The sociology of soap opera sex

Soap operas have both their fans and their detractors, and we've run across them both over the years in the pages of TV Guide. On Saturday, I mentioned that Edith Efron's essay on sex in the soaps ("anything but 99 44/100 percent pure.") was so long and complex that I decided to give it its own space. It's one of the more critical looks at the genre that you're apt to find, and it presents us with an extremely complicated dissection of contemporary societal mores, with an occasionally convoluted root system of interrelated values that tells us a great deal about values past and present. It is an excellent example of how television can inform us of that past world, and show us the stirrings of our present one.

With no pun intended, the issue of sex in the daytime has become one of the hot issues of the day, as the content of the daily dramas has come under intense criticism. In fact, one critic accuses them of "peddling sex," another declaims the increasing examples of adultery being portrayed in the series, and Variety, the industry newspaper, says there is now a daytime "race to dredge up the most lurid incidents in sex-based human wretchedness."

Now, you might wonder why this was such a big deal at the time. After all, soap operas have had their R-rated reputation for a long time. It wasn't always this way, though; as Efron points out, the daytime drama "is not what it used to be in the old days, when the brave housewife, with husband in wheel chair, struggled helplessly against adversity." As Secret Storm producer Roy Winsor  The soaps have shifted drastically on their axes; the fundamental theme today is, as Roy Winsor, producer of The Secret Storm, puts it, "the male-female relationship." Efron finds that "the theme of nine of the 10 daytime shows on the air when this study was launched is the mating-marital-reproductive cycle set against a domestic background." This is not to say that the outside world of hospitals, offices, and courtrooms is not present, but "the external events tend to be a foil for the more fundamental drama, which is rooted in the biological life cycle. Almost all dramatic tension and moral conflict emerge from three basic sources: mating, marriage and babies." 

This complicated cycle plays out in several ways. Citing storylines from several of the current soaps, Efron identifies three key "values" that exist in the soap-opera universe: "mating, marriage and babies."

The first, and most important of the three—for it serves as the cornerstone upon which the other two are built—is mating, the search for the ideal partner, and it is not only the cornerstone, it is the dominant obsession of daytime characters. "Vacuous teen-age girls have no thought whatever in their heads except hunting for a man. Older women wander about, projecting their intense longing to link themselves to unattached males. Heavily made-up villainous “career women” prowl, relentlessly seeking and nabbing their prey: the married man. Sad, lonely divorcées hunt for new mates." In the complex ecosystem of good and bad that exists in the soap world, this is a definite good. What determines how it's spun within the story is how the search for the perfect mate is conducted. "Good" people's sex is described as "passive, diffident and apologetic," and the key is "coyness, not chastity."

On the other hand, when "bad" people have sex, "One gets the impression that villains, both male and female, have read a lot of Ian Fleming, through several layers of cheesecloth." It's often played over the top, with lines such as "I play hard and seriously—but not necessarily for keeps." Bad characters also leer, ogle, and speak in double entredees, always delivered with husky voices—when they're not already gasping, that is.

The second of these values is marriage. The dominant view is that marriage consists of two ingredients: love and homemaking.* About love, Efron describes it, as portrayed in the soaps, as "a kind of hospitalization insurance, usually provided by females to male emotional cripples." The greatest love, it would seem, is the love of dependence; a typical declaration of said love, on Search for Tomorrow, consists of the reformed alcoholic pleading to his wife, "I need you," with the wife's response, "That's all I want." That's the psychic representation of love; its symbolic representation comes in the form of homemaking. Food is discussed almost as often as sex, and plays a critical role in romance and marriage. 

* As Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen could tell you, love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage; today, however, we live in the horseless carriage world.

The absence of said domesticity is a "serious evil," as seen in a recent storyline in The Secret Storm, in which "a husband’s arrival from work was greeted by a violent outburst by his wife, who handed him a list of jobs he had not done around the house. His neglect of the curtain rods was a sure sign that he was in love with a temptress who works in his office. Conversely, if a wife neglects her house, the marriage is rocky." 

This brings us to the third and final crucial values: reproduction. Having a baby is "the ultimate goal toward which almost all 'good' people strive. And 'The Baby' is the household god." "Good" wives are either fighting to become pregnant, worried that they aren't pregnant, actually becoming pregnant, or trying desperately not to "lose the baby." "Good" men are not only sympathetic, they're also "fascinated by every detail of it," discussing it in intimate detail with their friends. And what of those babies whose conception comes out of wedlock? Well, that's a little more complicated. On the one hand, "The girl is viewed as a helpless victim of male villainy," of loving her man too much. At the same time, however, the same woman "has acquired the baby 'the wrong way' and must—and does—suffer endlessly because of it." However, all ends well, because she goes through with the birth despite all this (abortion being verboten on television), and thus "receives an enormous amount of sympathy, guidance and help from 'good' people." 

Only "bad" people are anti-baby, and the worst of them are "career women," who "actually enjoy some activity other than reproducing the species." With rare exceptions, when it comes to married woman, "even the feeblest flicker of a desire for a career is a symptom of villainy in a woman who has a man to support her." And even when female characters achieve their ideal, it doesn't guarantee happiness. "A man to support them, an empty house to sit in, no mentally demanding work to do and an endless vista of future pregnancies do not seem to satisfy the younger soap-opera ladies. They are chronically bored and hysterical." They also live in constant threat of losing their working husbands to those wicked career women. The males suffer as well; "They, too, have a remarkable amount of trouble reconciling their 'needs as men' with their 'needs as fathers.'" They're either sick with jealousy, tortured by the jealousy of their wieves, or both. They also have to worry about curtain rods. 

The result, Efron finds, is a world epitomized by "a lot of drinking, epidemic infidelity, and countless cases of acute neurosis, criminality, psychotic breakdowns and postmaternal psychosis."

What we have as a result of all this, Efron says, is not the lurid, suggestive headlines we saw at the beginning of this article, but instead 'a soggy, dreary spectacle of human misery'" that begs the question: "where did this depressing view of the male-female relationship come from?" The industry experts have excuses ready and at hand; Secret Storm's Roy Winsor puts a finger on it, identifying television's role as reflector, rather than driver, of societal change: "The moral fiber has been shattered in this Nation, and nothing has replaced it..."Some of the contemporary sickness has rubbed off onto TV." Frank Dodge, producer of Search for Tomorrow, puts it even plainer: "These shows are a recognition of existing emotions and problems. It’s not collusion, but a logical coincidence that adultery, illegitimate children and abortions are appearing on many shows. If you read the papers about what’s going on in the suburbs—well, it’s more startling than what’s shown on the air."

