"All in the Family"

“All in the Family” challenged conventional ways of doing television shows in the 1960s, in that it included controversial subject matter such as racism and homosexuality that wasn’t acceptable in American television prior to the premiere of the show. I’m comparing this show to a contemporary sitcom, “Everybody Loves Raymond”. 

The most obvious difference between these two shows is the time they were made; “All in the Family” premiered in the 1960s and “Everybody Loves Raymond” premiered in the 1990s. For “All in the Family” this means that the show dealt with the pretty new idea of racial equality, and that being racially prejudiced was now a bad thing. The show also dealt with the hippie movement and homosexuality. In the episode we watched in class, the father, Archie, was strongly against homosexuals. In fact, he used a ton of offensive language such as “fag” and “fairy” to describe someone he thought was gay. He also found out that his best friend was gay, which conflicted Archie; he was used to condemning and making fun of gay people, but he didn’t want to insult his best friend, someone he highly respected as a man. “Everybody Loves Raymond” did not deal with these issues as deeply as “All in the Family” did. Homosexuality was mentioned several times in the show, but it was never seen as a big deal. When Marie thought Robert was gay, it was clear that she didn’t like the idea; however, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world if he had been. When Robert is wondering if he’s gay or not, Raymond tells him “So what if you are?” This is most likely because homosexuality is more accepted now, so it’s not as much of a horrible thing as it was in the 1960s.

           

          These shows are similar, though, in that they both dealt with the subject of homosexuality. They both viewed being gay as at least a somewhat negative thing. The reason for this is because homosexuality disrupts the social norm of being straight. Both shows view family as immensely important, and the families don’t want anything to come in the way of that.

           

          “All in the Family” dealt with Archie’s friend actually being gay, while “Everybody Loves Raymond” didn’t. Archie finding out his friend was gay was a huge blow to him, but nobody very important in “Everybody Loves Raymond” was gay. This contributes to homosexuality not being as important in “Everybody Loves Raymond” as it was in “All in the Family”. Another difference between the two shows is that the kids in “All in the Family” are much older than the kids in “Everybody Loves Raymond”, so “All in the Family” uses the kids in much more controversial subjects. The children in “Everybody Loves Raymond” are very young, so when the show does deal with them, it’s mostly about simple problems like the kids not wanting to go to school. So, “All in the Family” is a much more controversial show than is “Everybody Loves Raymond”. This is probably because less things are controversial now; things like homosexuality, racial equality, and pre-marital sex are slowly becoming the norm, so modern TV shows have less subjects to highlight that would actually be controversial.