George Lipsitz contends that 1950s television programs, particularly urban working class situation comedies, put greater emphasis on nuclear families and less on extended kinship identities and ethnicity than their radio predecessors. In post-WWII America, these situation comedies served as a means of ideological legitimation for a fundamental revolution in economic, social and cultural life. The origins of television’s drive toward consumerism rests with government-induced subsidies and incentives to promote consumerism via post-war television narratives. The result of this consumer consumption fetishism included greater home ownership by the working class to go along with greater credit debt. Television narratives placed greater emphasis on values placed on the ability to consume. It is interesting to note that for homemakers (most of whom in the 1950s were women), the gains in product/food technology (which intuitively would have meant less time spent doing housework), whether it meant the technological advancement in processing food or electric appliances—were cancelled out by the consumer ads and mass marketing of consumer culture that Lipsitz concludes promulgated upgraded standards of cleanliness and expanded desires of material consumption which resulted in a zero net gain in terms of hours doing housework. This trend of zero net or even negative net gain in terms of housework or leisure time has continued since the 1950s, as working time has actually lengthened (even with greater techonological/communication advances since the 1950s), partly in response to satisfy desires for material goods in an ever-expanding consumer culture.
Shows like Life with Luigi and Amos and Andy reflected the narrative unities involving individual material consumption aspirations as if such desires and subsequent consumption was transgressive—that is, you can transcend class, status and race through consumption of goods. As earlier readings from Berry point out, particular fashion lines enabled working class women to ‘elevate’ their own class positions through the consumption of certain fashion lines. Similarly, these urban television sit-coms, with their ethnic sensibility, also presented marginalized groups with the romantic ideas of transgression and collectivity through material consumption. Whether you purchased homes, cars and other electronic appliances on credit, these sit-coms promoted the idea that consumption amounted to ethnic and class transgression. I think today’s consumer culture, through celebrity tabloid periodicals or shows like ‘Sex and City’ have continued to promote this idea of ‘blurring the lines’ of mass and high culture via consumption. Nobody knows you are buying a Birken bag with an installment payment plan. However, the purchasing of goods beyond your means is, as ‘Molly Goldberg’ states “the American way.”
1 comment:
It's interesting how the world view of the "American family" was shaped by the way the nuclear family was depicted by 50s television.
A plethora of current Korean drama series, televised rampantly on networks in Seoul, are stories that unfold about familial relationships, mother-daughter, sibling issues and how these issues are dealt with according to a shared value system. The shows become models of how family problems are dealt with as audiences respond in recognition of problems that occur (an older brother goes to live abroad for a year and comes back too Westernized and must re-integrate in society, or a daughter is getting married to a man from a wealthy family and must save her pride by offering a very expensive engagement gift to show that she is capable of offering things of value). I wonder if any of these Korean shows were originally modeled after the American shows of the 50s, with the nuclear family being the center of the narrative.
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