Dr. Harold Greenwald, training analyst of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis and supervising psychologist of the Community Guidance Service in New York, agrees with this assessment. "I think they’re more realistic than many of the evening shows. They’re reflecting the changes taking place in our society. There are fewer taboos. The age of sexual activity in the middle classes has dropped and it has increased in frequency. There is more infidelity. These plays reflect these problems." Dr. William Menaker, professor of clinical psychology at NYU, adds, "The theater, the novel, and the film have always reflected people's concern with the sexual life; and in this sense, what’s on the air reflects these realities of life. Increasing frankness in dealing with these problems isn’t a symptom of moral decay but rather reflects the confused values of a transitional period of sociosexual change."

Unfortunately, adds Dr. Menaker, the issue, as portrayed on television, "is mechanical and adolescent, immature. The 'love' seems equally childish; it is interacting dependency, rather than a mutual relating between two autonomous adults.* As for anti-intellectualism of these shows, it is actually antifeminine. It shows the resistance of both writers and audience to the development of the total feminine personality." Feminist writer Betty Friedan (naturally) echoes this outlook: "The women are childish and dependent; the men are degraded because they relate to women who are childish and dependent; and the view of sex that emerges is sick."

*One could say this about the Love Generation of the Sixties in general.

Interestingly enough, one could say that amidst all this debauchery, you can actually see the makings of the core morality that used to be the bedrock of modern society. For it wasn't all that long ago, in the great scheme of things, that having a family was the ultimate goal of marriage, and couples without children were almost always portrayed as having suffered as a result of a miscarriage, infertility, or some other circumstance that was invariably considered unfortunate. Again, a sign of the times—both times, if you want to be specific.

Efron's conclusions are twofold: first, "one can certainly conclude that all this 'sex-based human wretchedness' is on the air because it exists in society. And the producers’ claims that this is dramatic 'realism' appear to have some validity." However, "does the fact that a phenomenon exists justify its incessant exploration by the daytime dramas?" In other words, does the claim that "this is the way it is" really excuse its portrayal on television? The doctors Efron consulted "actively" refrained from making such moral judgements, but Betty Friedan thinks otherwise. "The fact that immature, sick, dependent women exist in our society is no justification for these plays," she says. "The soap operas are playing to this sickness. They are feeding it. They are helping to keep women in this helpless, dependent state." Playing the victim card—or telling it like it is?  TV

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This week in TV Guide: June 26, 1953

What has TV done to men? Naturally, I'm eager to find the answer to this question; it's likely to be far less expensive than going through analysis. However, while this one-page article is written tongue-in-cheek, I believe it makes some serious points about modern society and the impact perception has on reality.

"Whatever happened to men?" our unidentified author asks. "You know, those strong, dominant, intelligent creatures who built empires, struggled for democracy, and delved into nature's secrets. Where did they go? What cataclysm left us with the stupid, bumbling nincompoops who pass as males today?" The answer, of course, is television.  

Yes, thanks to our favorite medium, and heroes such as Robert Beanblossom (Bob Cummings on My Hero), Ozzie Nelson (Ozzie and Harriet), and Chester A. Riley (William Bendix on The Life of Riley), the American woman "thinks of her man, and any other man, as a Prime Idiot. She also sees how easily Lucy outsmarts Ricky, how capably Sapphire beats up the Kingfish [Amos 'n' Andy], and how smoothly Margie manages her father [My Little Margie]." As a result, we get the general idea that men are a bunch of losers, worthy of little more than scorn and ridicule.

There are reasons for this, not all of which are necessarily whimsical: programs are written chiefly for a female audience, and most of the sponsors' products are geared toward women: soap, appliances, food, etc. Therefore, styling men in this fashion "pleases the female, causing her to dash to the nearest store to buy whatever the sponsor advertises." Men have little say in the matter, given that of the top 25 shows in the ratings, men comprise the majority of viewership for only two: the Wednesday and Friday night fights. "So with women comprising the bulk of the audience, and women liking shows that portray stupid men, it looks as if men—who are brilliant, kind and charming*—will continue to be maligned on television." Ergo, any change is unlikely, given that "our children are watching too, and by the time they grow up it will be a generally accepted fact that women are the dominant sex. That means today's little girls are tomorrow's Amazons. Today's little boys are tomorrow's mice."

*I would amend that to read, "can be brilliant, kind and charming," but the point stands.

This is, I think, a future that has largely come to pass. Just look at modern society, and how much of it has been feminized and emotionalized: politics, religion, education, literature and the arts, the corporate world; why should television be any different? The best example of this is probably the kind of programming one sees on outlets such as the Hallmark Channel. Whereas Hallmark used to present classic stories of strong-willed, heroic men, today we're confronted by sensitive, stubble-faced blokes with muscles enough to crush steel, but so gentle they wouldn't disturb the petals of a flower. Is that really the kind of masculinity we need in this day and age? 

One hears a great deal today about "toxic masculinity," the concept of which I firmly reject as being a thing. Still, to the extent that it exists at all, it's hard to deny that its roots lie in a rejection of the male castration that has taken place in popular culture. This is not an argument for enforcing outdated concepts of men and women; this week's article certainly carries a tone of lighthearted chauvinism. But history and experience have taught us that truth is often buried within the folds of humor, and this is no exception. This is the world we live in today, and any attempt to overcompensate for this is bound to wind up in disaster. Until we find a happy medium—a natural medium, I would say—we're bound to reap the harvest we have sown.

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Well, that was a bit intense for openers, wasn't it? Let's try something a little less stressful—like mysteries. Chicago Daily News columnist Jack Mabley, who performs the honors as TV critic for this Chicagoland edition of TV Guide, has seen three TV mystery shows over the past six months. The first was the long-running series Danger, and this episode (which we know aired on April 28, thanks to the always-reliable Wikipedia) featured singer Johnny Desmond making his TV acting debut. The story and the acting were both a bit over the top, Mabley thought, "but maybe that's the way they want it in New York to impress us yokels." 

The second show, which is unnamed, "concerned a pretty young lady who opened the front door to find a stranger who said he was her husband. She insisted he wasn't her husband, and he insisted he was. He even produced some old family friends who said he was. She put in a nervous half hour, because she had paid to have her husband murdered. She didn't admit it until just before the final commercial. The pretender, of course, was a policeman."

The third show was an episode of The Web from a couple of weeks ago. It "concerned a pretty young lady who opened the front door to find a stranger who said he was her brother. She insisted he wasn't her brother, and he insisted he was. He even produced some old family friends who said he was. She put in a nervous half hour, because she had paid to have her brother murdered. She didn't admit it until just before the final commercial. The pretender, of course, was a policeman."

Now, if you think the last two stories were just a bit, perhaps, derivative, you couldn't be more wrong. After all, one of them features a wife wanting to murder her husband, and takes place in London. In the second, it's a sister wanting to murder her brother, and takes place in San Francisco. Not only that, but the wife is a brunette, while the sister is a blonde. See the difference? I thought you would.

