FNB Promoted inequity, comformity, and a false sense of reality

Years after the series aired, Billy "Bud" Gray was interviewed and asked his opinions on the show in hindsight. His comment was "Bull****," and went on to explain that the Andersons' approach to problems was unrealistic.

I don't think this show was that bad. The parents had mutual respect for each other and the children showed as much respect to their mother as they did their father. Betty was portrayed as highly intelligent and as the most ambitious member of the family. Margaret was also portrayed as a fairly tough parent who didn't put up with a lot of nonsense from her kids and she was a less doting parent than Jim on more than one occassion. They also didn't portray the parents as always being right about everyone.

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Maybe that is why people in the 1950s were shock by the novel Peyton Place because many of the things that happen in the book stuck a nerve with them and did not want to talk about it let alone cover it up because they want to forget it even though they heard about them, saw them, and done it themselves. We want to remember how the 1950s and early 1960s were a time to have a good childhood, a roof over your head, food in your belly, money in the bank, steady job with good promotion prospects, and a secure retirement. It was the first in America history where a sizable part of the American people got a chance to have a decent life where their parents and grandparents could only dream of but never could achieve because the rich people and corporations would not let it happen until the Great Depression, World War II, and the GI Bill.

Using your logic, audiences should judge every classic movie or novel according to 21st century standards. Real critics never would do this.

All you say is probably true, but "Father Knows Best" reflected perfectly the era it represented.

You missed all the positive images the show presented. For one, it showed a nuclear family, a rare phenomenon in today's society. The Andersons' ate breakfast and dinner together, talked to each other, didn't spend their time glued to a television or computer, respected each other and genuinely were well mannered.

In "Father Knows Best," yes, women worked in the home, but females were shown respect and not treated as sex objects the way so many women are in the media today.

Jim Anderson treated each member of his family with respect. He spent time communicating with each of his child and his wife, unlike so many father's portrayed in 21st century sit coms. The image of the father is far more positive in "Father Knows Best" than in most 21st century family shows.

You're clearly brainwashed. In your attempt to be multicultural and accepting you have actually turned into an ethnocentric person who can only understand culture from your perspective and conditioning.

Although I believe that the intentions were good by the actors and directors of this show, this show just promoted the idea that the man is the leader, children should shut up and obey and not think for themselves, and that a woman's role is to best support her husband. The show reflects this and it comes out of an era that certainly reflected this mentality.

....first of all, I must state this, but this show was never intended to be an anthropological view of the 50s. Neither was any show from the time period and so why do people insist on analyzing entertainment from the 50s as if this were the case? (or any era from that matter). It was all exaggerated for comedic effect, emphasis on exaggerated and never meant to portray any type of "ism." At that point people were so sick of "isms" (you know after nazism, and communism, and nationalism during WW2) that...shockingly they just wanted to be entertained..There's nothing political about this show nor was their any unintentional political agenda here. So why are you looking for something that's not there?? I think that's the definition of crazy actually.

Secondly, elaborate please.

First, this show illustrated women as best suited in a home as the maternal figure that supports the decisions of the paternal figure.

Just because someone is a housewife, doesn't mean they're taking on a submissive role. How is supporting your husband submissive? Is supporting your wife submissive too? It's funny because men complain about the passive role men have been given on sitcoms today.

Even then, maybe some people are best suited in a home as a maternal figure that supports the decisions of the paternal figure. Psychology is funny like that, those types of personalities are everywhere. Or maybe some people just want to be in a home as a maternal figure that supports the decisions of the paternal figure. Why does this bother you so much? It's their own personal choice.

Also, just because someone is intelligent, doesn't mean they're suited for a career or anything in particular. Einstein could barely get dressed in the morning and he was a genius. Intelligence has nothing to do with getting up and getting something done. You could be the smartest person in the world who plays Beethoven tunes by ear and you still may not be able to hold a steady job.

