Essay About Golden Age Of Television And Married Couples

Meet the Simpsons
Essay title: Meet the Simpsons
Meet the Simpsons
Over time, the definition of what exactly “family” means has changed
with time. Usually, what constitutes making up a family is relative to a
specific culture, but as always, there are exceptions to the rule. Ever
since the golden age of television had sprung upon American culture,
television has tried to mimic the “ideal” American family through its
programming. Even as early as the 1950s, television producers made
programming that would represent what exactly the ideal American family was.
Take for example the show “Leave It to Beaver”. While I am not going to go
in detail about each character, I am going to summarize the family structure
and the role of the member. There was a father figure, his job, or
responsibility rather, was to financially support the family, while being an
exemplary father to his children. The mother on the other hand, was solely
responsible for being a typical housewife, while not neglecting the rearing
of her children. The children did not have any real responsibility, but they
respected their parents and attempted to stay out of trouble. Television
shows for the most part in this early era of programming followed among these
lines.
There has always been at least one show each decade that followed the
evolution of American life. In the 1960s, there was the “Andy Griffith
Show”. In the 1970s, there was a different spin on family life with the
show “All in the Family”, which did not have the typical white collar father,
and its emphasis was not on raising the children, rather it was after the
children had grown up. While in the 1980s there was a split in the
television programming representation of American families. There were still
shows that represented the “ideal” American family, such as “Different
Strokes” and “Family Ties” as well as “The Cosby Show”, but there was also a
more realistic representation of American life in “Married With Children”.
However, it is not in a drama that American family life is best represented
in the 1990s. Instead, it is in the animated series, “The Simpsons”.
“The Simpsons” follows suit with the other dramas that reflected the decade
in which they aired. According to the U.S. consensus for March 1998, the
majority of households in America are married couples (U.S. Consensus pp. 1,
3,4,6). The Simpsons meet this. Also according to the consensus, the
average married couple has approximately 2.6 children per household (U.S.
Consensus, Household Characteristics p.1). Since there cannot be six-tenths
of a child, I will round up to three children, in which the Simpson family
has: Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Also, the average American is a blue-collar
worker. The father figure, Homer, meets this factor with his job at the
nuclear power plant within his hometown of Springfield. So according to the
statistics, the Simpson family could be considered an average American family.
In the next part of the essay, I will look at each