On a more serious note, Mabley suggests that, over a period of perhaps six months, one might see 60 mysteries on television, with perhaps seven or eight different storylines, and that sounds about right to me. "Maybe I'm spoiled by Mickey Spillane," Mabley concludes, but of the hundreds of mysteries he's watched, "I haven't wholly enjoyed one since seeing 'Lucky Night' put on by Bill Eddy's WBKB crew early in 1948." Notwithstanding the local angle, that's a pretty sad return on one's investment of time. It probably isn't much different from any other television genre, unfortunately.

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Speaking of which, what exactly is on TV this week? Is it all mysteries and male-bashing, or can we look forward to something completely different?

Back in 1953, the start of the TV Guide week was Friday, and the home of the Chicago Cubs was WGN. (Ah, for the days of the Superstation. Why couldn't I have been retired back then?) Today, the Cubbies take on the New York Giants; coverage begins at 12:45 p.m. CT, with Baseball with the Girls, followed by the pre-game at 1:00, and the game at 1:30. That night, on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (7:00 p.m., ABC), we get right to the heart of the matter, with one of Ozzie's neighbors telling him that "women prefer unpredictable men." I suppose that might be true, but you can see what kind of hilarity will result from this, can't you?

On Saturday, it's one of those lovely mysteries, albeit one that originally premiered in the theaters: The Chinese Cat (Noon, WGN), starring Sidney Toler as the great Charlie Chan, who has four hours to solve a case that's stumped the police for six months. Think he can do it? Considering Toler still has nine more movies in the series, my money's on the Chan man. In primetime, it's Bob Cummings as the aforementioned Bob Beanblossom, who "tries to serve eviction papers but turns kitten when he has orders to be "The Tiger" on My Hero (7:00 p.m., NBC). 

Little-known fact: before Hallmark Hall of Fame turned into a series of acclaimed specials, it was a weekly series that aired on Sunday afternoons, and had as its host and occasional star the noted actress (and daughter of Winston), Sarah Churchill. This week, she stars in "My Own True Darlin'" (4:00 p.m., NBC), an original musical comedy for television, based on the real-life story of the "Mercer Girls," women who moved from the East to Seattle to become wives. Yes, it's the basis for the series Here Come the Brides. Later, on Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town (7:00 p.m., CBS), guest host Tony Martin welcomes opera star Roberta Peters, the comedy Wiere Brothers, the dance team of Elsa and Waldo, harmonica player Richard Hayman, and comedian Joey Foreman. Had there been a Palace, I think it would have stood a good chance this week.

On Monday, Voice of Firestone (7:30 p.m., NBC) tunes up for the 4th of July next week with a salute to Independence Day, starring Metropolitan Opera tenor Eugene Conley, singing a medley of patriotic songs. On Summer Theater (9:00 p.m., CBS), tonight's drama is "Greed," with Hurd Hatfield as a young man whose desire for his grandfather's fortune leads to a murder attempt with either riches or suicide in the offing. There's no word as to whether or not he's confronted by a man at the door insisting he's his grandfather, and is even able to produce some old family friends who say he is. The midnight movie on WBKB, Beyond Tomorrow (1940), is now considered a seasonal movie, if not quite a Christmas tradition; it's the story of three old men who invite a young couple to their mansion for Christmas dinner. Watching it in June is kind of like popping It's a Wonderful Life in the DVD to celebrate Labor Day.

Tuesday's episode of This Is Your Life (8:30 p.m., NBC) is, presumably, a rerun since the honoree is Roy Rogers, and Ralph Edwards famously kept those identities a secret in the days of live television. Meanwhile, on Danger (9:00 p.m., CBS), we run into a familiar theme: in "Surface Tension," "an oil prospector begins to imagine that his best friend and his wife are falling in love, so he plots to murder the friend." See, there is some variety in these shows—unless, that is, a man shows up at his front door who says he's his best friend, and. . . oh, never mind.

Here's something I've not encountered before: on Wednesday afternoon, WGN's 4:00 p.m. movie (title yet to be determined) is a "full length feature cut down to accommodate the ending time of the ball game.") That would be the Chicago White Sox game against the St. Louis Browns (soon to be the Baltimore Orioles), which begins at 1:30 p.m. The movie is scheduled to run until 4:45 p.m., which means it could be cut to, say, even 30 minutes. Can you imagine tuning in to Ben Hur and finding out you're getting the Reader's Digest Condensed version instead? In fact, the game, won by the Sox 13-4, runs 2:38; assuming it started at 1:35 (the National Anthem, etc.), it would have ended at 4:13 p.m., and if you figure, oh, five minutes to sign off, that means we get 27 minutes for the movie. Otherwise we run into Beany and Cecil, which probably had higher ratings.

Dinah Shore signs off for the season at 6:30 p.m. on Friday (NBC), and when she and the cast come to the studio, "they find it empty, and so take on the duties of the stage hands and erect the scenery themselves." (Probably violating some kind of union regulation, but whatever.) In this week's cover story, writer, producer, and director Alan Handley says Dinah is one of the best stars to work with in the business. "When you tell a star that on the next show she is to slide down a fireman's pole and her reply is, 'Can I wear slacks or do I have to do it in a dress?' then you know you're working with a real star."  She has, Handley says, a "rare combination of talent, beauty, brains and sheer graciousness." No matter what the task, there are never any complaints, never a sign of ego. I'll admit that while I haven't read much in-depth about Dinah Shore, this seems to jibe with what I do know; I've never heard anyone speak ill of her. Says Handley, "Her warmth and sincerity don't go on and off with the stage make-up."

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Rumor abound that color television might be available to the public by Christmas of this year. Could it be? The RCAS all-electronic compatible system, one of three competitors competing for approval from the FCC (the other two being CBS's mechanical disc system and the Lawrence tube, developed by Drs. Ernest Lawrence and Luis Alvarez.) In the case of the RCA system, "all-electronic" means that the transmission is handled by image orthicon tubes, as is the case with black-and-white transmission, while "compatible" refers to the ability of the color image to be received by standard sets in black-and-white. That said, what you can see here is an actual picture taken "directly from the face of a television set tube during a demonstration of the RCA system," next to the same exact picture in black-and-white. (The model is the charming Marie McNamara.) 

As you can see, the quality of the color picture is excellent, repeated tests have been successful, equipment is in experimental use, and some sets have already been manufactured. So what's holding things up? In a word, politics.

So far, the FCC has approved only the CBS system, which is not compatible; in other words, "you could receive these color telecasts in black-and-white only if you purchased adapters and converters." Several Congressional leaders, backed by the mighty influence of the RCA corporation, are pressing for FCC approval of the RCA system, but were that to happen, you'd require two sets, one in each format, to receive all the color programs available, since the systems are not compatible with each other. The new sets are likely to be quite expensive, at least until the tubes can be mass-produced. And Dr. Allen DuMont believes that a three-dimensional system should take precedence over color. 

Before we can look forward to color broadcasts in our homes, at least three things have to happen. First, the FCC has to make a final decision on which system is to be used. (spoiler alert: RCA wins.) Second, the equipment for transmitting color telecasts has to be standardized. And third, color sets will need to be put on a mass-production basis to lower costs. 

