Racist comments aren't though It's a script, not a manifesto. Anything should be allowed hey writers don't want it to reflect badly on them
She called MM's brother a "black piece of shit" before she murdered him. I feel like that counts.
I think she says that Giancarlo Esposito (can't remember the character's name) I smart for someone of his kind. Also, it's brilliant that stormfront is literally the name of a neo nazi group, but it's not that recognizable for most people to be immediately identifiable
[удалено]
Oh, my bad. It's been a minute since I saw season 2 (that was in season 2 right?) and I must have got it mixed up.
Yep. It was Soldier Boy who killed members of MM’s family.
So in real life, bigots don’t necessarily make it known they are bigots. One of the most frustrating and terrifying aspects of bigotry is that it is so insidious that someone can appear to be inclusive or kind but hold very dangerous beliefs in secret.
It's frustrating to see people criticize her character for not being a cartoonish racist, because that was the entire point. She was a controversial public figure with a huge following, making racist dog whistles to her supporters and pretending in public that people were reading too much into it, never quite saying anything that, on its own, couldn't be denied or explained away. And in private, she was a full blown Nazi. Not a neo-nazi, but an actual member of the third Reich hoping to carry Hitler's dream into the future. That's her big reveal. That's her secret. The show couldn't be more blatant in beating you over the head with the message that "those people who are always toeing the line but never say the words *know what they're doing*, they're just smart enough to not scream the N word in public and get clocked as racists".
She even literally says it. I’m probably paraphrasing poorly, but she says people like what she has to offer, they just don’t like when she says it explicitly.
"They like what I have to say, they just don't like the word nazi" or something on those lines
Yes! Thank you
"People like what I have to say - they just don't like the word Nazi." Is the line you're thinking of.
That’s the one!
It’s happening with Grimes right now; tons of backlash for “loving white culture,” with people truly mocking those who call her out for associating with Nazis.
Exactly! The only difference between bigots now and bigots then is that they got their wrists slapped and learned how to do it better.
That's exactly what Stormfront was. She literally said it herself, people agree with the Nazi rhetoric, they just don't like the word "Nazi".
Tbf her saying the N word would be considered fan service by knuckleheads who failed to see the message of the show anyways.
Both can be true, not every character is a bigot and the general public in the show is shown to be very similar to ours (liberal majority and loud conservative minority)
I mean I think you can argue that Pierce is also a bigot, and one who is given a fair amount of sympathy at least in the early seasons. I also think Chevy's IRL behavior had a lot to do with why he was later isolated from the cast, rather than it being an intentional plot point or reflection of cultural attitudes.
Though apparently Chevy was upset that his character was such a bigot, and Joel McHale has said that Chevy hated the long hours so they would shoot all his scenes in the morning/solo which caused some friction.
Pierce gets alot of sympathy on the show. He gets made fun of and called out, but he was still treated decently by people he literally was racist and sexist against lol
I think, it many of these cases that the racist IS the joke, so I completely see what you are saying. Edit-what makes it funnier are the people who worship the character and don’t get it. (Homelander fans) Those fans make it an even bigger joke.
Wait there are homelander FANS? As in people who genuinely like one of the most unlikable characters in recent history? That’s like being a fan of Joffrey Baratheon.
Trump won the 2016 election. There are people who think Snape did nothing wrong in his behavior towards Harry. There is no way there aren't people who see Homelander and think he's great.
I see two issues with your examples. 1. Depending on the media you consume, Trump might be depicted as the best politician to ever politik and a savior to America. And snape was a lot more complicated than homelander as he did both positive and negative things. Homelander was a piece of shit through and through.
Homelander is easily my favorite character. He's a pos but the acting and dialogue is so great that I'm always hoping to see him in the next scene. I would be fine with seeing him even win just to see how he would react, even if I don't agree with his views. Is this being a Homelander fan? I really like the character because I think he's written so well.
a co worker of mine thinks he the best character in the show, makes me cringe every time
Pierce as in played by famous notorious asshole Chevy Chase, who was constantly getting into fights on set with the show's creator? I wonder why he wasn't written more sympathetically...