What people don't seem to realize, especially brainwashed ones like you with a sadly misinformed political agenda, (you're on a mission! It's kind of a cute in a way) is that women had every opportunity to choose a career in the 50s....and they didn't. It's because working was grueling before the 50s, long hours, hard manual labor, not much pay, not many benefits for men and women included. Not only that but filled with prejudice during an era which sadly had to be choosy. (during the great depression only so many people could get job positions. These people also reflected your company and how well you did business. So a businessman refusing to hire a certain type of person may have not had an issue with your race, gender, etc...personally, it was just business.)

The sexism is pretty much outright and in the open. Statements like, "Women are never so obvious as when they are trying to hide something."

I don't see how this is sexism, which I can tell you don't know the definition of. How is this portraying women overall as inferior to men overall? As opposed to just Margaret v her husband (if that's the flimsy argument you're trying to make).

Margaret Anderson, clearly very intelligent, very much lived this way. The devoted mother and wife who was more like a side kick to the father than a unique individual even though she went to college.

So? That means she's ready to take a forklift and build a bridge? Or find a cure for cancer? An intelligent college graduate can't make a decision to just be a housewife for the rest of her life? How do you know she didn't give the working world or world of academia a try, the show never goes into that.

If you think about it, if she's a sidekick, that means she's more of an equal to Jim. What would Batman do without Robin? They need each other.

Bringing him his evening drink, softening him up when she wants something in order to get permission instead of thinking she is entitled to it because she carries her own weight.

It's exaggerated for comedic effect. Think about it this way, if Jim had brought Margaret chocolate, flowers, and perfume in order to soften her up and get permission for something...would you consider this sexist toward men?

One is left to wonder if she went to college just to meet a husband.

And if this were the cases, what would be the problem with this? If someone makes a choice to go to college just to find a husband, it's their life and their money. The fact that she went to college is pretty unusual and suggests she came from some affluence.

What's the difference between then and now? Parents have been conditioning my generation to be good little "princesses" since we were little girls in the 90s. We can go to college now and if we're lucky get a job as a nursing assistant or a teacher lol...that's how little things have changed. 90% of the women I know are going into teaching and nursing, if not they're going into "women's studies" or studying a totally inane humanities major that will never teach them skills required to get them a job. Most of them move in with their boyfriends either during their vacation to college or right after.

Are they pathetic? Is it sexism to make a valid choice to take on a different role? I mean you can only blame the government for so much, at the end of the day people make their own decisions. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean they're bad.

You can even see how the female children are submissive to the son a lot or there are pre-conceived expectations that a boy likes this and a girl likes that.

But that's so wrong...kathy plays football...she's a total tom boy in the show. Betty is boy crazy, like most teenaged girls, but Bud is also girl crazy like most teenaged boys too.

Even then women straighten their hair and wear polished clothes. When they were little kids it was no different, you had ninja turtles v Disney princesses, pink v blue.

Even the neighbors had lives where the man worked, woman at home.

Yea...that's actually the one thing that did reflect a realistic part of the world back then.

The fault in this is less an attack on a woman wanting to be a mother and wife, which is fine if this is what you want, but more that the show says this is what you are supposed to be and if you aren't something is different. And different is wrong.

No it's not...

The inability to talk about politics, global affairs, etc. is constant.

There's no inability, the show just isn't about that...

I believe this was done not because those issues were never discussed then,

What?? How the heck could you possibly know this, because you were a young adult in the 50s?? How do you know what people talked about behind their dinner tables? I think it's ignorant to assume such a thing about an entire era of people you've likely never even met. News existed then and in fact the 30s-50s has been known as the birth and greatest eras of photojournalism. "The news' itself was still a new thing, all people had before tv was the radio and newsreels (now that was propaganda.) So discussions of politics and the "commentary" we see today (the lame schlock we see on CNN and Fox is NOT commentary!) mainly consisted of families at the dinner table. And of course they occurred as they usually do, but what the heck was going in the 50s? (in comparison to the 30s-late 40s) You had the Korean "conflict" and that's about it, things were slowing down. (like a few riots in Georgia can compare to the global trauma of depression and war). The civil rights movement didn't really get the attention we know it for today until the late 50s and early 60s. People were trying to enjoy the 5 seconds of peace they had...which turned out to be their only 5 seconds of peace ever. Think about it, you had WW2, which didn't really become settled until the late 40s with the Truman Doctrine and Nuremberg trials. You had the communist scare, which was a moment of national hysteria, and then you had the counterculture which attacked the same people who really just wanted a five second break if you think about it.

but because of an effort to promote this false sense of persistent harmony all the time. People got depressed back then, got angry and yelled, beat each other, got drunk, had affairs, said ignorant things, and often lived in a house that wasn't always all peachy.