In other words, there ain't gonna be a color TV under the tree this Christmas.

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A quick take on some coming attractions: Oscar-winner Broderick Crawford is talking about a turn on TV, in a series called Manhunt. I wonder if that doesn't wind up being Highway Patrol, which premieres in 1956 and has a successful four-season run in syndication. 

NBC is looking at big changes in its daytime lineup; Dave Garroway's Today show, currently seen only in the East and Midwest, will be available in California this fall. The show will be kinescoped from the live feed, and then replayed at 7:00 a.m. Pacific time. Also, the network plans a mid-morning hour-long show called Home, hosted by Arlene Francis, which will feature "drama, music, how-to segments and news, all geared to the housewife audience." It's all part of Pat Weaver's plan for the complete broadcast day; the third member of the triumvirate, Tonight, will be along next September. 

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Television hasn't quite relegated network radio to the sidelines (although it's doing its best), and we're reminded of that by an ad for WMAQ radio—I like that idea of radio advertising in TV Guide—which mentions that Bob Hope's daily radio program can now be heard a hour earlier, at 9:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. It's a show "designed especially for women" (so it isn't just television!), with "chatter, guest stars, human interest stories, 'a lady of the week' feature, Jell-O recipes and the inevitable gags and cracks. Remember gals, it's WMAQ for daytime Hope at 9:30 a.m. every weekday." Who says everything is Hopeless? TV  

Television and the culture's collective memory

I've long said that if you restrict writing about TV to what’s written about TV, something’s missing. Quite possibly, considering the wordiness of that sentence, what’s missing is coherence.  So let me try that again, using the following example.

This link is to an article written by Rod Dreher, and it’s discussing a book called How Societies Remember, which was written in 1989 by Paul Connerton. It has absolutely nothing to do with television, and in fact is the kind of article that I’d usually save for discussion over at the other blog. But it addresses some points that are key to understanding (in a somewhat bookish way) why some people watch old television shows while others don't, and the importance of television as a part of a society’s collective memory.

For me, the key point of Dreher's essay comes from this comment:

When a society really wants to remember something as a society — e.g., mythical, religious, or historic stories that tell a people who they are and what they must do — it invents commemorative ceremonies around those stories. It is not enough to tell a particular story; the story has to be “a cult enacted.” That is, the story must convey a metaphysical truth, and thus has to be granted sacred status as an event that is taken out of the past and in some mystical way re-presented in the present.  

For our purposes, we're going to simplify the "commemorative ceremony" to mean depicting it in a television program. And let's face it, there is a veneer of legitimacy that TV can apply to an event; that's why so many special interest groups complain that this or that issue or demographic or viewpoint is ill-represented on the tube, and deserves more recognition, in order to depict something which they refer to as the "real world." Note that I'm not automatically criticizing such behavior - it's true that your results will vary depending on your own personal system of beliefs, but at least in theory there's nothing wrong with wanting television programs to depict something that approximates your reality.

The point is - as I always say, there's always a point - the point is that somehow an idea, whether it deals with social injustice, homosexuality, political ideology, or any number of issues, remains an abstract until it's actually presented on television and witnessed by viewers. But simply presenting it is not sufficient to make a point; it has to be done in a way that is plausible to the people viewing it. The logician will assert that plausibility derives from presenting something so that those who see it will immediately recognize it as representing what it purports to represent. In other words, to cite one of my favorite examples, The Judy Garland Christmas Special of 1962 gives us a Christmas full of caroling and parties and decorations, purportedly in Judy's own home. Today it's seen by some as camp. However, the important thing is that people in 1962 recognized it for what it was. Sure, their homes might not be decorated like that, they might not sit around a mod fireplace singing carols (and I sure as hell don't think they had Jack Jones and Mel Tormé dropping by), but if it had not been recognizable to viewers, if it had not presented a plausible version of Christmas 1962, it would have been laughed off the screen.

This is one reason why the content of a television show is so important - it will serve to future generations the function of a time capsule, telling those viewers what life was like back in the day: the values, the relationships, the way people thought and acted and what they believed in. Advocacy groups understand this, inherently if not explicitly, which is why they spend so much time and effort on it.*

*Interestingly enough, it occurs to me that one could ask opponents of, for example, violence and sex on television whether they really believe such behavior influences those, particularly young people, who watch it - or if they're concerned about the legacy such shows leave, and if future generations will see and accept such behavior as acceptable. In the long run it serves the same purpose - to convent behavior - leaving the only question as to when that behavior kicks in.

Here is another key passage, this one from the author Connerton, that to me illustrates the appeal of classic television, and why it's important for us not to forget it:

Under the conditions of modernity the celebration of recurrence can never be anything more than a compensatory strategy, because the principle of modernity itself denies the idea of life as a structure of celebrated recurrence. It denies credence to the thought that the life of the individual or a community either can or should derive its value from the acts of consciously performed recall, from the reliving of the prototypical. 

So what, you may ask, does this mean - and how does it tie in to the general discussion?

My take on it, as it relates to our topic, is thus: what classic television does is not only portray a lost period in time, it identifies that portrayal as having represented the values as understood - if not practiced - by society at the time.* To the extent that modernity rules the roost, attempting to overturn the values of the past in favor of a new and revolutionary way of thinking, it attempts to pigeonhole such shows, - and here is what I think is important - ridiculing the idea that "the life of the individual or a community either can or should derive its value from the acts of consciously performed recall."

*Another pet peeve of mine. Critics will look at programs such as Leave It to Beaver and chortle that they give us an idealized look at childhood. Of course they do, and I don't think anyone ever intended for them to be documentaries. You can argue that the shows attempted to enforce a type of conformity, however mild, to certain roles and archetypes, but what's important is, once again, that they were plausible, acceptable and recognizable depictions as far as the viewers were concerned. The Beverly Hillbillies, by contrast, never attempted any type of overt realism; its value comes from a combination of slapstick and covert allegories based on the appeal of common sense.

Again, in other words, when television was a communal activity - with a limited number of programs watched at the same time by the entire population - it either presented or reinforced the values of that community, in such a way that both individuals and the community as a whole would recognize. Those who seek to cast off classic television, wittingly or unwittingly, look to deny credence to the world presented in those programs. They may dislike the simplicity of the scripts, the quality of the acting, the implausibility of a lawyer solving a case in 60 minutes or family disputes always ending "happily ever after," or something as simple as the show being presented in black-and-white rather than color, and for some people that may be all there is to it. But either explicitly or implicitly, the secondary consideration is not only to deny the past as it appears on television, but to wipe it from the memory banks of today's generation - remember my earlier point that television grants a veneer of legitimacy to what it portrays.  When you remove that collective memory as presented in the program, what happens? Dreher posits this from Connerton's words:

He’s telling us that in modernity, the market is our god. It conditions what we imagine to be possible. We can’t dream that life should be ordered by rituals that bound and define our experience, and link it to the past, to a sacred order. There is no sacred order; there is only the here and now, the tangible. The world exists to be remade to fit our desires. There are no ways of living that we should conform our lives to, no stories that tell us how we should live.