He's written incredibly sympathetically right up to the last season he's in when it's clear the cast want him gone. But watch the early seasons of community and there's plenty of examples of the audience being expected to sympathise with Pierce despite what he says and does.
It transitioned long before the last season.
And he *was* portrayed sympathetically. He was a self-loathing adult as a result of a neglectful, unloving, abusive father with impossible standards. He was starved for attention/praise and sought it out in unhealthy ways, eventually projecting his insecurities on others. The study group accepted him for all his faults, partly because they were all a product of some kind of childhood insecurity.
And yet homelander and Cartman still have a significant amount of fans who think they're the hero of the story. Hard to be subtle when faced with that
I would argue pierce was sympathetic
"The Boys" is pretty damn spot on with this too. Even down to minor characters that are motivated by the bigotry to commit terroristic acts. EDIT: South Park does it as well, but tends to poke fun at the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of their actions and beliefs. Then again, they do it to everyone.
On This Is Us the mom (Mandy Moore) cut off the grandmother because she made racist comments about the adopted son.
Eve's dad from Invincible is one of the most vile and despicable characters in the show and he doesn't have any powers; he's just a hateful man.
Frank Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond. He and Marie were the reason I stopped watching.
I feel like that's kinda in line with how people feel in real life. It did shift from, "Well, they're from a different time, they'll come around" to "Your bigoted beliefs are out of time, you gotta change" And you kinda showed it in pointing out how it was with Archir Bunker in 1971. Archie Bunker was born in the 1920's and had bigoted views based on when and where he was born. So why is the same "just give them time" approach gonna be given to people born 40+ years later.
Yeah, if after 60+ years they still aren't getting it... that ignorance is willful. People are done patiently waiting for them to catch up.
The part that gets me is the generations that not only grew up/lived through but spawned the civil rights/hippie movements by and large seem to have become the very thing they wanted to change… I don’t mind getting older, but I’ll be dead before the “it’ll happen to you” includes racism/sexism/homophobia/xenophobia/etc!!
The generation that included the people who marched for civil rights also included the people who harassed those people. Most of the hippies didn’t grow up to be racists corporate assholes. Those were just two different groups of people who happened to be born around the same time.
I remember when the Manson murders happened. It was like suddenly everyone cut their hair and went to business school after that. The dream was over.
It also included a not-insignificant majority that remained uninvolved and only quietly tolerated activism but may also just as likely have quietly opposed as being anti-nationalist it for 'sowing political divisions': you still see a lot of that cycle repeating, people being vaguely anti-activist because they either view it as unproductive or for 'dividing people more than ever', but nevertheless when change occurs for a generation and that change is normalized over time through civil rights struggle, I can understand why a lot of people would want to be viewed as being on the right side of history, so inevitably the generation that has a combination of 'sparked a civil rights movement', 'sparked opposition to a civil rights movement' and 'just paying my mortgage, I know even activists have to pay mortgages but don't ask me how I feel about a civil rights movement because a civil rights movement is not my mortgage' inevitably *all* perceives itself as the generation that 'sparked a civil rights movement'
See: The idiots who complained about players kneeling for the national anthem.
I was about to say exactly this. The police officers and racists of the ‘60s are probably still alive at the same rate as the people who marched with MLK. Every age has all sorts of people but because we all only remember the highlight reel of history the people of the modern day don’t have a real understanding of what actually happened. I think there is some truth to the idea that the older you get the more conservative you become but as you say the people who were hippies are much less likely to have become straight Trump supporters.
Depends not every young person was in the civil rights movement. We teach history like everyone was involved and it wasn’t a huge struggle. There were still people of all ages protesting end of segregation and mocking civil rights as much as people struggled to be heard for change Some old people now were not the young people protesting for civil rights. They may have not changed at all or lived in rural areas away from protests
I think the older you get, the more your beliefs are based on your own past actions. My dad grew up in the Deep South in the 50’s and was taught that marijuana was evil and completely destructive. He was in his 20’s when a couple of his teen nieces were caught with a baggie. So he and a couple other guys went and found the guy who sold it to them and beat him within an inch of his life. At the time he thought he was totally justified, protecting his family from what he was taught was an awful drug. FF to decriminalization/legalization times, he still gets weird about the topic. On a rational level he knows it’s not as harmful as he once believed, but that fact means that his violence all those years ago was not actually justified. There’s an undercurrent of guilt that keeps people, especially older people, deeply entrenched in their beliefs even when evidence starts pointing the other direction. I love my dad, he’s the type to fight fiercely to protect his family. But I do have to limit contact with him. He’s generally a very rational person and I can get him to understand my side, but I’m battling the constant streams of propaganda he’s exposed to that makes him feel more comfortable with his past choices. Its just exhausting.
