I'm Just Sayin'...
I
I am not entirely sure if it's "cool" or "hip" admitting that I am a huge fan of the old TV series, I Love Lucy, but--cool or hip or not--I really am, and I know I'm not alone.
Such a fan am I that, even though I've probably seen EVERY episode of I Love Lucy at least 4 or 5 times in my life (and according to Wikipedia there are nearly 200 episodes), when I had the chance to procure the entire series on DVD, I shelled out nearly $200 to have it for my very own! Considering how many episodes there are, that's about a dollar per episode; such a bargain!
Anyway, though I DO love I Love Lucy, there were a couple of things that have always sort of bothered me about it.
Now, I know that the show was filmed in the 1950's, and societal attitudes toward the roles of men & women were strictly defined and most people never questioned those attitudes, even though--in my opinion--they were just a step above the cavemen (and cavewomen) days.
At the risk of sounding uncouth, during the time of the original run of I Love Lucy, men--by mere virtue of their genitals--were the unquestioned "head of the household"; they were generally the sole bread-winners and the "girls" were the bread-makers.
As they always have, television & movies usually just reflect & depict the life & times of the "typical man on the street". In the 50's, men worked 9 to 5 and nearly always went to work in a suit & tie, only after having a perfectly prepared breakfast by an adoring wife who was dressed as if she were going out to a fancy dinner, instead of slaving in a kitchen. Women, however, were either these dutiful if ditsy housewives, or widows, or divorcées or (God forbid) "old maids"!
Though--as I noted before--I am a great I Love Lucy fan, it always makes me cringe when Ricky scolds Lucy for one wacky thing or another. Even more dismaying is to hear Lucy say "Yes, sir!" to her husband when he's wiggling his finger in her face.
A few times, I recall Ricky threatening to put Lucy over his knee (NO, that's not a euphemism) and spank her for being "a bad girl"! I can't remember exactly, but there may have been an episode or two where he actually did spank her!
Since I'm getting it all off my chest, I really thought it was pretty crappy that Lucy usually had only the "allowance" that Ricky, in his infinite mercy, would toss her way--like a bone to a dog. When Lucy wasn't begging to be in one of Ricky's shows, she was having to panhandle him for a little extra cash to buy a new hat or dress.
In an episode I saw today on the Hallmark Channel, Ricky was secretly trying to buy Lucy a surprise anniversary gift (you know how hard it is to keep a secret from Lucy! :-), so he contacted one of his neighbors, Grace Foster, who worked at jewelry shop to see if he could buy a genuine pearl necklace on the cheap (Grace had a 20% discount as an employee, ya see). Well, Fred Mertz--who had been looking for Ricky--finally found him & asked him where he had been, and Ricky told Fred that he was downstairs in Grace Foster's apartment (while Grace's husband was away), but before Ricky could tell Fred why he was there, Fred was already giving him a 50's version of a high-five, as if encouraging him to cheat on Lucy.
Now, anyone who's read this far couldn't be blamed for asking me--considering the things that bug me about that show--why I love I Love Lucy, and I must be honest & say that I ask myself that, too! The best answer I can give is that I grew up watching the show and was a fan before I even thought of the things I wrote in this post. I really find Lucy's uber-wackiness quite endearing & her resourcefulness in the face of "Cuban Pete's" penny-pinching ways simply inspiring.
In addition to the above, any of us who've seen other shows from around that time know that I Love Lucy was not alone in being so male-centric. In that way, it was just another face in the 50's TV crowd. I suppose that, for me, in spite of all I've written here, I could tell that Lucy & Ricky loved each other very much. In "real life", being that Lucy & Desi were obviously quite adept at determining what their public wanted, and seemed to understand instinctively that they could only get viewers to regularly tune in week after week, if there was something to which their fans could relate in their own lives.
In a real-life world with a cold war raging, the "red menace", "Hollywood blacklisting", the A-bomb, and racial tensions preparing to come to a head, even if the viewing public couldn't find anything in their own lives to laugh about, they could always take at least a 30-minute break from the problems of their times, and step out a moment from the roles in which society had placed them, and laugh at someone else.
And the Reader's Digest is right, Laughter Is The Best Medicine!