The only thing that matters, therefore, is what we see now, what we read now, what we believe now. The past is the past, while control of the future is played out on the battlefields of today.

Connerton, and by extension Dreher, is specifically discussing capitalism and the free market economy, but to the extent that television is (as the networks keep reminding us) a commodity, prepared for and purchased as a business transaction, the analogy remains intact.  "When Connerton says that in modernity, and under capitalism, we can hardly 'imagine life as a structure of exemplary recurrence,'" Dreher writes, "he’s saying that we can no longer easily believe that we should live according to set patterns of thought and action because they conform to eternal truths."

I've used a lot of words to make a very small point, and perhaps I've lost some of you along the way. In that case, I take responsibility for my failure to be concise. But the very small point I'm about to make has very large implications, ones that we're dealing with today and will continue to deal with in the future. And the point is this: classic television is a medium, one of many but perhaps the most visible and most personal one, that tells us about ourselves - who we were, who we are, who we aspired to be. Forget that, banish it from our collective memories, fail to learn from it, and we have forgotten an integral part of ourselves and our American culture. And as Santayana suggests, if we forget the past, we fail to learn from it.

I take great pleasure in watching classic television, but I also study it and learn from it - and that's one of the reasons I watch it.

Summer rerun: How The Beverly Hillbillies explains your salvation

A while back I’d made an offhand comment that 1965 might well be the year that defined the decade of the 60s; prior to that, much of the 60s still depended on the 50s for its definition; after that, the 60s devolved into the disintegration of everything familiar, an era that continued well into the 70s.

And so perhaps it’s appropriate that we take a closer look at the Malcom Muggeridge article I mentioned at the end of this week’s TV Guide review (March 6, 1965), because I think there’s more to this piece than we can get into in the regular “This Week” format.

Muggeridge, although he once claimed to have no sense of humor, was widely known as a wicked satirist; the New York Times referred to him as a “caustic social critic.” He’d been the editor of the British humor magazine Punch, and he was rarely at a loss for words – or targets of that caustic criticism. He wasn’t afraid of being outrageous; witness his 1957 Saturday Evening Post article “Does England Really Need a Queen?” which, needless to say, created something of a stir back home.

However, there was always a serious subtext behind Muggeridge’s humor, and this side became more pronounced as the 1960s evolved. He became an outspoken critic of the counterculture, especially the drug and sexual revolutions. By the time of his 1966 book Tread Softly for You Tread on My Jokes this more serious side was much in evidence, so despite the TV Guide cover’s promotion of Muggeridge’s article as “a renowned critic’s witty report on the British passion for American TV” (and in fact the dry Muggeridge wit is certainly visible), I think it fair to assume that Muggeridge was really talking about something much more profound, especially regarding the spiritual evolution (or devolution) of British and American society.

The premise of this article is an analysis of why The Beverly Hillbillies has become the most popular program on British television. This is due in large part, according to Muggeridge, “precisely because they are so tremendously American.

The fact is that we Europeans, whatever we may say to the contrary, are crazy about everything American. Indeed, I sometimes think that the more anti-American we purport to be in attitude, the more Americanized we tend to become in our tastes, our speech and our attire.

OK, so that’s easy enough to follow. There’s long been a school of thought that anti-American attitudes are born of jealous as much as anything. (Whether this is still the case, or that in the intervening 50 years American culture has earned that antipathy on its own is another question.) But just what is it about the Hillbillies’ American-ness that makes such an impression on Brits – or fellow Americans, for that matter?

Muggeridge suggests that there is an innocence about the Hillbillies that appeals to a cynical populace. “We, too, yearn after wealth which does not corrupt; after an innocence which triumphantly survives the possession of riches.” Jed may have hit the jackpot with that oil strike, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed either he or his family, “constantly on the edge of succumbing to the lures of luxurious living, but always at the last moment pulling back and resuming their old, virtuous ways.” There is an irony to this, though, in that our cynical selves would rather admire the virtuous than emulate them: “In accordance with the principles of an Affluent Society as laid down by Professor Galbraith, we have rejected the outmoded Christian notion that the poor are blessed, but we should still like to be convinced that it is possible to be rich and blessed.”* By watching the success of the Hillbillies each week, we are reassured that we can have our cake and eat it too.

*Muggeridge was in large part responsible for bringing Mother Teresa to popular light through his book Something Beautiful for God. I suspect therefore that the phrase “outmoded Christian notion” is meant as brittle sarcasm.

And this success bodes well not only for the here and now, but for the hereafter as well. “Week by week [the Hilbillies] demonstrate that, though possessed of great wealth, they can still just get through the needle’s eye into the kingdom of heaven.” Muggeridge expands on this spiritual aspect, for it is one that is crucial to understanding the role of television in modern culture – it “is largely dedicated to providing reassurance on precisely this score.”

The early Christians, in order to secure themselves against indulgence in sensuality and cupidity, persuaded themselves that their fleshly appetites were vicious and great possessions a handicap to virtuous living. The writings of the fathers and the saints are full of denunciations of sex and riches. Now, when we have created a way of life in which sex is our chief relaxation and riches our main pursuit, traditional Christian teaching in this respect would seem to require revision. We cannot accept the drastic notion of ourselves as sinners. Nor can we in decency just repudiate the fathers and the saints.*

*Almost 50 years hence, has anything really changed?

The answer, therefore, is to demonstrate that the two can coexist, “that, like the Hillbillies, we can be rich and still successfully repel the assaults of the Evil One.”

It is not only tempting to draw parallels between the 60s that Muggeridge describes and our own time, it is virtually impossible not to do so. Many of us dream of what we would do with sudden wealth, should our Powerball number finally come up. We may quit our jobs, buy homes for our loved ones, establish scholarships, fund charities, buy a fancy sports car. One thing is for sure, though: our sudden wealth will not change who we are. We not only say this, we not only believe it will be so, we have a desperate need to believe it.

The role of television in all this cannot be minimized. As I’ve so often suggested, television does not create so much as it reflects, and the truth reflected by the success of the Hillbillies is one that dates back to the Victorians. “[O]bsessed as they were with the lusts of the flesh, [the Victorians] were always trying to demonstrate in their popular art that chastity could survive in the poor and the simple despite all the lures and stratagems of accomplished seducers. We, obsessed with money, seek in our popular art to reinforce the conclusion that the poor remain blessed even when they become rich.” Television, therefore, simply takes its place in a long line of visual media as reinforcing this belief.

