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. Loud arguments were the usual method of discussionfor the Ricardos and the Kramdens.The George Burns and Gracie Allen Showwas, as in so many other ways, something of an exception to the rule.George,self-assured and eternally patient, lived in resigned acceptance of Gracie s ec-centricities and generally agreeing with the neighbors and others who consid-ered her somewhat mad.Ozzie Nelson maintained but redefined the image of male authority overthe household.In Ozzie viewers saw a husband who commanded respect butremained remarkably free of any desire to dominate the family, preferring in-stead a type of partnership with his wife, a mature, attractive woman who hadenjoyed her own years of professional work outside the home and had settledinto domesticity.Ozzie and Harriet faced every crisis and settled every disputeby quiet, intelligent, and even whimsically humorous discussions, and anymisunderstanding was settled quickly before it got out of hand.Ozzie s ap-proach to child rearing was similarly mild.As Gerard Jones defines it:As a father, he was just  ol Dad..He was the picture of an America thatdidn t have to be tough and serious anymore.He was the antithesis of RickyRicardo and a couple of evolutionary steps beyond him; all the conflicts of thepostwar world were comfortably behind him.11Such domestic tranquillity, however, had its price:No one would say out loud, of course, that the endless quiet twilights of subur-bia were a bit of an anticlimax to the tumult of the  40s, but many a man musthave shaken his head over the contrast between his past as War Hero and hispresent as Domesticated Dad.With sly self-parody Ozzie helped American menchuckle at their retreat from heroic maleness.12Much critical attention has been given to the character of Harriet Nelsonand the other mothers and wives on these suburban sitcoms.They certainlyrepresented a change from the  wacky housewives and secretaries portrayedby Lucille Ball, Joan Davis, Ann Sothern, Gracie Allen, and others in the early1950s.In many ways, of course, the suburban version of wifely contentmentwas just as unrealistic.It can be argued, however, that at least the external fea-tures of Harriet s life and the lives of other suburban housewives replicated theactual situation of middle-class suburban wives and mothers of the 1950s, whowere generally homemakers without outside employment, with lives revolvingTueth's v-viii-102 9/28/04 10:41 AM Page 77Ozzie & Harriet and Rock & Roll 77|around the home and family.Diana Meehan, in her treatment of the sitcomfigure she calls  The Goodwife, observes the images of these housewives as atleast competent and efficient household managers, in contrast to the scatter-brained Lucy Ricardo and others.(Meehan, however, also cites statistics indi-cating that, contrary to the television stereotype, many married women couldbe found in the workplace, with married women comprising half the femaleworkforce in 1950 and the ratio increasing over the decade.The percentage ofthese working women who could be considered members of the suburbanmiddle class, however, was not given in these studies.)13The depiction of the typical suburban husband and father, as embodied inOzzie Nelson, was not as factual.Ozzie seemed to have an unrealistically largesupply of time to spend freely around the home and to deal with his wife andchildren in a leisurely fashion.This was not, in fact, an accurate reflection ofthe American father at any time in the twentieth century.With the rise of ur-banization and industrialization after World War I, most husbands and fathersof almost every socioeconomic level spent long hours away from the home,often six days a week, at work in factories, offices, and stores, and by the timethey got home they were often too weary to give much attention to domesticmatters.The post World War II movement of families to the suburbs oftentranslated ironically into even more hours away from home for the commuterfather.Ozzie Nelson s constant presence around the home and steady involve-ment in the activities and interests of his wife and sons presented a dreamimage of the perfect head of the household of the 1950s.As Halberstam de-scribes it:In a way, Ozzie and the other sitcom dads seemed to have it both ways com-pared to the new breed of real-life suburban dads, who had to go off every dayvery early to commute to work and often returned late at night, when the chil-dren were ready for bed.By contrast, Ozzie seemed to work such flexible hoursthat he was home all the time.He never seemed to be at work, and yet he wassuccessful.14In its view of the husband and father, as in all other aspects of family rela-tions, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet took a decidedly optimistic view.Postwar American families were beginning to experience a sharp rise in di-vorce rates, illegitimacy, and sexual experimentation and the first stirrings offeminism among middle-class women [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]