I agree - this is one of the silliest articles I've read at OLO in ages.

I also agree that the bit about "New Guinea cannibals" was a non sequitur, not to mention quite bizarre.

BBoy

Thank you for your response. I thought about reading some of Terpstra's previous articles - however, I value my time, I'm not getting any younger, decided I had better things to do. This current piece of work could've been something very clever and humorous - an Onion style work as you said.

I guess that means Terpstra was serious when he said:

<< But sadder still, is the fact that a series from the 1950s ends up looking far more realistic than most dramas you’ll find on TV anyway. >>

I think of current series like Weeds, Breaking Bad, Sopranos, Six Feet Under about people coping with the circumstances in which they find themselves in a variety of successful and unsuccessful ways - much as we muddle along in life. I doubt that even in the 50's there existed the squeaky Lux-soap clean and plastic family like the Cleavers. If that is Terpstra's reality, then every new day in 2010 must be a major shock. Poor man.

Beaver reminds me of this.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/bronek/art/393697-6-dinner-time

Here we go again. Another prat fascist raving on about "the good old days" and how it was all better when we had better "family values".

What exactly are they talking about? What are these "good ole fashioned family values"? Well basically what they are talking about is the dominance of men over women and children. A keep em in their place mentality. A "woman's place is in the home mentality". A children should be seen not heard mentality. A man is the MASTER in his own home mentality. The fact that this makes his wife and children his slaves seems to escape the tories of this world. Or does it?

Is it just blinkered ideology? Is it a ploy to keep oppressed workers happy by allowing them to have their own slaves? Is it a wish to increase the power they wield over their own families? Is it just a fear of change? All of the above? Who knows? All I know is that I had an authoritarian father and it was a pretty scary, painful childhood devoid of love but filled with hate. I would not wish that on any child.

They seek a revival of the patriarchal system responsible for the subjugation of women and the abuse of children. When men see women and children as property the results are horrendous injustice and harm. We all know the results of little boys growing up with an abusive father, they just become an abuser themselves. Young girls have been caused untold grief and pain thanks to fathers who see their daughters as lesser beings and available to satisfy their perversions. So how come the powerful and loud rightwingers want to see a return to this system?

continued

continued

Patriarchy = Authoritarianism and anyone who calls for a return of ancient family ways deserves to be viewed with suspicion as an authoritarian and an oppressor. The religious zealots would have us believe that the man on top is the natural way of all things but as at least half of the worlds population know, this is a load of bollocks. Men having power over anybody, let alone their families, only leads to oppression, violence, rape and hatred.

The only reason that crime figures where lower in "the good old days" where that so many men (the overwhelming majority of criminals) got away with their crimes. Crimes like drunkenly bashing the wife, like assaulting children and raping and molesting of their own daughters and wives. This is the result of right wing "family values". This is the result of patriarchy!

"So called" family values must not be allowed to poison our society and return us to the dark ages of domination and oppression by undeserving and uncaring authoritarians who are the abusers of women and children and the destroyers of freedom for over half of the population.

Patriarchy = The Dark Ages
Equality = Progress

Mikk

Doubtless there are those who wish to return to the "good old days" when "men were men" and women "knew their place" and children were "seen but not heard".

However, Terpstra's article ain't gonna do it. If anything, he unintentionally reveals what a farcical impossibility the ideal 50's family was. The only place the Cleavers ever existed was on American television. Even after men returned from WW2 and replaced women in the workforce, many women continued paid work, not all men were authoritarian monsters, nor did families only produce male children (joke on "perfection" of Cleaver family).

Anyone taking Terpstra's article as gospel and the "way things should be" is an anachronism lurching, ranting and raving towards inevitable extinction. Simply because women won't tolerate that B/S anymore and most men don't want a doormat for a partner. Times change, Terpstra pines for an era that never really existed.

A more accurate slice of 50's/early 60's is depicted in the series "Madmen". So much for Terpstra's "reality".