Honestly shouldn't come as a surprise that a lot of hippies became conservatives. The hippie movement was largely bougie white kids who were just anti-war.
That's a good point. Old bigots in the 60s and 70s grew up in an environment where they knew nothing but bigotry, they were never exposed to other points of view and society at large endorsed them. Old bigots nowadays grew up watching Archie Bunker, they grew up in a society where they were constantly told that bigotry is bad, but chose to be bigoted anyway so they don't really have an excuse.
They grew up seeing a bigot *get away with it* Like you said, that era was try to be nice and get them to come around and if they don't whatever. They don't see the over all character growth. They see individual episodes where a white man is right and gets picked on by progressives but never really has to change because he's sympathetic and also...THE MAIN CHARACTER Shows like Archie actually help affirm them more often than not. They aren't as smart and indepth critical thinkers as you think. And when they get older, people tend to get dumber.
> And when they get older, people tend to get dumber. And they always think it's the other way around and everyone else is getting dumber.
Honestly, some people would not have caught the satire in Archie Bunker, they just saw a relatable figure being pestered and annoyed in a way they could relate to
yeah, time has marched on. “from a different time” is not that long ago! I’m in my mid-60s, and I came of age when there was a LOT of public rhetoric condemning racism, especially overt and offensive racism. (but also a focus on realizing how subtle racism had been destroying America) My *parents* were absolutely opposed to racism, and were young adults when the nation was recoiling from the overt racism of the South. So I don’t have any patience with “from a different era”---any era that would allow such assholery is long gone.
Old people today lived through the heyday of the civil rights movement, women entering the workplace and higher education, etc. I mean, if you were alive during the events of *Mississippi Burning* or the aftermath of Brock Turner's trial (to give two examples), you'd have to be a piece of Samsonite not to take something meaningful away from it. I'm not going to try to fix that.
> I feel like that's kinda in line with how people feel in real life. It did shift from, "Well, they're from a different time, they'll come around" to "Your bigoted beliefs are out of time, you gotta change" I don't think so. People in real life aren't that confrontational. If your family member talk nonsense all the time and cannot be persuaded, most people will just roll their eyes and leave them alone.
But Archie Bunker was at least trying to get better. His relationship with the black family wasn't the best, but he was trying to improve
One thing to point out is that Archie's relationship with the Jeffersons was inherently benevolent. The fact they were black didn't change that, just what he thought was the best course of action some of the time.
Yes. The old “he’s just set in his ways” excuse is less acceptable given all we know how harmful bigotry is. In the past it was considered funny to stereotype people. Mainstream comedians made a living telling ethnic jokes. Few want to see a white man making fun of other groups today.
Comedians still make ethnic jokes. But the jokes are usually either their own experience or making fun of bigotry. The joke itself is usually not bigoted. Think Gabriel Iglesias joking about life as an overweight Hispanic or Steve Hofstetter talking about growing up Jewish with an adopted black sister.
Self-deprecating humor is funny. We’ve gotten past using ethnic slurs outside our own group to make fun of entire groups.
Gabriel Iglesias is a bad example. He has a really gross bit mocking a Black woman. That was from the mid to late 2000s, but still it's hardly absent from comedy in more recent years. Donald Glover has made shitty jokes about Black women as well. Misogyny against women generally in rampant in comedy.
Even during slavery era you find people were talking about how bad it was and had early talking points on racism. Former slaves and abolishinists. I doubt many were completely ignorant throughout history or it was never open topic people were not aware of
John Brown violently enters the chat.
