The general decline in standards today

[LizzieMaine]

Alas, how quickly they forget

Molly Goldberg was the leading character of "The Goldbergs," one of the longest-running radio serials, and later one of the most popular TV series of the late forties/early fifties. She was a no-nonsense Jewish housewife who ran her family with an iron hand -- keeping everyone, including her husband and her uncle, firmly in line. She was created, and played, by Gertrude Berg -- who for nearly twenty years was one of the most powerful women in broadcasting, running the show with that same iron hand.

But, as we all know from snarky internet blogs, women before 1960 were all dithering little fools who couldn't balance a budget, and always jumped up on a stool and squealed when a mouse ran across the floor.

 

[Captain Neon]

I had a classmate who stated that Friends was a positive influence on her life. I told her that that was sad. She asked me to elaborate as if I was some sort of fool for not agreeing with her. Without getting into all of the reasons that six 20-somethings frequently unemployed from their minimum wage jobs could possibly afford the apartments that they rented, I simply stated that I thought the show was a moral cesspool. This is a woman that has two kids from her ex-husband, and while shopping for a new daddy for her two kids found her self pregnant with a third. She now goes to church looking for a good man for her three kids, and crows about what wonderful values Duck Dynasty portrays. She promptly "unfriended" me from her Facebook account. I truly worry what her kids, esp. her teenage daughter, are learning from their mother. I think she may be well on her way to being a grandmother before she reaches 45.

Pretty popular round here of late.

The Bundys were fun. Stuff I hated was rubbish like Friends where you were supposed to like them..

 

[vintageTink]

I like Duck Dynasty.

 

[sheeplady]

June Cleaver was what I had in mind.
Lucy was another one.
Yes Alice ran the household, but I've never heard of the other woman.

I think I Love Lucy has far more feminism involved than one may think. Almost every episode is about Lucy defying traditional gender norms: wanting to get involved in show business, defying her husband, etc. One can have more than one reading of the character of Lucy, and it doesn't have to be anti-feminist. While there are some things in the shows that make me cringe, there is a lot positive about the show.

Yet alone if you consider Ball's later show where she's a widow and the actress that played Ethel is a divorcee...

Also, I found a lot of the Donna Reed show's episodes to have a slightly feminist bent as well.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I hope you understand I have a very limited knowledge of the Lucy shows (any she's been in) on purpose, because they never appealed to me.
But I do know about her career, and the fact she controlled it all and made history along the way.
Her son though, PU, good thing his parents were rich or he'd be selling pencils on the sidewalk.

 

[sheeplady]

The other way to look at it is this:

Comedians often "headline" their own shows. In the 1950s there were several shows where women were headliners. For instance, I Love Lucy starred Lucille Ball as the principle character... Desi was a secondary supporting actor to the female star. Same with the Donna Reed show.

How many shows today on the major networks have a female as a headliner? I can think of several shows in the recent past that had male comedians as the headliners (for instance, Everybody Loves Raymond being a prime example) but very few where the women stars are headliners... rather than secondary actresses (or equals) to the male star.

I'm not saying that everything back in the 1950s was all rosy and great for women. But who is a force like Lucille Ball today in the entertainment industry- heading her own company, staring in her own show? If there aren't more women who are such forces in the television and movie industry, what have we been doing the past 50 years? If there's fewer women, what the heck is happening? Are we moving backwards? Or we haven't made a single step forward in promoting women comedians in 50 years?

 

[sheeplady]

I hope you understand I have a very limited knowledge of the Lucy shows (any she's been in) on purpose, because they never appealed to me.
But I do know about her career, and the fact she controlled it all and made history along the way.
Her son though, PU, good thing his parents were rich or he'd be selling pencils on the sidewalk.

Oh, it wasn't meant as a criticism of you or your knowledge of Lucy. However, I think there's more than one reading of the Lucy show, and it's not that she's the dimwitted redhead in my opinion. After all, most comedies have the main character being a bit of a doofus and idiot at times. (Because being a doofus and idiot is funny if done well and pretty basic comedy.) I think the fact that we see more doofus men in comedy now is not because we're purely getting more down on men (which I do think is part of it) but also because we're seeing fewer female comedian stars on television. (See my post above.) Personally, I see more women are playing "the straight guy" rather than the "scheming star" in comedies.

 

[Captain Neon]

My track coach was a history teacher and he was awesome. Even after knowing my PE teachers outside of school, we were all on the local volunteer ambulance, I still thought they were clueless and had no business supervising other people's children. I'm sure other PE teachers at other schools were great, but my school district managed to attract and hire some real "winners." They weren't even good coaches.

Our gym teacher didn't bother me any, but word in the corridors was that she got in trouble for having an affair with one of the kids and disappeared into quiet oblivion. That's how we handled such things in those days.

I didn't much care for any of the usual gym class stuff, except for fleeceball, which was a sort of indoor baseball played with a ball stuffed with fleece scraps. The only home run I ever hit in any kind of organized game came in one of these contests, and after ten years of being picked last for every possible athletic contest, it was rather gratifying. I never told anyone it was just a dumb lucky swing -- my eyes even then were so bad I couldn't see the ball at all.

The teacher we all hated and feared was our junior-high hygeine teacher, who showed us filmstrips about menstruation and greeted us every day with "ALL RIGHT YOU DONKEYS SETTLE DOWN OR I'M CRACKING SOME HEADS." Ah, happy days.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Alas, how quickly they forget

Molly Goldberg was the leading character of "The Goldbergs," one of the longest-running radio serials, and later one of the most popular TV series of the late forties/early fifties. She was a no-nonsense Jewish housewife who ran her family with an iron hand -- keeping everyone, including her husband and her uncle, firmly in line. She was created, and played, by Gertrude Berg -- who for nearly twenty years was one of the most powerful women in broadcasting, running the show with that same iron hand.