I am not entirely sure if it's "cool" or "hip" admitting that I am a huge fan of the old TV series, I Love Lucy, but--cool or hip or not--I really am, and I know I'm not alone.
Such a fan am I that, even though I've probably seen EVERY episode of I Love Lucy at least 4 or 5 times in my life (and according to Wikipedia there are nearly 200 episodes), when I had the chance to procure the entire series on DVD, I shelled out nearly $200 to have it for my very own! Considering how many episodes there are, that's about a dollar per episode; such a bargain!
Anyway, though I DO love I Love Lucy, there were a couple of things that have always sort of bothered me about it.
Now, I know that the show was filmed in the 1950's, and societal attitudes toward the roles of men & women were strictly defined and most people never questioned those attitudes, even though--in my opinion--they were just a step above the cavemen (and cavewomen) days.
At the risk of sounding uncouth, during the time of the original run of I Love Lucy, men--by mere virtue of their genitals--were the unquestioned "head of the household"; they were generally the sole bread-winners and the "girls" were the bread-makers.
As they always have, television & movies usually just reflect & depict the life & times of the "typical man on the street". In the 50's, men worked 9 to 5 and nearly always went to work in a suit & tie, only after having a perfectly prepared breakfast by an adoring wife who was dressed as if she were going out to a fancy dinner, instead of slaving in a kitchen. Women, however, were either these dutiful if ditsy housewives, or widows, or divorcées or (God forbid) "old maids"!
Though--as I noted before--I am a great I Love Lucy fan, it always makes me cringe when Ricky scolds Lucy for one wacky thing or another. Even more dismaying is to hear Lucy say "Yes, sir!" to her husband when he's wiggling his finger in her face.
A few times, I recall Ricky threatening to put Lucy over his knee (NO, that's not a euphemism) and spank her for being "a bad girl"! I can't remember exactly, but there may have been an episode or two where he actually did spank her!
Since I'm getting it all off my chest, I really thought it was pretty crappy that Lucy usually had only the "allowance" that Ricky, in his infinite mercy, would toss her way--like a bone to a dog. When Lucy wasn't begging to be in one of Ricky's shows, she was having to panhandle him for a little extra cash to buy a new hat or dress.
In an episode I saw today on the Hallmark Channel, Ricky was secretly trying to buy Lucy a surprise anniversary gift (you know how hard it is to keep a secret from Lucy! :-), so he contacted one of his neighbors, Grace Foster, who worked at jewelry shop to see if he could buy a genuine pearl necklace on the cheap (Grace had a 20% discount as an employee, ya see). Well, Fred Mertz--who had been looking for Ricky--finally found him & asked him where he had been, and Ricky told Fred that he was downstairs in Grace Foster's apartment (while Grace's husband was away), but before Ricky could tell Fred why he was there, Fred was already giving him a 50's version of a high-five, as if encouraging him to cheat on Lucy.
Now, anyone who's read this far couldn't be blamed for asking me--considering the things that bug me about that show--why I love I Love Lucy, and I must be honest & say that I ask myself that, too! The best answer I can give is that I grew up watching the show and was a fan before I even thought of the things I wrote in this post. I really find Lucy's uber-wackiness quite endearing & her resourcefulness in the face of "Cuban Pete's" penny-pinching ways simply inspiring.
In addition to the above, any of us who've seen other shows from around that time know that I Love Lucy was not alone in being so male-centric. In that way, it was just another face in the 50's TV crowd. I suppose that, for me, in spite of all I've written here, I could tell that Lucy & Ricky loved each other very much. In "real life", being that Lucy & Desi were obviously quite adept at determining what their public wanted, and seemed to understand instinctively that they could only get viewers to regularly tune in week after week, if there was something to which their fans could relate in their own lives.
In a real-life world with a cold war raging, the "red menace", "Hollywood blacklisting", the A-bomb, and racial tensions preparing to come to a head, even if the viewing public couldn't find anything in their own lives to laugh about, they could always take at least a 30-minute break from the problems of their times, and step out a moment from the roles in which society had placed them, and laugh at someone else.
And the Reader's Digest is right, Laughter Is The Best Medicine!