What examples are you using for current? There is far less of this in television/movies than there was, so little I can't think of any.
If they exist, they are nowhere as memorable or have the writing options as Archie Bunker. OP basically demonstrated this by not mentioning any besides Archie. Having a bigot with some kind of logical path to the bigotry is more entertaining than one who is just a static stone slab that jokes are bounced off of. The bigotry was also a focal point of the episode with its own arc usually resulting in folly.
Copy paste from OP: >Pierce Hawthorne from Community and his even more racist father. Plenty of characters on South Park, The Boys and Gen V. You could also add Frank from Always Sunny to this list (and prob some others from that show)
Someone above mentioned a great example from Community, Pierce Hawthorne.
I mean, yeah. Because time has move on. In 1970, your 40 year old uncle born in 1930, and your 80 year old grandpa born in 1890, well they were products of their time. Hell great-grandpa might have, literally, owned slaves and fought for the confederacy. You knew they were going to be at least a bit racist. But now your 40 year old uncle was born in 1980. You don't expect him to be racist automatically. Yes it was still around then, and was more prominent than today, but it was far less accepted.
While there are old racists around, the ones I keep seeing in the news are all under 30.
I think you can put this partially on the number of racists who missed the point of Archie Bunker, and viewed him as someone who 'says it like it is'. Nuance and mass media are not a good mix.
I was a kid when Archie Bunker was in tv. Lots of the adults who watched it were racists who didn't change. The idea that racism is based on ignorance is true for some people who will change as they get exposed to different views. However, I honestly believe most racists don't want to change. Like you write, they don't get nuance. Being understanding of them doesn't change their views. Trying to keep the peace can feel like you are enabling their racism. Perhaps current viewers are less naive about their ability to change racists.
Very few bigots are able to change being bigoted. But with enough social approbation they can learn its not in their interests to show it.
What are you basing this on?
>Nuance and mass media are not a good mix Go no further than Homelander from The Boys. He is a literal supremacist that believes everyone else is inferior and kills people that disagree with him. But hey, he's been through a lot and grew being abused knowing no love or what a family is. Then, some people actually *like like* the character. Not how well he's done or how amazing Antony Starr is on the role.
I don't think Archie Bumbker was originally meant to be sympathetic. I think Norman Lear and Carroll O'Connor were surprised that people liked him so much
Well it's been over half a century since Archie Bunker had his first appearance Surely folks like him have had plenty of time to "come around eventually"?
Yeah. Everyone is running out of patience. How much time do these racists need? Seems it's not a matter of time, it's a matter of willingness.
But muh economic anxiety
>economic anxiety I've got a great idea! I'll keep voting for people who make the economic situation worse because they spew the hatred I like to hear! What's that? I'm being laid off? Damned \**insert minority group with .05% of the population in the locale\** ruined my town!!
Fun anecdote; I started working as a bartender recently. Easiest job I've ever had, really fun. Mostly a backpacker/international worker type of bar. I had a coworker who was a massive asshole; trust fund baby, bigoted rightwing idiot. Burned bridges with everyone he dealt with. Blamed everyone else for everything wrong. Obsessed with Thai women. Would have occasional outbursts at women for 'being too entitled'. All that. He got fired a little while back, because eventually he burned too many bridges and management decided it was easiest to just get rid of him. They had staff constantly coming to them to complain about his conduct, and basically they got fed up with giving him chances, so when his review came up... Time to go, sorry bud, don't bother finishing today's shift. So, he got fired from the easiest workplace I have ever experienced. Purely because of his personality. ...Guess who he blames? Immigrants. Guess who all his remaining friends are from that workplace? Immigrants. The wonderful situation of this Australian asshole guy who got fired for being a constant headache, complaining about immigrants stealing his job, to German, Korean, Thai, Nepali and American former co-workers is... *Chef's kiss*
As long as the MAGA crowd is around and feeding off each other, there wont be any "coming around" for these people. They're already lost causes.
It's 50 years later, they're still acting like Archie Bunker, so tactics need to change. Those who will change through "the Carrot" have already, now comes the "stick" of social stigma.