But, as we all know from snarky internet blogs, women before 1960 were all dithering little fools who couldn't balance a budget, and always jumped up on a stool and squealed when a mouse ran across the floor.

Ha ha ha they never met my grandmother either.

 

[stevew443]

Two words: Alice Kramden. Two more words: Molly Goldberg.

One cannot forget Beulah and Hazel, both women who used their intelligence to get what they needed (even if they had to resort to subterfuge).

 

[Gregg Axley]

The other way to look at it is this:

Comedians often "headline" their own shows. In the 1950s there were several shows where women were headliners. For instance, I Love Lucy starred Lucille Ball as the principle character... Desi was a secondary supporting actor to the female star. Same with the Donna Reed show.

How many shows today on the major networks have a female as a headliner? I can think of several shows in the recent past that had male comedians as the headliners (for instance, Everybody Loves Raymond being a prime example) but very few where the women stars are headliners... rather than secondary actresses (or equals) to the male star.

I'm not saying that everything back in the 1950s was all rosy and great for women. But who is a force like Lucille Ball today in the entertainment industry- heading her own company, staring in her own show? If there aren't more women who are such forces in the television and movie industry, what have we been doing the past 50 years? If there's fewer women, what the heck is happening? Are we moving backwards? Or we haven't made a single step forward in promoting women comedians in 50 years?

Who are the leading ladies in the current era?
Well 20yrs ago it was Roseanne.
Which direction were we moving then?

 

[Dragon Soldier]

In the UK, possibly one of the biggest "breakthrough" shows of the past few years has been "Miranda", featuring Miranda Hart.
Cariad Lloyd, although she hasn't a show of her own yet seems to be on just about every comedy themed panel show.
"Elder stateswomen" of comedy like Jo Brand & Catherine Tate still rate their own shows.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Female comics have always had an uphill fight against the entrenched belief that "women's humor" is something obscure and inscrutable to male audiences. And since most entertainment executives are still men, well...

Lucy copped much of her routine from Joan Davis, who did the same type of knockabout slapstick in the forties, and from Thelma Todd, Zasu Pitts, and Patsy Kelly -- who starred in their own long-running series of comedy shorts in the thirties. And some of that, in turn, was copped from Dorothy DeVore in the twenties and Mabel Normand in the teens. Rough slapstick has always been one venue of comedy open to women, because of course "real women" can't handle mechanical devices and hate to get covered with mud and grease. Men can understand that kind of comedy.

As far as modern comics go, Ellen DeGeneres is probably the most successful woman currently in the field -- had her own sitcom, has her own talk show, going to host the Oscars, etc. -- and she's also one of the few female comics who hasn't had to in some way compromise her standards to succeed in the business. It can be done, but you need guts to do it. And yet I'd like to have a nickel for every man I've heard say "I can't stand her, she isn't funny, etc."

 

[CharleneC]

The other way to look at it is this:

How many shows today on the major networks have a female as a headliner? I can think of several shows in the recent past that had male comedians as the headliners (for instance, Everybody Loves Raymond being a prime example) but very few where the women stars are headliners... rather than secondary actresses (or equals) to the male star.

I'm not saying that everything back in the 1950s was all rosy and great for women. But who is a force like Lucille Ball today in the entertainment industry- heading her own company, staring in her own show? If there aren't more women who are such forces in the television and movie industry, what have we been doing the past 50 years? If there's fewer women, what the heck is happening? Are we moving backwards? Or we haven't made a single step forward in promoting women comedians in 50 years?

Lucille Ball's success was not even matched by most men (if any) of her time. It is not really fair to compare her success in her day to women today. Now TV shows are cancelled very quickly if they don't perform. When Lucy was on there were three networks and a lot less competition from cable networks.

Having said that, perhaps Lucy's success has been eclipsed by people like Oprah and Martha Stewart. To achieve their success they use more media. They use TV, print, and online media to great success in a way that wasn't available to Lucy (for online at least). I agree that men still are dominant on TV, but that is a dwindling medium. I can't think of any men who have taken their television presence and turned it into magazine, online, and general business success. Is there even one male entertainer who has his own magazine named after him?

 

[scottyrocks]

After Seinfeld, Juila Louis-Dreyfuss had a good run with The New Adventures of Old Christine. The show was well written and acted. I thought it was hilarious. She is now in another show called Veep, in which she gets first billing.

 

[jamespowers]

Does Dame Edna Everage count?

 

[jamespowers]

it's not even sport as such, but the presentation of it. the most bombastic cricket ever used to get was the smack of leather on willow and some polite hand claps.
now there's a sexed up version (don't ask me what it's called) with huge illuminated screens, pumping music and the crowd whipped up into a screaming frenzy... in England, in a cricket ground !

Well, over here they keep living like children rooting for games children play. Now adults make a fortune playing a child's game. :doh:
All that other bombast and such just puts more icing on the infantilizing cake. lol lol

 

[Matt Crunk]

Her standup is too vulgar for most tastes (even mine sometimes) but I love Margaret Cho.

 

[jamespowers]

Her standup is too vulgar for most tastes (even mine sometimes) but I love Margaret Cho.

Henry Cho is much funnier and not at all vulgar.
[video=youtube_share;U7_3xxQXgFs]http://youtu.be/U7_3xxQXgFs[/video]
He even covers the stupid topic there.

 

[3fingers]

Her standup is too vulgar for most tastes (even mine sometimes) but I love Margaret Cho.

I've only seen her a couple of times and was personally not impressed. I think some people use vulgarity to overcome a lack of talent or poor material. Once the shock wears off, there isn't much there.