What saddens me and, I think, would sadden (though perhaps not surprise) Muggeridge as well, is how we’ve seen this attitude change in the last few years. You hear much talk about the utility of morality, especially in terms of religion, and especially in terms of the American Founding Fathers. It is said, and it is a debatable point, that most of the Founders were Deists. However, it is undeniable that most of them understood the need for a civic religion, even if they themselves didn’t believe in its truths. Franklin, for instance, felt that organized religion was necessary to keep men good to their fellow men, writing Thomas Paine that members of society “have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great point for its security.”

This attitude is mostly a given in Muggeridge’s article. Even if we strive to make wealth coexist with virtue, we do not deny the merits of virtue. We know that being blessed is a desirable state to be in, and we understand, even if only subconsciously, that the desire for wealth and power and sex somehow diminishes that state of virtue – else why should we attempt to reconcile it all?

Today, however, I don’t think anyone would be sure of that. Rather than aspiring to a virtue that, though it may be unattainable, is still recognized as being worthy, we now deride virtual altogether. Not only are there fewer and fewer standards which a majority can agree on, there is disagreement as to whether or not standards are even necessary. Viewers in the 60s may have looked at the Hillbillies as quaint, but they felt good about the idea that they could be both “rich and blessed.” Today, the blessed part isn’t important – we’d rather be rich and sated.

Not the Beverly Hillbillies

As evidence of the universality of the fairy tale epitomized by the Hillbillies, Muggeridge had cited, interestingly enough, The Beatles – a group he loathes, calling them “four moronic and unpleasing youths with long hair and little talent.” Nonetheless, a great deal of their appeal in 1965 came from the perception that they remained “unspoilt” by their wealth and fame. “[T]hey are still the same simplehearted, inarticulate Liverpudlians that they always were.” The Beatles are, in essence, Britain’s own Hillbillies.

Now, by the end of the 60s, I’m not sure anyone would have considered The Beatles “unspoilt”- by this time they’d encountered drugs, experimental music, and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In a way this exposes the fallacy of the fairy tale that so many longed to believe in. There’s an old saying that “when you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.” Likewise, wealth, power and sex create their own burdens, and by separating these from virtue, we soon succumb to their collective weight.

Muggeridge concludes his article with the observation that, thanks to television, “more people in the world today know The Beverly Hillbillies, it is safe to assert, than know President Johnson or even the Pope. Backward or undeveloped nations are shown by means of television the way of life toward which they so ardently aspire.” The global reach of television leads us into uncharted waters; “Such a thing has never happened before. No need to take on trust the rewards of toil and struggle; it is there, visible, on the television screen.” No matter who he is, no matter where he is, a citizen of the world “sees with his own eyes all he may enjoy and become”.

It’s quite interesting that an article with so many layers would be published in a “popular” publication like TV Guide, but the times were different, and serious content often landed in the magazine’s pages. By the way, if this all sounds a little dry and scholarly to you, it’s not meant to. Muggeridge’s article is in fact quite readable, and frequently slyly humorous. On the face of it Muggeridge is being his outrageous old self, satirizing the desire television has to be seen as Important. But behind his mock seriousness lies a true appraisal of the culture of the 60s and where it was leading, and I’ve no doubt that Muggeridge was deadly serious in his appraisal of what the popularity of The Beverly Hillbillies says about ourselves and our time. As Muggeridge might have said, “I’m surprised that you’re taking this seriously. But I’m even more surprised that you aren’t.”

Originally published March 2, 2013

Close Up: How The Beverly Hillbillies explains your salvation

A while back I’d made an offhand comment that 1965 might well be the year that defined the decade of the 60s; prior to that, much of the 60s still depended on the 50s for its definition; after that, the 60s devolved into the disintegration of everything familiar, an era that continued well into the 70s.

And so perhaps it’s appropriate that we take a closer look at the Malcom Muggeridge article I mentioned at the end of this week’s TV Guide review (March 6, 1965), because I think there’s more to this piece than we can get into in the regular “This Week” format.

Muggeridge, although he once claimed to have no sense of humor, was widely known as a wicked satirist; the New York Times referred to him as a “caustic social critic.” He’d been the editor of the British humor magazine Punch, and he was rarely at a loss for words – or targets of that caustic criticism. He wasn’t afraid of being outrageous; witness his 1957 Saturday Evening Post article “Does England Really Need a Queen?” which, needless to say, created something of a stir back home.

However, there was always a serious subtext behind Muggeridge’s humor, and this side became more pronounced as the 1960s evolved. He became an outspoken critic of the counterculture, especially the drug and sexual revolutions. By the time of his 1966 book Tread Softly for You Tread on My Jokes this more serious side was much in evidence, so despite the TV Guide cover’s promotion of Muggeridge’s article as “a renowned critic’s witty report on the British passion for American TV” (and in fact the dry Muggeridge wit is certainly visible), I think it fair to assume that Muggeridge was really talking about something much more profound, especially regarding the spiritual evolution (or devolution) of British and American society.

The premise of this article is an analysis of why The Beverly Hillbillies has become the most popular program on British television. This is due in large part, according to Muggeridge, “precisely because they are so tremendously American.

The fact is that we Europeans, whatever we may say to the contrary, are crazy about everything American. Indeed, I sometimes think that the more anti-American we purport to be in attitude, the more Americanized we tend to become in our tastes, our speech and our attire.

OK, so that’s easy enough to follow. There’s long been a school of thought that anti-American attitudes are born of jealous as much as anything. (Whether this is still the case, or that in the intervening 50 years American culture has earned that antipathy on its own is another question.) But just what is it about the Hillbillies’ American-ness that makes such an impression on Brits – or fellow Americans, for that matter?

Muggeridge suggests that there is an innocence about the Hillbillies that appeals to a cynical populace. “We, too, yearn after wealth which does not corrupt; after an innocence which triumphantly survives the possession of riches.” Jed may have hit the jackpot with that oil strike, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed either he or his family, “constantly on the edge of succumbing to the lures of luxurious living, but always at the last moment pulling back and resuming their old, virtuous ways.” There is an irony to this, though, in that our cynical selves would rather admire the virtuous than emulate them: “In accordance with the principles of an Affluent Society as laid down by Professor Galbraith, we have rejected the outmoded Christian notion that the poor are blessed, but we should still like to be convinced that it is possible to be rich and blessed.”* By watching the success of the Hillbillies each week, we are reassured that we can have our cake and eat it too.

*Muggeridge was in large part responsible for bringing Mother Teresa to popular light through his book Something Beautiful for God. I suspect therefore that the phrase “outmoded Christian notion” is meant as brittle sarcasm.

And this success bodes well not only for the here and now, but for the hereafter as well. “Week by week [the Hilbillies] demonstrate that, though possessed of great wealth, they can still just get through the needle’s eye into the kingdom of heaven.” Muggeridge expands on this spiritual aspect, for it is one that is crucial to understanding the role of television in modern culture – it “is largely dedicated to providing reassurance on precisely this score.”