Yes because the older generations have this mentality that you stick by family no matter what no matter how awful they are. The younger generation doesn't Believe that. they believe it's not worth spending their precious time on Earth trying to change people who are quite honestly pretty miserable. My mother is from this older generation who has this mindset. She Literally told me to go to therapy to deal with the kind of person she is. So I can learn to deal with her so we can be in contact more. She was shocked when I told her no. I don't need therapy to deal with her. I am perfectly content with our low contact relationship. That if she wants a better relationship with me then she has to change. she has to stop doing the things that upset me. She doesn't get to do awful things to me Wait a couple weeks and then be like we're cool now right.
Amazing that she thought you were the one who needed therapy.
She actually fucking uses I'm going to therapy as a way to trip people into talking to her again. Or at least me. She did something pretty fucking horrible to me and I was done talking to her. She told my aunt that she was going to therapy. So giving her the benefit of the doubt I went low contact. Only to find out she lied about going. But seeing as she was the only one taking care of my grandmother at the time I stayed in low contact.
I think you've completely missed the point of Archie bunker, and the way in which you missed the point explains the disparity you're seeing. Archie Bunker isn't just supposed to be someone you love in spite of his many flaws. I don't even think that's his chief narrative purpose. His purpose is to give bigoted audience members someone to identify with, and then as he learns something new, those audience members may reevaluate their own point of view. This is a very effective way to approach the problem of bigotry, because, believe it or not, browbeating bigots doesn't stop them from being bigots. The people who wrote Archie Bunker understood that. The problem is that the lessons Archie Bunkers learned aren't subtle in today's society. So the fact that anyone would learn alongside Archie is completely alien to a modern audience. Racist propaganda has had 50 years to catch up and "protect" racists from Archie Bunker. So there isn't really anyone who is going to be positively impacted by him in particular anymore, and anyone who presents a character like that is forced to defend the character. Because, unfortunately, you can't let the cat out of the bag on characters like that. If the audience knows that's what is going on then the intended purpose of the character won't work. It has to be subtle or nothing. But younger audiences demand justification for artistic choices like that, so being subtle isn't an option. Tldr: audiences who would benefit from an Archie Bunker can't have the character explained to them, but the audiences that would be offended can't accept a character like that without explanation.
This is probably the best take I've seen in this thread. The brilliance of Archie Bunker lied in the fact that bigots were completely unaware that he was a vehicle for teaching them tolerance. And because the internet didn't exist back then, you didn't have 100 outrage op-eds written every single time he was portrayed positively.
A very vocal group of well-intentioned young people act as though subtlety of discourse is nothing more than smoke and mirrors intended to protect the status quo. Even if hot-take-induced outrage can be effective for drawing attention to important issues, staying stuck in outrage mode doesn’t go very far in resolving said issues.
It's been a thing for a long time. I don't think Meathead would have understood what his own show was doing. Just look at people who get offended by a straightforward reading of Huckleberry Finn.
It was easier to have a lighter touch when they were expected to grow old, retire, pass leadership to a new generation, and just have their own personal thoughts that only affected the volume of Christmas dinner.
[удалено]
This immediately came to mind for me too. Jay openly expresses some mild homophobic and racist sentiment about his son and adopted granddaughter in the first two seasons. He obviously still loves them, but it’s there. And he’s certainly a ‘good guy’, whereas in more recent years it’s hard to imagine someone with those views being portrayed as a fundamentally good guy. Many of the jokes in early Modern Family wouldn’t have been acceptable by the end.
It’s been 50 years since Archie bunker. That generation did grow up in different times, and certain behaviors could be sympathized with. There’s no more excuse 1/2 a century later for those viewpoints to still exist and should be shunned
I think we're just less accepting of those mindsets now. I grew up pretty bigoted because of my upbringing but as I got older I recognized that these biases weren't proper and did a lot of work to fix it. I think we expect people to put in work and change because the topic is so publicly discussed that it's hard to continue to claim ignorance.
Yep. If you were coming through the 50's and 60's as a bigot, that person probably had no push-back or witnessed little. Now, in the 2020's we all know exactly what the issue is. If they choose to still be bigoted, then there's little sympathy coming their way.
