Life Lessons from the Brady Bunch - Essay Example

I. Introduction Culture is a learned aspect of the society. It is a social asset and all members of society share its elements. In the contemporary setting, these cultural elements are preserved and disseminated through the mass media from one individual to another and also from one generation to another. In this manner, there is a direct relationship between culture and the mass media. While culture gives identity to a society, the mass media serves as a vehicle to promote it. The mass media has also been identified as having a dynamic role in society. It is now seen as one which performs the function of an initiator of social change. It not only generates new ideas and values but also transmits them to the younger generation. The family is the basic unit of society. In our contemporary society, we find many television programs involving families in different settings in different situations. One can say that almost all the possible issues and predicaments have been portrayed in the screen. For an inquisitive mind such as mine, it becomes interesting to find out how these shows affect the general public. In this study, our attempt will be to examine the relationship between a television program- The Brady Bunch - and its implications to the viewing public. I will be primarily concerned in determining to what degree The Brady Bunch has served as a mirror for society and a medium for transformation or conformity. II. The Brady Bunch and Its Success in Mainstream Television Viewing The concept of "The Brady Bunch" started back in 1966 when Sherwood Schwartz (the creator and producer of the show) heard that somewhere between 20-30% of all families had at least one child from a previous marriage. He wrote a 30-minute pilot episode about a blended family; a man with three boys marries a lady with three girls and in the end they all go on the honeymoon together. He also had prepared several story ideas about the kids and their growing-pains and problems arising due to the new living situation. (Moran, 1992) Moran (1992) further relates that when the show premiered on ABC in 1969, The Brady Bunch garnered mostly negative reviews. From that date until 1974, its entire network run, the series never reached the top ten ranks of the Nielsen ratings. Yet, the program stands as one of the most important sitcoms of American 1970s television programming, spawning numerous other series on all three major networks, as well as records, lunch boxes, a cookbook, and even a stage show and feature film. The decided emphasis of the series on the Brady children made it very popular among younger audiences. ABC capitalized on this appeal, programming the show early on Friday evenings. This popularity also resulted in various attempts to create other profitable spin-off products: "The Brady Kids," a pop rock group (patterned on "The Archies" and "The Partridge Family"), a Saturday morning cartoon called The Brady Kids (1972-74), and regular appearances of the young actors and actresses (particularly Maureen McCormick and Christopher Knight), in teen fan magazines. Bellefante (1995) also relates that following its initial network run, The Brady Bunch became inordinately popular in rerun syndication. This success can be attributed in part to children's afternoon-viewing patterns. Often programmed as a daily "strip" in after-school time periods, the show found new viewers who had not previously seen the series. The age distribution of the cast may have created appeal among a range of young viewers, and as they aged they were able to take a more ironic viewing stance toward the entertainment of their childhood. The ongoing success of the Brady characters has continually brought them back to television. The Brady Bunch Hour, produced by Sid and Marty Krofft from 1976-1977 on ABC, had the family hosting a vividly-colored disco-oriented variety series. The Brady Brides, on NBC in 1981, was a half-hour sitcom about Marcia and Jan as they dealt with their new husbands and the trials of being married. In December 1988, CBS aired the TV-movie A Very Brady Christmas, which became CBS' highest-rated TV-movie that season. This led in 1990 to a short-lived hour-long dramatic series called simply The Bradys. III. Social Issues in The Brady Bunch In an era in which situation comedies emphasized how social climes were changing, The Brady Bunch was one of the few series that hearkened back to the traditional family values seen in such sitcoms as Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best. Executive producer Sherwood Schwartz conceived of the premise: a widower, father of three boys, marries a widow, mother of three girls. The concept worked as a springboard for dramatizations of an array of childhood and adolescent traumas. (Steele, 1994) The cluster of children--Greg (Barry Williams), Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Peter (Christopher Knight), Jan (Eve Plumb), Bobby (Mike Lookinland) and Cindy (Susan Olsen)--provided a male and female version for three separate stages of youth. With this group the show managed to portray the typical crises of orthodonture, first crushes, neighborhood bullies and school plays, as well such homebound issues as sibling rivalry and problems with parental restrictions. Father Mike Brady (Robert Reed) was always there with a weekly homily that would explain to the children