They would be like: why does Darin make money when she is at home? If she had powers why does she choose to be a mother and wife?? Lol
shareYep. Derwood is oppressing Samantha.
shareWhen I was a little girl I couldn't figure out why she let Darrin dictate anything when she could clearly do whatever she wanted...
She could be a wife and mother and juggle running whatever corporation or even small country if she choose to so why would that ever have to be a if/or scenario?
None of you idiots gets the show, so why post?
Samantha is a witch who had EVERYTHING/EVERY MAN she wanted for, at least, several hundred years. It didn't
yield happiness.
When she meets Darrin, she not only falls in love with an ordinary looking man who has integrity and self-respect
(he doesn't try to further his career through her), she realizes that a daily life of discipline is what she wants.
As she reminded him from time to time, "If I wasn't happy, I wouldn't be here."
And what's wrong with a woman who wants to stay at home and take care of her husband and children?
N O T H I N G .
Yeah..go guy..you tell that little girl that I was just how dumb she was to question anything..
I guess you told her, eh
By the way, I felt the same about I Dream of Jeannie. You want to get huffy about that too?
"None of you idiots get the show, so why post?" SO true!! Being able to have everything is not a sure road to happiness. Does anyone think about the famous celebrities and other rich folks who have gazillions of dollars and end up with many divorces, drunk, drug addicts,etc?
Samantha found true love and you can't put a price on that. She was content to make a home for her husband and children. She did it out of her own free will. How was she oppressed?
G has it right. And it has nothing to do with modern feminism...in fact Samantha could be a lead feminist no matter which decade because SHE WANTED to be a house wife and have to work for herself without having things handed to her. It was her choice to do what she wanted...it wasn't because Darrin forbade her to not use witchcraft although the show did play that up quite often. Still Samantha did what she wanted at all times.
shareA mother's love and attention are the two most important things in a young child's life. Why would a WORKING MOM want to deprive their young child of that.
shareYup. You are absolutely right about that. Feminists should also rejoice in shows like Bewitched, Jeannie, Donna Reed, Lucille Ball etc. They all headlined their own shows before 1970.
shareBecause you (and the little girl) do NOT get the show, as it's already been pointed out.
It's called "love" for one thing, and a "plot device" for another. That is what you cannot clearly figure out, as you're trying to hard to find something wrong. Nobody is domineering, victimized or being ordered on how to live on the sitcom Bewitched. (except if the TV roles were reversed, you would not care)
Today, people are too wrapped up in so-called sexism or racism, and not because of some modern ''insight''.
What a toxic depressing time we live in, where people seem actually disappointed if they cannot find some form of victimization, even with a TV show like this. (of course you'd feel the same about "Jeannie"; or would feel a stone un-turned if you didn't)
Oh for christs sake..some of you folks are just as extreme as the the "feminists" you bitch about ..Everything is so serious and you are always so right.
It was a sitcom in an era when things were different than they are now.
A SITCOM. A Different time.
A time when choices were still being recognized.
And as far as I'm concerned children that questioned things have a better chance of seeing all the grays and all the possibilities in this world...
not just one thing.
Yeah, us folks are extreme for a reason. Children should be concerned about their homework or a hobby, not being influenced by the media and cynical adults, regardless of the era. They should not be watching Bewitched or Snow White, and "questioning" how it represents the gender-dynamics in the world. Their minds will see and experience the "grays" when they're ready, not when you decide. No need to uglify things for children to serve others.
And that era is not as different as many would like to believe. Women were not all enslaved and oppressed as obedient servants to men, and being pressured to feel inferior because they were housewives foremost. Women did work outside the home if they had the backbone to make that choice, and not just out of necessity. However, I don't agree the traditional family structure (the mother at home) is some outdated philosophy.
But the feminist self-serving rational would insist women didn't have a mind of their own. In that case, make sure you're marrying the right man, instead of complaining about it later.
That era was different because there actually really was racism and sexism and homophobia.
It really did still exist in the 1960's.
Now I think there are mainly 2 extremes..
One that longs for the good old days... and the other extreme that also longs for those good old days so they have something to complain about.
The rest of us just want equal opportunity for all with no one having special privileges
..but instead we get to put up with each extremes sense of superiority constantly at war..
That era? That era? You dont' want equality--which you ALREADY HAVE-- with men, but usually self-entitlement. And when you do want true equality, it's only on your terms.
Also, don't kid yourself: homophobia and racism is as alive as it ever was, it's only hidden better. It really does exist now, it really does. (Now, ignore this post like you did my last one, since your head is in the sand anyway).
Ironically Dick Sargent (the second Darrin--who Montgomery got along very well with) was gay. Google Paul Lynde who played Uncle Arthur and you will see he was also gay. No Mongomery and William Asher (her husband) did not have to hire GLBT people in that era. It was actually a crime for which consenting adults were arrested.
shareYou're replying to me? Yes, I know Lynde and Sargent were gay. I was addressing the feminist issue initially, though.