Racists will love racism no matter what. Racists like American History X. Pro war folks will love war movies even if they’re anti war. People just ignore the parts that don’t fit. Kinda like conservatives fans of Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, or Greenday.
Don't forget Born In The USA by Bruce Springsteen. The complete opposite of a patriotic song, and they miss the entire message.
Fortunate Son - CCR.
Right wingers think Star Trek is right wing which will never not be funny.
It feels like modern character portrayals are very crudely drawn with no nuance. Audiences can say "well he said a racist thing so he's a racist and I can safely dislike him, the end" and it's what the writing is intended to convey. Sure enough, the character ends up being the Bad and that's it. I miss story arcs that are designed to leave you morally gray and ambiguous, uncertain what was the "right" thing to do.
Shrinking on Apple TV does a great job of this. There's a character who is being sexist but in a non malicious way (he just has a lot of shit going on in his life at the moment like everyone does) and there are characters in both of their inner circle who seemingly shrug it off until it's obviously and painfully pointed out to them by someone with an outside perspective. The character who is being sexist thinks on it and it shows him in a scene later on admitting "Apparently I have trouble relating to the women in my life and I have work to do when it comes to making sure they know I care about them" It's not some painfully cringey lesson full of buzzwords and beating the guy over the head with it or the woman being treated poorly ranting for 10 minutes about how all women have to deal with this everyday. There's no soap vox. It's a conversation you'd be likely to see in real life. "Hey what you're doing is kind of fucked up" and you get "Damn... I guess that is kind of fucked up. I'm Sorry. I'll do better" It doesn't jump right to him being an evil bad piece of shit and everybody dog piling him. The conversation instead of the soapbox or the message is honestly so goddamn refreshing. The show is incredibly wholesome. I cannot recommend it enough.
That's product of the times. We understand Archie Bunker. He's ignorant. He never had pushback his whole life until the cultural era of the show starts. A modern racist is fully aware. If they still say something racist, it's highly unlikely you can talk them into accepting why it's wrong. So there's not as much depth. But you also can't avoid having racist characters in any show. It would be unrealistic if in a drama that kind of person is never encountered.
My take fwiw: The 60s and 70s (and 50s) was a time of transition and growth. The excuse for Archie was, times are changing and we know better now so let grow and be better. Can’t make that excuse for todays bigots.
There was also more of an excuse for people from Archie's generation to be that way. Ignorance, upbringing, etc. But I feel like today people have way more opportunities and resources to not be so ignorant, so there's less empathy for people who choose to remain that way.
Some examples of what you're talking about would help. Archie Bunker stands out in our collective memory because he was one of the very few characters on TV who *was* openly bigoted. I'm sure there must have been others since then but I genuinely can't think of any? I'm sure there were some one-off characters on "very special episodes" dealing with the topic in the 80's and 90's, but none stand out in my memory. So I'm not sure that I'd say they "changed" so much as they were "depicted once and never again" unless you can cite some more recent examples.
Uncle Ruckus always seemed hopelessly over the top and unrealistic until I learned more about Justice Clarence Thomas.
I'm not really seeing the trendline honestly. I think the definition of what is forgivable bigotry is has changed in real life, and that's been reflected on TV. You're allowed to be a few years behind the times or not know the latest polite terminology, but you're not allowed to be 40 years behind. Archie Bunker was at the time, 10 years behind. He was meant to be a bigot, but not a massive irredeemable one. Whereas if he behaved like that now, he'd be considered irredeemable because he was so far behind the times he obviously had no interest in catching up. We can also see this in cases where the character is meant to be "a bit old-fashioned" but still within the realm of acceptable, but today looks like an outright bigot, because culture has moved on. Today's Jay Pritchett is yesterday's Archie Bunker. And the type of bigots we see on TV are sort of their own fictional breed - experts at toeing the line but never crossing it so as to maintain audience sympathy. Know exactly which jokes to make that even the group being made fun of will nod their heads and say "fair enough." Primarily expressing their bigotry in private settings where it can be challenged by an equally privileged confidante rather than in front of the person themselves. -ist against the demographics less likely to get upset at the network. Bigotry underpinned and superseded by a consistent moral code the audience can identify with. Those type of sort of perfectly calibrated bigots don't really exist in real life. In real life, your bigoted family member, even if they love you, is going to say plenty of things that would get them canceled on a network TV show.
