Discuss All in the Family

Item: All in the Family

Language: en-US

Type of Problem: Incorrect_Content

Extra Details: I think the overview is much too simplistic. I'd like to submit an update.

"Archie Bunker is a man who dares to embrace societal stereotypes, much to the dismay of those around him. In this classic sitcom, we are challenged to confront issues which we aren't supposed to talk about, and we may learn a thing or two along the way."

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Have you read the overviews guideline?

Yes I have. Has my proposed change violated the guidelines somehow?

I believe my description is much more descriptive than using the blanket term “bigot” as it is currently described. Bigotry is only one aspect of a very complicated character. Bigotry doesn’t include political views held by the characters, for example.

If the goal of the description is to simply say “it’s a show about a racist”, then it is fine in its current form. But if the goal of the description is to accurately describe the character as someone with wide ranging, and many times unenlightened views of the world, then I believe my changes are appropriate and much more accurate.

It feels too biased. The character IS a well-rounded bigot. Maybe it could be edited to something like this though:

Archie Bunker is an irascible, working class bigot who believes in every stereotype he has ever heard. He constantly squabbles with his often exasperated but always loving family over the important issues of the day.

That's a bit less simplistic, although I'm not sure what is wrong with my suggestion? It feels like mine is a bit more positive, and expresses the fact that many people have learned a lot about life AND bigotry from the characters in this series. Archie was certainly a bigot, but we learned from him. And along the way both the viewer and the character confronted the demons and taught us that many of his beliefs were wrong.

In my honest opinion, I think the description as it stands goes hand in hand with the issues we still face. All too often we minimize teachable moments (in this case, Archie) down to overly simplistic terms designed to write them off as bad history. This series opened up many people to laugh at, and therefore talk about things we would usually avoid. In doing so, we learned something good. It brought all of us closer together.

When we minimize Archie to a single narrative, we silence conversational opportunities. Archie WAS a bigot. But he was a bigot who taught us all (and himself), that we had more in common than different. The narrative should invite the unaware into that world, rather than make people think this is another look at bigoted America.

That should really all be in your review, rather than in the overview. cat

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