Lmfao, you are so naive.

Peachy sometimes, bad others the way life is and has always been. This show makes you think it was always peachy back then and if your life wasn't like that something was wrong with you

Like sitcoms make you think life is wonderful today? They're always living in huge dutch colonials with idyllic looking homes. Boy Meets World, Full House, Home Improvement, heck even Friends made your poorest, crappiest, most depressing years (your 20s) look idyllic. The entertainment industry likes to create this ideal because they know everyone wants it. This is how it sells. Father Knows Best never really tried to create an ideal though, it was just meant to entertain. It was successful as a radio show, so it became a tv show. If you think about it, it's the one time the entertainment industry tried to create a show they thought their audience would genuinely like.

The show conforms to an ideal that was inequitable and falsely happy. Gender roles, sexism, and inequality blended together in a way where everyone should be happy with it imbues a false reality to that time period. Many women wanted out of the home and to have a career, sought equity with their partner in all affairs, wanted a voice in political affairs, were keen to wear jeans and not always dresses, and wanted to go beyond just being a housewife. Heated discussions about politics occurred, men beat their wives (and often vice versa), and people were people with all their faults, not these strange creatures out of the Stepford Wives.

You're just this total force fed, propaganda machine. You got back from your American history high school class and "like learned about the 60s!" and now we all have to hear about it.

People who really like this show are, in my opinion, nostalgic for another time where they enjoyed these gender roles. However, for those that wanted to move beyond the stiff conformity and inequity of that era, this show is nothing more than propaganda.

Much like your post is nothing but propaganda.

Well your opinion is worth less than my nose hair if I'm being quite honest. I like this show because it's funny, well written, and doesn't take itself seriously. I personally believe it reflects what were perceived as social issues of its day, even if you don't. That's of course, because you don't know what the issues were in the 50s. I can guarantee you've never looked up statistics of crime, poverty, drug abuse, etc...

And the father always wore a suit, everywhere. At dinner, when he relaxed. Who wears a suit all the time? Did he sleep in one? That’s just weird.

Back then people actually wore suits to work and not bluejeans because they wanted to present themselves as professionals. Jim Anderson worked for an insurance company, it was a white collar job. There are plenty of episodes where he wears casual clothes, including jeans too btw.

Why must television be obligated to represent reality in any way? Or cinema for that matter?

Cinema and television create their own reality, which is inherently a fantasy to start off with.

Gender roles, sexism, and inequality blended together in a way where everyone should be happy with it imbues a false reality to that time period.

Have you seen Home Improvement?? I personally didn't live in a huge dutch colonial in the suburbs, have a laptop (in the 90s we could barely afford a friggin Christmas tree), or have a stay at home mom who went to work to "discover herself" (roflmao! My mom worked because she had to and got scraps for it too, come to think of it so did my dad)

The 90s can be best represented by urban decay, extreme wealth disparity, gang violence, urban violence, high drug use, youth depression and suicide, teen sex and pregnancy. Our bridges are crumbling, divorce rates are 50%, women and children neglect, abuse, and abandonment rates are still enormous, unemployment has reached an all time high since the depression era I believe.

You don't see anything of the sort in 90s sitcoms, therefore it must have been total propaganda by your absurd logic.

I mean none of these things were that bad in the 50s if you actually look at the statistics. Not all African Americans or hispanics lived in ghettos...in fact a large percentage actually were middle class. Most of them are in ghettos now because we've created ghettos for them due to the intense wealth disparity we created from the 70s onward. The industrial era has been slowly dying for the past 40 years, this had nothing to do with propaganda. (Even those who participated in blockbusting couldn't have predicted the decline of the industrial age)