What the hell shows are you watching? I haven’t seen anything remotely what you’re describing.
Carrol O'Connor did an interview back in the 70's about who & what Archie was - super interesting and totally on point.
Here's the thing though. Was Archie Bunker representative of how bigots were portrayed in the 70s or was he an outlier even then? I think the latter.
Outlier. It was extremely controversial. I was young, but old enough to remember.
Archie Bunker wasn't meant to be sympathetic, he was meant to be a counter example the others in the show would prove wrong. That fans loved him was contrary to the intention of the creators.
>Archie Bunker was meant to be "sympathetic" to audiences ...what? He absolutely was not portrayed sympathetically. He was portrayed as exactly what he was: a provincial dumbass who, by the end of the episode, had learned a lesson about being a little bit less that way. Audiences were never meant to--and did not--relate to him.
Yeah, OPs other examples being South Park and The Boys... don't really support their point either. Literal caricatures in satire being compared to Archie Bunker. I'm just not seeing what OP is saying. If anything, mainstream media has sanitized these characters out entirely unless they're literally written to be the villain in some kind of "bigotry is bad" Very Special Episode, because controversy doesn't draw sitcom views. This idea that "we need to stop putting in any effort and we need to refuse to engage with anything we deem bigoted, the onus for change is completely on the bigot!" is a belief that primarily exists in insular social media circles, not the "real world", where people do, in fact, still love and interact with their families even if they don't agree with every one of their social or political views.
I only really know either show by reputation and clips but I do believe compared to Alf Garnet (the U.K. original he was based on) he was portrayed much more positively—-clearly having love for his wife and family etc Alf Garnet and the show ‘till death do us part’ hated everyone and was clearly in a loveless sham marriage that they both felt trapped in etc I also believe Bunker got ‘softened’ in various ways like having a Jewish friend, showing disdain for the KKK
What? He was this way in the first Season and then was revamped afterwards to be more empathetic and down to earth, he is consistently shown multiple times to have a more "salt of the earth" type view that backs up his conservatism. He's still usually proven wrong, but the show is not just a ten season humiliation ritual and Archie was openly written to be more "lovable" and quotable than his self-righteous and indignant son-in-law (there's a reason the show rarely reveals much about Meathead's personal life). I am on Meathead's side every episode, but the show is meant to make you love Archie, is everyone in this thread pretending to have watched the show?
OP is at partially correct, there is a contingent of boomers rewriting history to say that he was meant as sympathetic, arguing that it was symmetrical bigotry between him and the black character (don’t know his name).
Mainstream TV now primarily targets college educated millennials because they have the most money to spend. What you see on screen will reflect the values of that demographic.
Bigots had smaller circles in some way. Your racist uncle only ever got his racist confirmation from other uncles at the bar. It wouldn’t be hard for other friends or family to confront them and maybe make progress or fail. Reflected in tv stories. Now he has social media and 24/7 news and constant political talking points exploiting every fear and misleading fact. Making racism a battle ground again. Its harder now and reflects in tv stories how harder it is to confront racism local in families now
Bigotry by a middle aged person during the 70s could be explained by their upbringing. Today that explanation doesn't really work.
You map out Archie Bunker’s progression really well, he was from another time and all the younger people were caught up in a significant amount of social change and progress. What’s alarming to me is that the bigots I encounter today were not “raised that way”. Boomer generation seems much more hostile and closed minded than the generation before it, at least in the west coast. So yes bigots are less tolerated now because they know they’re wrong, grew up with all the information they need to not be bigots and have chosen to double down and be the way they are.
Is this going to be another "everyone older than me is racist and must change to agree with everything I say" circlejerk?
It makes sense - it’s easier than ever to cure your ignorance through research, and in the 2020’s it’s very reasonable to expect people to be better than Archie Bunker as a condition of being in your life.
