NORMAN LEAR SPEAKS ON DIVERSITY IN TV
The 1970s producer often took on controversial issues
What Shonda Rhimes is to television today, Norman Lear was to the 1970s: an auteur who dominated the broadcast schedule with series that dove right into some of the world’s most fraught political debates. Lear answered some questions about diversity.
In the movie Just Another Version of
You, Russell Simmons says something really interesting about Good Times and The Jeffersons: “Good Times is for white people to get to know them. The Jeffersons was for black people. It was aspirational.” I was wondering if you agreed with that assessment.
Well, I think what he was saying was they were living the Good Times life. They aspired to The Jeffersons life. And the Good Times life was nothing white people knew about.
If you’re going to make a show about race and you have black audiences starting in one place with one set of experiences, and you have white audiences starting in another place with another set of experiences, is it possible to make a show that speaks equally to the demands of both of those audiences?
I think The Jeffersons did that, because it wasn’t like the Good Times audience didn’t watch The Jeffersons. One of the things I remember most was Russell Simmons saying when he was 9 or 10 or such, he remembers seeing George Jefferson write a cheque. And he was stunned because he never knew that a black man could write a cheque.
One thing you said in your, book ( Even This I Get to Experience) is you wouldn’t do a storyline if you couldn’t make it funny. I was wondering if there was ever a storyline you didn’t do or an issue you didn’t take on because you couldn’t find a way to make it funny.
I can’t remember. Because it’s not “make it funny” so much as “there is humour in everything.” With Edith (Bunker’s) rape in ( All in the Family), there was nothing funny about it at all, except there was humour in the way she resisted. Because she was Edith and she wasn’t going to resist like somebody else.
I always remember the cake as the method of self-defence.
And then she kicked him in the crotch! After she pushed that in his face and kicked him and ran, I can see it so clearly now, it was the biggest yell I have ever heard from that audience. They were just overjoyed that she was getting away and the way she did it.