the lessons they had learned. Although mother Carol Brady (Florence Henderson) was initially written as a divorcee, and episodes of the first season did deal with the problems of children getting used to a new mother or father, the half-hour show repeatedly and firmly upheld the family as a tight unit of support, love and understanding. The Brady Bunch tried to steer clear of the political and social issues of the day. There were almost no non-white characters introduced into the series. Women's liberation and gender equality were boiled down to brother-sister in-fighting. The counterculture of the 1960s was represented in random minor characters portrayed as buffoons--or in Greg trying to impress a girl with hippie jargon. (Schifferdecker, 2006) The representation of childhood in the series as a time of blissful innocence was in marked contrast to what was happening off camera. Many of the boys and girls playing the Brady children dated each other secretly, making out in their trailers or in the doghouse of the Brady's pet, Tiger. Oldest boy Barry Williams attempted to date Florence Henderson and filmed at least one episode while high on marijuana. All these incidents (as well as Robert Reed's homosexuality) occurred behind closed doors, coming to light only a decade after the series originally aired. (Briller, 1992; Willer and Kreski, 1992) Although the dramatic series faded quickly, a live stage parody of the original series quickly became a national sensation after its debut in Chicago in 1990. Playing the original scripts as camp performance, "The Real Live Brady Bunch" seemed to tap into viewers' simultaneous love for and cynicism towards the values presented by the series. The stage show and the subsequent film The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) reveled in the kitsch taste of 1970s culture, complete with "groovy" bell bottoms and day-glo orange and lime green color schemes. Yet, although the stage production and the film gleefully deconstructed the absurdity of the wholesomeness of the Brady family, an admiration remained. Many children who grew up with the show came from families of divorce, or were "latch-key" children with both parents working. Consequently, some of those amused at the naivet of the series also admittedly envy the ideal nuclear family that they never had and that the Bradys represent Much like Star Trek, another Paramount-produced television series of the late 1960s, The Brady Bunch was underappreciated by critics and network executives, but fan loyalty has made the series a franchise for book deals, memorabilia and feature films. A cultural throwback even in its time, the family led by "a lovely lady" and "a man named Brady" has become celebrated in part precisely for its steadfast obliviousness to societal change. (Zeman, 1991) IV. Conclusion According to Schwartz, the reason the show has become a part of Americana despite the fact that there have been other shows that ran longer, rated higher, and were critically acclaimed is that the episodes were written from the standpoint of the children. The Bradys was comprised a harmonious family (compare that to the Bunkers or the Simpsons or any number of dysfunctional television families). In fact, the producers had a form letter they sent to children wanting to run away from their own families and live with the Bradys. (Bellefante, 1995) However, even with the seemingly innocent and lighthearted nature of the show, its obliviousness to the social movements makes it rather irrelevant and not worthy of praise. In a world undergoing major social changes, neutrality is only for those who do not care and is thus undeserving of attention of the public. Nonetheless, we as, "How come it became so popular". Is it really true that it does not mirror society We have mostly been basing our judgments on our notion that for television shows to be socially relevant, they must portray the changing social scene during its period. However, The Brady Bunch actually mirrors society when taken in the light that it represents a passive and sterile society which considers changes as unwholesome and should be resisted. These could represent as an explanation why the show was so popular- because it justified much of the public's notion of being unattached to events in the social setting. If this is the case, then we can say that the show is reflective of society and was actually an agent trying to preserve the culture that people have been so conveniently living with. References: Bellafante, Gina. (1995). "The Inventor of Bad TV: What Would the '70s Have Been Without Sherwood Schwartz (interview)." Time (New York), 13 March 1995. Briller, Bert. (1992). "Will the Real Live Brady Bunch Stand Up" Television Quarterly (New York), Spring 1992. Moran, Elizabeth (1992). Bradymania. Adams Media Corporation. Schifferdecker, Stacey (2006). Blending Families: From the Brady Bunch to Life with Derek. Accessed April 28, 2007 from www. ore4kids.info/232/blending- families-together/ Steele, Scott. (1994). "Bringing Up Brady." Maclean's (Toronto, Canada), 7 February 1994. Williams, Barry and Chris Kreski. (1992). Growing Up Brady: I Was A Teenage Greg. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992. Zeman, Ned. (1991). "Seventies Something; The Era that Gave Us Bell-Bottoms, Abba and The Brady Bunch Is Coming Back. Have a Nice Decade." Newsweek (New York), 10 June 1991. Read More