The early Christians, in order to secure themselves against indulgence in sensuality and cupidity, persuaded themselves that their fleshly appetites were vicious and great possessions a handicap to virtuous living. The writings of the fathers and the saints are full of denunciations of sex and riches. Now, when we have created a way of life in which sex is our chief relaxation and riches our main pursuit, traditional Christian teaching in this respect would seem to require revision. We cannot accept the drastic notion of ourselves as sinners. Nor can we in decency just repudiate the fathers and the saints.*

*Almost 50 years hence, has anything really changed?

The answer, therefore, is to demonstrate that the two can coexist, “that, like the Hillbillies, we can be rich and still successfully repel the assaults of the Evil One.”

It is not only tempting to draw parallels between the 60s that Muggeridge describes and our own time, it is virtually impossible not to do so. Many of us dream of what we would do with sudden wealth, should our Powerball number finally come up. We may quit our jobs, buy homes for our loved ones, establish scholarships, fund charities, buy a fancy sports car. One thing is for sure, though: our sudden wealth will not change who we are. We not only say this, we not only believe it will be so, we have a desperate need to believe it.

The role of television in all this cannot be minimized. As I’ve so often suggested, television does not create so much as it reflects, and the truth reflected by the success of the Hillbillies is one that dates back to the Victorians. “[O]bsessed as they were with the lusts of the flesh, [the Victorians] were always trying to demonstrate in their popular art that chastity could survive in the poor and the simple despite all the lures and stratagems of accomplished seducers. We, obsessed with money, seek in our popular art to reinforce the conclusion that the poor remain blessed even when they become rich.” Television, therefore, simply takes its place in a long line of visual media as reinforcing this belief.

What saddens me and, I think, would sadden (though perhaps not surprise) Muggeridge as well, is how we’ve seen this attitude change in the last few years. You hear much talk about the utility of morality, especially in terms of religion, and especially in terms of the American Founding Fathers. It is said, and it is a debatable point, that most of the Founders were Deists. However, it is undeniable that most of them understood the need for religion, even if they themselves didn’t believe in its truths. Franklin, for instance, felt that organized religion was necessary to keep men good to their fellow men, writing Thomas Paine that members of society “have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great point for its security.”

This attitude is mostly a given in Muggeridge’s article. Even if we strive to make wealth coexist with virtue, we do not deny the merits of virtue. We know that being blessed is a desirable state to be in, and we understand, even if only subconsciously, that the desire for wealth and power and sex somehow diminishes that state of virtue – else why should we attempt to reconcile it all?

Today, however, I don’t think anyone would be sure of that. Rather than aspiring to a virtue that, though it may be unattainable, is still recognized as being worthy, we now deride virtual altogether. Not only are there fewer and fewer standards which a majority can agree on, there is disagreement as to whether or not standards are even necessary. Viewers in the 60s may have looked at the Hillbillies as quaint, but they felt good about the idea that they could be both “rich and blessed.” Today, the blessed part isn’t important – we’d rather be rich and sated.

Not the Beverly Hillbillies

As evidence of the universality of the fairy tale epitomized by the Hillbillies, Muggeridge had cited, interestingly enough, The Beatles – a group he loathes, calling them “four moronic and unpleasing youths with long hair and little talent.” Nonetheless, a great deal of their appeal in 1965 came from the perception that they remained “unspoilt” by their wealth and fame. “[T]hey are still the same simplehearted, inarticulate Liverpudlians that they always were.” The Beatles are, in essence, Britain’s own Hillbillies.

Now, by the end of the 60s, I’m not sure anyone would have considered The Beatles “unspoilt”- by this time they’d encountered drugs, experimental music, and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In a way this exposes the fallacy of the fairy tale that so many longed to believe in. There’s an old saying that “when you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.” Likewise, wealth, power and sex create their own burdens, and by separating these from virtue, we soon succumb to their collective weight.

Muggeridge concludes his article with the observation that, thanks to television, “more people in the world today know The Beverly Hillbillies, it is safe to assert, than know President Johnson or even the Pope. Backward or undeveloped nations are shown by means of television the way of life toward which they so ardently aspire.” The global reach of television leads us into uncharted waters; “Such a thing has never happened before. No need to take on trust the rewards of toil and struggle; it is there, visible, on the television screen.” No matter who he is, no matter where he is, a citizen of the world “sees with his own eyes all he may enjoy and become”.

It’s quite interesting that an article with so many layers would be published in a “popular” publication like TV Guide, but the times were different, and serious content often landed in the magazine’s pages. By the way, if this all sounds a little dry and scholarly to you, it’s not meant to. Muggeridge’s article is in fact quite readable, and frequently slyly humorous. On the face of it Muggeridge is being his outrageous old self, satirizing the desire television has to be seen as Important. But behind his mock seriousness lies a true appraisal of the culture of the 60s and where it was leading, and I’ve no doubt that Muggeridge was deadly serious in his appraisal of what the popularity of The Beverly Hillbillies says about ourselves and our time. As Muggeridge might have said, “I’m surprised that you’re taking this seriously. But I’m even more surprised that you aren’t.” TV

TV in your hand? You're kidding!

It's become a cliché to talk about the marvels of technology. For the youngsters out there, it isn’t even a marvel, just something they’ve grown up with and always known.

But for those of us who remember this ad, there’s truly something remarkable about it. Take this ad for Sony. We were excited - perhaps even stunned - by the idea of a television set so small it could be held in the hand.

Imagine, as the ad says: now you could carry your television around with you, like a book.  Watch it next to your bed, on the desk at your office, picnicking on the patio.  It even had a battery pack that you could use to make it truly portable.  For those who remembered a picture tube that size encased in a huge, bulky console that sat in the living room - well, it must have been an amazing thought.

Fast-forward* to today.  What's the big deal about being able to carry your television around like a book?  Thanks to the iPad, we can have both television and book all in one slim tablet.  Watching TV at work?  Anyone with a computer can do that.  Got an iPhone?  That alone makes your Sony look ancient, and it picks up more stations besides.  In other words, the future did come true - and yet it's completely unrecognizable.

*If the term "fast forward" itself hasn't become anachronistic.

A more familiar ad for the tiny Sony.

Think about this for a moment, because it's so easy to take it for granted.  In the span of a few years, we've developed a machine, not that much bigger than a credit card, that allows you to watch television, make a phone call, listen to music, access the internet (something that wasn't even around when this ad ran), keep a calendar, - in short, you can carry your whole life around in that little thing.  Any of this technology would be amazing, but to think you can have it all, right there in the palm of your hand - for about the same price as that television!

A while back I wrote about how the cell phone had changed so many of the standard plot elements of classic TV, and another about how the ads we saw back then described a culture that simply doesn't exist anymore.  And again, this isn't meant as criticism.  The advancements in technology have been truly incredible, enabling us to do things we would once have thought amazing, but now we don't even bat an eye at them.  Ads like this don't just demonstrate another time - they show us another way of life entirely.