Since you mentioned the homosexual angle, it does not mean that the industry knew Sargent was gay. Richard Chamberlain warned us after he came out-- and the fact is, heterosexual-audiences still are negatively-affected by knowing their romantic-leads are homosexual. Notice how the masses are surprised (!) when they discover a masculine rugged man is gay. If they were so accepting of homosexuality, they would not be surprised and disbelieving.
My point is that homophobia is very possibly innate, rather than societal-"conditioning". Notice how all the liberal, ''open -minded'' folks just love when they find out their offspring is gay. We live in a society wearing rose-colored glasses on subjects like homosexuality, except for the people who are honest enough to admit how they feel, even though it doesn't sound nice.
There are a lot of socks in these old TV boards, but only one hand, and the wrist is limp.. I'll make no further comment.
share
Wow. We know EXACTLY what YOU do with your hand on Saturday nights.
Exactly, make no further comments. A lot of "trolls' from the old TV boards. You've been intrigued by limp-wristed men for awhile, hmm?
shareThank you! 😂
shareNo she had what she individually chose for her own life. She wasn't telling anybody else they could not do what they wanted with their own life either.
I'm a feminist and I've always loved the show.
Feminists hated it during the 1970's. It was a premise that would be allowed to go on the air in 1964 plus it made Montgomery and Asher financially comfortable. Nothing more to it.
shareFeminists never hated the show - they usually hated it's rip-off, the horrible "I Dream of Jeannie." Samantha was actually
a pre-feminist because she did what she WANTED to do. She had the POWER to do anything, and go anywhere. She
chose a life of discipline, which the best characteristic of either gender. And while we're on the subject, Barbara Feldon's
agent 99 was also pre-feminist. So is Feldon herself.
agreed. Jeannie runs around half naked, calls Tony 'master' while he always called her Jeannie. Bewitched was far more enlightened. Samantha was never Darrin's servant!! The moment Darrin would have asked her to that SHE would have zapped him--never mind her mother.
shareTrue plus being a housewife/ mother is a job itself. Many young women today chose to stay at home because they want too. Some get burned out trying to be working mom, the Superwoman myth is just that a myth. We are only human, as well as men. True, if Darren had disrespected or mistreated his wife, the outcome would not have been good. A friend years ago stated Samantha's dad once turned Darren into a rat for trash talking him. I missed that episode.
shareI respectfully disagree. I've been watching episodes of BEWITCHED and JEANNIE during the pandemic, and whatever one may think of the latter, love it or hate it, "Jeannie" was a much more proactive and independent character in many ways, than Samantha.
Jeannie also chose to do what she wanted to do. In the first episode, after she rescues Tony from the desert island, he sets her free, and she chooses to go back with him to Cocoa Beach, sneaking her bottle into his gear while no one is looking. Once there, when Tony orders her to "vanish" she refuses and reminds him that he set her free and that means that she is "free to please" him and she chooses to do so.
In the same episode, after Tony tricks Jeannie into her bottle and it almost gets carried off by the garbagemen, when he releases her she's furious and threatens to "turn him into a serpent...WITH 2 HEADS!" This is just the first of many instances in which Jeannie goes against her alleged "master's" wishes and threatens him with real harm if he crosses her.
In one episode, she decides to make Tony a general because "it makes me look bad to have a master who's only a major." In another, when Tony is suffering from exhaustion due to overwork, Jeannie makes every day Sunday to force him to rest and refuses to reverse the spell until he does. She blinks Tony into a sword fight with Captain Kidd to prove her point that he would defeat the pirate in a confrontation. She turns him into a parrot to keep him from preventing her from killing a princess, she's sworn an oath to kill, etc., etc.
Barbara Eden has often said of Jeannie: "She may have been saying 'Yes, Master," but she did what she wanted to do." and based on what I've seen of the series, Eden may have a point. As the narration in the show's first opening credits stated, "There in this house, the girl in the bottle played spin the astronaut."
By contrast, Samantha openly accepts Darrin as "master of the house," and the worst thing I've ever seen her do to him, is zap him out of the marital bed and onto the living room couch when they have a spat.
Jeannie however does not understand Tony's world---and constantly messes up. Her 'appeal' therefore is the fact that she is blonde and the aforementioned lack of clothing.
Samantha however decided she loved Darrin and wanted to support him....she understood the mortal world even if she herself was not a mortal. Samantha was not a ditz. She understood the necessity of things needing to function. Samantha is attractive but she also thinks about how she impacts others.
Again, I disagree. Samantha waits until her wedding night to inform Darrin that she's a witch with magical powers. After their marriage, she does her level best to stop using them solely to please Darin, and she raises her two children to believe that their magical abilities are deviant and they need to be punished for using them. Samantha constantly bows and scrapes before Darrin's almighty boss, Larry Tate. From what I've seen of the show, the only time she ever criticizes him is late in the series when she tells him he has a heart "the size of a pea."