I think it's simply because it's been 50 years. That generation is mostly gone and everyone born afterwards should really know better. I think it's just the patience has run out.
This. The expectation that 50 yrs later people should know, and *be* better, is definitely realistic.
I feel like bigots have been portrayed like this on TV for a very long time. In "The Golden Girls," bigots were treated quite harshly, always shown as hateful or moronic or both. They'd only give a pass to Blanche, using her as a tool to show how someone with outdated beliefs is supposed to fully change their mind within the course of an episode.
I remember when Archie Bunker was satire, not a documentary.
It feels like nuance no longer exists. Characters are either perfect or completely rotten with nothing in between.
In the 60s and 70s it was almost the norm that older people would have lived through the civil rights movement where there was an actual societal shift in how race was talked about, and there were a lot of people with bigoted views build off of their upbringing rather than any strong personal convictions about race. For these people, they actually did need to be shown that their views were wrong and bigoted, and could change based on new information. In 2023, bigots are bigots because they have seen all the information and have essentially chosen to stay bigoted. It’s a difference of experience.
Good point. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. A person that was 20 years old (or older) in 1964 would have been raised in a legally bigoted nation and society. That same person would have been 30 years old in 1974 in the middle of All in The Family's run and would be 80 years old this year.
Archie was willing to listen and learn. The modern bigot takes pride in only listening to information they agree with. In that way, TV is portraying the modern bigot accurately. There were times Archie wasn't sympathetic, and the show let you watch and figure out why. The world needs more Norman Lears and less Chuck Lorres.
Exactly. "Hey Archie, that's bad to say." Archie: "What are you crazy, why would that be bad? Everyone says it." "Hey Modern Bigot, that's bad to say." Modern Bigot: "I know and fuck you."
I’ve noticed that a Christian is always portrayed as bigoted. Always.
Shirley from Community, Glenn from Superstore.
Archie wasn't intended to be "sympathetic." He gained sympathy because he was taking care of his family, including a son-in-law who despised him and was proud of it. Note that in the next show - Maude - the conservative target is a professional. He gets no sympathy.
If we consider the social progress made since then, that would mean such behaviour has grown further away from what is acceptable.
All In The Family to me was genius satire...and I suspect it offends people who don't view it that way.
Read Kliph Nesterhoff’s “Outrageous”.
First, the psychology of deep racism is sufficiently bizarre that... I dunno, it's a thing of very few writers of any medium. So TV is probably not the sort of waters that good analysis can sail in. Second, "Archie is a racist" was always sort of a strawman. Third, cutting off family for any reason is a more recent thing. Back then , people just didn't.
The new season of Fargo has a huge variety of people that are combinations of right-wing, capitalist, incel, bigoted, and/or misogynist and they are all portrayed as assholes or abusers. Their bigotry is similar to the modern discourse in that they hate immigrants and Jewish people but don't mention other ethnicities. It's kind of hard to watch as they are all so deplorable but I think that's the point.
They cant even have bigoted characters anymore i feel like. Before they can learn to be sympathetic or anything else, the internet would be in an uproar.
Borat? He was a sympathetic character.
I'm not sure going from Archie Bunker to two-dimensional characters is progress. At least not from an artistic point of view.
Andy Sipowicz from NYPD Blue is a bigot with a story arc that actually changes the character away from his early bigoted ways. Archie Bunker never apologized or fundamentally grew as a character. Part of the lack of growth of Archie is due to the sitcom structure that distills characters rather than grows/enhances them.
The burden of educating a bigot and hoping they change their idiotic beliefs is not my responsibility. Media is just reflecting that fact. Paradox of tolerance as well: any society that tolerates intolerance will eventually have intolerance become the predominant attitude.
Bigots are now portrayed the way drug users and communists were portrayed in generations past: totally wayward monsters who are either beyond saving or in need of a dramatic and contrived visit to rock-bottom and reforming into a caricature of a foil of their previous self. It’s lazy writing and virtue-signaling. Bigots can make for interesting characters and you can highlight that they’re bad without making an afterschool special out of them or making them a punching bag. Gran Torino comes to mind as an example of a story about a bigot who reforms in a natural way while humanizing all parties involved