TV of the 1950s
...activity going on with any of the characters. They were very innocent, family oriented shows. In the case of I Love Lucy, Lucy and Ricky had separate beds in their bedroom and the sexual part of their marriage was never shown, unlike shows today, where writers feel that it is necessary to always have sex in episodes of their shows, like we do not know the obvious of what goes on. They feel as if it needs to be exploited to keep the viewers attention. Shows of the 50s were very family oriented in that the whole family could get together every night and sit down and watch television together. Since there was such a wide variety of shows, westerns, comedy, game shows, and others, there was always something to please everyone. The focus of shows in the 1950s was to bring families closer together, not tear them apart by putting content in their shows that were not suitable for some viewers. Shows of the 50s tried to push family values and send positive messages. They did not promote violence, sex or drugs. You never heard about a child going out and setting a house on fire because of what he saw on television. Cursing was a big no-no in the 1950s. There was never any bad language of any sort, and words that today might not be thought of as ‘bad’ were thought of as ‘bad’ in the 50s. Some older people who grew up in the 50s and do not watch a lot of television today might not even know what some curse words are if you were to ask them. This goes back to television of the 1950s trying to protect innocence and values. Another thing that television shows of the 1950s depicted differently were women. In the 50s, women were thought of as the housekeeper, care taker of the children, and a loving ‘servant’ to their husband. On Leave it to Beaver for example, Mrs. Cleaver was always at home, getting dinner ready, helping the children, cleaning the house, or some other activity that was considered ‘normal’ for wives to perform. You never saw the women at a job or doing anything outside of her norm. In the case of I Love Lucy, Lucy repeatedly would try to get Ricky to let her get involved in one of his shows, where he would respond that she just needed to be a good wife. In one episode, Lucy and Ethel get a job at a candy making factory trying to prove that they can have jobs and perform just as well as their husbands, only to be proven wrong and end up in their normative position as a little housewife again. This goes to show that television of the 1950s was forcing the housewife role on women, and by showing things like Lucy not being able to successfully handle a job, that women in fact belonged in the home. Women must not have had a problem with this stereotype because I Love Lucy ranked number one in the nation for four of its first six full seasons. No matter how you look at it, television t...