Jeannie, by contrast, insists that Tony love her for what she is: a powerful magical woman, who freely uses her magical talents whether he approves or not. She even does this in the episode where he has the chance to send her back to Hadji. After Tony relents from his initial decision to send Jeannie back, she responds by blinking him into her bottle when he says he's going back to the date he deserted to stop Jeannie from leaving.
And Jeannie is much brighter than Bewitched fans often give her credit for. For instance, she writes a best seller on child rearing that enjoys universal and critical popular success, and brings the two "problem" kids the NASA brass impose on Tony together without magic. She can think on her feet, as well. She not only rids Tony of his pushy, materialistic fiancee, she prevents him from ending his astronaut career when he's offered a desk job by the NASA brass, sets the poor widow who was denied a loan by the Cocoa Beach Bank up in her own dress shop, turns a small town in Alabama she accidentally flooded into a fisherman's paradise, making the residents far wealthier than they had been as struggling farmers before the flood, etc., etc.
And if Samantha "understood the mortal world," she didn't think much of it. Several times throughout the series she readily agrees with Endora that mortals are greedy, selfish, covetous, bigoted, silly, with Darrin being the only exception.
I respectfully disagree. I've been watching episodes of BEWITCHED and JEANNIE during the pandemic, and whatever one may think of the latter, love it or hate it, "Jeannie" was a much more proactive and independent character in many ways, than Samantha.
Jeannie also chose to do what she wanted to do. In the first episode, after she rescues Tony from the desert island, he sets her free, and she chooses to go back with him to Cocoa Beach, sneaking her bottle into his gear while no one is looking. Once there, when Tony orders her to "vanish" she refuses and reminds him that he set her free and that means that she is "free to please" him and she chooses to do so.
In the same episode, after Tony tricks Jeannie into her bottle and it almost gets carried off by the garbagemen, when he releases her she's furious and threatens to "turn him into a serpent...WITH 2 HEADS!" This is just the first of many instances in which Jeannie goes against her alleged "master's" wishes and threatens him with real harm if he crosses her.
In one episode, she decides to make Tony a general because "it makes me look bad to have a master who's only a major." In another, when Tony is suffering from exhaustion due to overwork, Jeannie makes every day Sunday to force him to rest and refuses to reverse the spell until he does. She blinks Tony into a sword fight with Captain Kidd to prove her point that he would defeat the pirate in a confrontation. She turns him into a parrot to keep him from preventing her from killing a princess, she's sworn an oath to kill, etc., etc.
Barbara Eden has often said of Jeannie: "She may have been saying 'Yes, Master," but she did what she wanted to do." and based on what I've seen of the series, Eden may have a point. As the narration in the show's first opening credits stated, "There in this house, the girl in the bottle played spin the astronaut."
By contrast, Samantha openly accepts Darrin as "master of the house," and the worst thing I've ever seen her do is zap Darrin from their bedroom to the couch when they have an argument.
[deleted]
Feminists have taken issue with Samantha since the release of the show in 1964 - while also absolutely loving the character - because she's a contradiction. But at her core, Samantha is someone who makes her own choices despite those choices going against everyone else in the show, including her husband, which makes her complex and layered - and that's all feminists are really asking for from a female lead.
shareSo, f 'em if they can't take a joke.
shareThe other thing I hate about Jeannie (and this is speaking as a woman with epilepsy who has been harassed by psychologists) is Tony is constantly having to escape the watch/wrath of "Dr. Bellows' who wants to 'examine' him for 'odd behavior' in the workplace.
People with disabilities such as myself continue facing barriers for employment although these barriers were admittedly MUCH higher in the 1960's pre 504/ADA when this show was made. Knowing what Dr. Bellows can legally do in that era to Tony in that era under civil service rules isn't 'funny' or 'comedic relief'.
In contrast, Darrin--especially during the "Sargent era' does not fear examination from Larry.
Actually it becomes an 'open secret' that 'unique things' happened around/because of Darrin. And as long as the private sector ad agency Darrin Stevens works for gets the ad account and money, Larry Tate actually doesn't care how this was achieved at all or what the things are. Far more empowering a message
Had the show gone on longer, perhaps Larry would have been comfortable learning Samantha and her relatives specifically were witches.
By then the show had eliminated Mrs. Kravitz and was focusing on Samantha helping Darrin in the workplace! She could have perhaps become a partner? We don't really learn what Samantha's educational background is, but she seems to know a little about everything and is very well traveled.
Sam being a partner---and competing with Darrin--witchcraft or not--for the account after Larry finds out would have been what I would have done for the movie btw. Darrin has to concede Sam is the better employee. Sam becomes Darrin's supervisor?