VinyldechezPierre wrote: ↑26 Jun 2019 14:37
Does trying to help the underdog make me a nerd?
No, it just makes you very compassionate...Sadly, something very much lacking in today's world... :(
When I think of TV, I think of things like the classic 50's sitcoms...Think "Father Knows Best", "Bachelor Father", "The Donna Reed Show", "Leave It To Beaver", etc. Throughout the 70's and 80's, you still had shows like "Family Ties", "Growing Pains", "Diff'rent Strokes", "Gimme A Break" and "The Facts Of Life" that attempted to update the sitcom in a contemporary fashion...There were always those "special" episodes of certain shows where the kid gets drunk and learns the consequences of his or her actions or the ones where someone dies...There were dramas, too, like the 70's show, "Family" or say..."Little House On The Prairie" or "The Waltons"...Now, I've taken in a lot of TV over my lifetime, but I also got a lot of it through my dad's love of old Westerns like "The Lone Ranger", "The Cisco Kid", "Wagon Train", "The Rifleman" and John Wayne films...I remember things like those "After School Specials" and shorts like "Schoolhouse Rock"...Shows like "Sesame Street", "The Electric Company" and "Reading Rainbow"...In Canada (and Tink might remember this), there were shows like "The Friendly Giant" and "Mr. Dressup", which were long-running kids' shows...Heck, my dad was a "Howdy Doody" fan back in the day...And those were just some of the programs seen here in the States...I could think of a ton more!
Of course, there are people who would like to turn back the clock to some pie-in-the-sky calmer, gentler time that as you and I know NEVER actually existed in ANY pure form...But as we all know from watching those old shows, REAL PROBLEMS NEVER GET SOLVED WITHIN A 30-MINUTE TIMESPAN! And nowadays, with the shows of today you allude to, there are many more problems to tackle, from climate change to the economy to student loan debt to health care and that's not even mentioning trade wars, tariffs, technological advances like self-driving cars or the endless skirmishes that threaten the free world at any given moment...And then, there's always the ever-present racist attitudes, gender stereotypes and "set in their ways" obstination of a lot of older folks that never seem to change...We have a lot on our plate, but in a way, we are a lot more aware about the problems and issues we face, due to the media and entertainment making these subjects more palatable and relatable...Having the political will to do something about these problems is another matter entirely, though...Anyone who thinks the genie can be put back into the bottle (or Pandora back into the box) now is just fooling themselves into a false sense of security...The sooner we deal with the problems we face head on (because in many areas, the word "crisis" now is an understatement!), the better off we'll ALL be...To fix them all will take a lot of "outside-of-the-box" thinking and a rapid adjustment to major changes in our own thinking and lifestyles, but as the quick change from horse-and-buggy wagons to gas-guzzling cars and trucks proves, it can be done...
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