Norman Lear (1922-2023)

A few years back I read Norman Lear's autobiography, “Even This I Get to Experience” and could've sworn I included�excerpts on this blog. But that was just another thing I thought about doing and didn't. So here you go, all at once:

ON FATHER COUGHLIN
He despised Franklin Roosevelt, fulminated endlessly about the New Deal as a betrayal of American values, and attached prominent Jews to everything he was railing against. Coughlin repulsed me thoroughly, but I listened to him enough and was so chilled by his polarizing and divisive rhetoric as to be reminded of him throughout my life whenever I�ve run into an irrational, self-serving mix of politics and religion.

WORKING WITH SINATRA ON “COME BLOW YOUR HORN”
Frank was notorious for not doing retakes ... I looked at the scene in question and was even more certain that it needed to be reshot. I picked up the phone. Frank, whose day didn't start until eleven A.M., was in a makeup chair. “Frank, I just looked at that scene and we really have to do it again.” He asked why, and I told him. “My mother in New Jersey ain't going to notice that,” he said. “But, Frank�” “Did you hear me, pally, there is no fucking way I'm doing that again.” “But we have to, Frank,” I said earnestly. “You give me one reason why,” he fumed. “Because I fucking said so!” I exploded. “Okay,” he said.

ON FOCUS GROUPS�
Some 30 people, likely recruited at a mall, were brought to a screening room and seated before a large TV screen. They were a bused-in midlife group, carrying shopping bags, dressed on a warm day in shorts, sandals, and blowsy short-sleeved shirts, all wearing the �What the hell am I doing here?� expression. The host explained that they were going to be shown a 30-minute situation comedy [“All in the Family”] and the network was interested in their reaction to it. At each chair there was a large dial at the end of a cable. They were to hold that dial while watching the show and twist it to the right when they thought something funny or were otherwise enjoying a moment. If they didn�t think something was funny, if it offended them or simply bored them, they were to twist their dial to the left. ... The group howled with laughter, rising up in their chairs and falling forward with each belly laugh. But wait! Despite the sound and the body language, they were dialing left, claiming to dislike much of what they were seeing, and they were really unhappy with it. But really! While I can�t say I could have predicted this behavior, unlike my friends at CBS I understood and was elated by the audience�s reaction. Who, sitting among a group of strangers, with that dial in his or her lap, is going to tell the world that they approve of Archie�s hostility and rudeness? And who wants to be seen as having no problem with words such as spic, kike, spade, and the like spewing from a bigot�s mouth? So our focus group might even have winced as they laughed, but laugh they did, and dialed left.�

ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF ARCHIE BUNKER
The most telling letter we received was from a woman who had been divorced many years before, when her son was four years old. The boy had never seen his father after that. On the night All in the Family debuted, her son was now 32 years old and living 1200 miles away. The show was on for about 10 minutes when the lady ran to the telephone and almost broke her dialing finger phoning her son. When she reached him she screamed across the miles: �You always wanted to know what your father was like�well, hurry up and turn on channel two!��

ON THE ESSENCE OF ARCHIE BUNKER
Archie's primary identity as an American bigot was much overemphasized because that quality had never before been given to the lead character in an American TV series. But the show dealt with so many other things. Yes, if he was watching a black athlete on television, he'd make an offhand bigoted remark, and Mike would call him out on it. But the episode in which that exchange occurred might have been about Archie losing his job and worrying about how he was going to support his family. ... He was lamenting the passing of time, because it's always easier to stay with what is familiar and not move forward. This wasn't a terrible human being. This was a fearful human being. He wasn't evil, he wasn't a hater�he was just afraid of change.

ON CARROLL O'CONNOR
The marvel of Carroll's performance as Archie Bunker was that at some point each week, deep into the rehearsal process, he seemed to pass through a membrane, on one side of which was the actor Carroll O'Connor and on the other side the character Archie Bunker. Fully into the role of Archie, he was easily the best writer of dialogue we had for the character. ... If Carroll O'Connor hadn't played Archie Bunker, jails wouldn't be a “detergent” to crime, New York would not be a “smelting pot,” living wouldn't be a question of either “feast or salmon,” and there would not be a medical specialty known as “groinocology.”

ON 'MESSAGE' SHOWS
“If you want to send a message,” I was told, “use Western Union.” In the early years I would face that accusation by denying it. ... Then came a moment when�after expressing this for the umpteenth time�I thought: Wait a second. Who said the comedies that preceded All in the Family had no point of view? The overwhelming majority of them were about families whose biggest problem was “The roast is ruined and the boss is coming to dinner!” Talk about messaging! For 20 years TV comedy was telling us there was no hunger in America, we had no racial discrimination, there was no unemployment or inflation, no war, no drugs, and the citizenry was happy with whomever happened to be in the White House. Tell me that expressed no point of view!

All the obits say Lear changed American television, and he did�for about five years. Then it changed back. His shows thrived in the aftermath of the “Rural Purge,” when sitcoms like “Mayberry R.F.D.,” “Petticoat Junction” and “Gomer Pyle” went away or were canceled; and for a time, per Paddy Chayefsky, Lear replaced them with the American people. “He took the audience and he put them on the set,” Chayefsky said. By the 1974-75 season he had five shows in the top 10: “All in the Family” (1), “Sanford and Son” (2), “The Jeffersons” (4), “Good Times” (7), and “Maude” (9). The characters were bold and brash, and the sum total looked more like America, and everyone argued with everyone. And soon audiences tired of it. It was like what happened with the movies. For a time, we wanted reality, or hyped reality, or maybe just violence and sex, but before long the No. 1 movies were not “The Godfather” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” but “Star Wars” and “Superman,” while the No. 1 TV shows were “Happy Days,” “Charlie's Angels” and “Three's Company.” And by 1980-81? It was rural redux. The No. 1 shows were “Dallas” and “The Dukes of Hazzard,” and Lear's real people were replaced by “Real People,” the beginning of reality television, and the beginning of the end. That year, Reagan was elected by a landslide and began to change everything. Archie Bunker won and made things worse for the Archie Bunkers of the world.

I didn't know, watching “All in the Family” in the early 1970s, that I was watching America for the rest of my life. This line above gets at it: “Yes, if [Archie] was watching a black athlete on television, he'd make an offhand bigoted remark, and Mike would call him out on it.” One side was racist, the other side was annoying, and they just swirled together forever. We're still caught in that dynamic. “Didn't need no welfare state/ Everybody pulled his weight” has been, along with a touch of Father Couglin, the GOP platform since forever.

But what a life Lear led. From the above, you get a sense of how he did it. It was not just that he was funny, it's not just that he had original ideas and a good moral compass, it's that he didn't compromise. If he could stand up to Sinatra, what chance did CBS have? None. By forcing the suits to go his way, he made them millions. And yes, he changed television. Until it, and America, changed back.