The ad copy is spot-on: today you can hold the future in your hand.  It's just a future that, back then, would have been unimaginable.

The man who never was

It's been an interesting last week or so if you've been trying to keep up with real people, fictional people, and real people who turned out to be quite different from who they pretended to be. It brought a whole new meaning to the saying, "You can't tell the players without a scorecard." And while most people were no longer surprised that Lance Armstrong was not the man he wanted us to believe he was, there was fairly universal shock over the story of Manti Te'o and his fake dead girlfriend.

As that story picked up steam during the week, taking one bizarre turn after another, it was easy to assume that this was probably going to be one of the strangest news stories of the year. The tale of a star football player and a fake dead girlfriend (doesn't that phrase just trip off the tongue?) boggled the imagination.  Was Te'o involved in the deception? Was he the most naive football player in the universe? What, we demanded, was the rest of the story?

And it was somewhere in the middle of all this that my wife turned to me. "It kind of reminds you of Raymond Burr, doesn't it?"

***

 
Many of you have probably heard the story of Raymond Burr's double life, or at least parts of it. For years the star of Perry Mason had had an established biography: a happy childhood, a tour of Europe with a Shakespearean company, service in World War II (during which he'd been severely injured at Okinawa and won the Purple Heart), teaching assignments at Amherst and Columbia. There were the three marriages, two of which had ended tragically (and a possible romance with Natalie Wood), and a son, who'd died of leukemia at age 10. Most of you also probably know about Burr's homosexuality, which was more or less an open secret in Hollywood, but a secret to the general public.

Still, it came as something of a shock when, after his death, details came out of the extent to which Burr had manufactured the details of his past life. For example, there was the story of how his first wife, Scottish actress Arnette Southerland, had died in the 1943 plane crash that also claimed the life of Gone with the Wind actor Leslie Howard. In fact, there's no evidence of any marriage to Southerland, who in fact wasn't even on that fatal flight. There's also no evidence that of a marriage to Laura Morgan which, Burr said, ended when she died of cancer in 1955.* 

*He married his "second" wife, Isabella Ward, in 1947; the marriage, which was brief and ended in annulment, was true, and was apparently Burr's only marriage.

The story of his son, Michael Evan, whom Burr claimed to have on a tour of the United States prior to his death in 1953, was likewise fictitious. In fact, when you came right to it, virtually everything about Burr's early life—his athletic prowess in high school, the service in World War II (he might have been in the Coast Guard, but never served in the Navy and never won the Purple Heart), the teaching jobs at Amherst and Columbia, the acting troupe in England—was a lie. People who'd known Raymond Burr for years, who'd worked with him and eaten at his home and considered him a friend, found out that they didn't really know him at all.

It's easy to understand some of it, the fake marriages, for example. Although many people knew of his sexual preference, or suspected it, homosexuality was still a career killer in the '50s and '60s. Burr didn't flaunt his lifestyle in public; he was anything but dainty in his manner and speech, and the story of the failed marriages provided good cover. Likewise Burr was not the first star, nor the last, to have padded his CV with facts that couldn't be verified: roles that didn't exist and tours that never happened.

It's also easy to see how he got away with it for so long. Over time, the stories of Burr’s dead wife and son became an accepted part of the actor’s bio. Burr’s general refusal to talk about them with reporters—“I don’t discuss that” was his usual answer—only added to the fiction. And it was understandable; why would anyone want to keep bringing up such a painful past? Eventually, reporters quit asking about it and went with the established story.

By all accounts, Burr was a true professional and a loyal friend and colleague; one rarely reads of anything bad said about him by those whom he knew and worked with, and there wasn't much motive for anyone to go to the press with salacious stories. (In fact, had the press been told anything, they likely wouldn't have printed it; the queen of the Hollywood gossips, Hedda Hopper, was the mother of William Hopper, who played Paul Drake on Perry Mason; after receiving one report of Burr's behavior, she assured him "he need only 'call on the mother of Paul Drake and I will stand up and swear anything for you.'")* Most of Burr's friends and colleagues were circumspect when it came to what they knew of Burr's private life, often neither confirming nor denying any knowledge.

*It's hard to tell whether or not Hopper had known of Burr's homosexuality prior to receiving the information; regardless, it's clear that, even if she believed it, his secret was safe with her.

Still, the depth of the deception, and the length to which he built and expounded on it, was remarkable. Though he may not have discussed his past often, as recently as 1991 Burr talked to Parade magazine about his dead son, saying that "Before my boy left, before his time was gone, I wanted him to see the beauty of his country and its people."

How much did his associates know? Said Perry Mason producer Arthur Marks, "I know he was genuine in liking and disliking people; I don't think he hid that. But I just know he was putting on a show for the other things about wives and children. That was my gut feeling. I think the wives and the loving women, the Natalie Wood thing, were a bit of a cover." On the other hand, close friend Barbara Hale, who played Mason's loyal secretary Della Street, believed that at least some of the story was true. "He had a great love for Barbara Stanwyck and for Natalie Wood . . . but he said, 'I was too old for [Wood], but oh, my gosh, Barbara.'" Even with Hale, though, Burr perpetuated the lie. "[H]e said, 'My wife and little one, that was tragic,' but he said it was 'something I don't talk about that much.' And that's about as much as we talked about it."

It's easy to say that Raymond Burr created this "other" life because of his sexual orientation, but I'm not sure that's all there is to it. The deception goes far deeper, and far wider in scope, than I would have thought necessary if that's all it was. No, I think the answer lies more in the mystery that was Raymond Burr the man. Whether a desire to change the facts of his life to conform to something more acceptable to him, or perhaps just a deep desire for privacy that could only be found through the creation of an altar ego, Burr did what he felt he had to do. Personally, I think it was that need for privacy that compelled Burr to go to the lengths he did, and given the chance to do otherwise—in today's world, for example, where homosexuality is far less of a stigma—I wonder if he would have done anything differently? 

***

Now, I'm not interested in tearing down anyone's reputation. Perry Mason is one of my favorite shows of all time, and Raymond Burr one of my favorite actors. There was much of Burr's life that was not a lie: his philanthropy, his generosity to co-workers and others in the industry (many of whom he didn't even know), his involvement with the USO and his repeated trips to visit the troops in Vietnam. His lifestyle aside, what I do know of Raymond Burr—what we think is true—I like.

I'm also not interested in imputing the character of Manti Te'o. I have no idea whether or not he was involved in the dead-girlfriend-hoax, and unless we get convincing statements from the participants, we may never know. I'm also not particularly interested in imparting motives to him, if he was involved.

No, I just find the whole story - well, for lack of a better word, interesting. In today's age, it is both easier and harder to create a fictitious life. Easier in the sense that one can create whole records out of thin air, and also manufacture the "documentation" to back it up. Harder in that those same resources—the wealth of accessible information and the ease with which it can be obtained—make it that much more difficult to perpetuate the lie. Clearly, the times have changed since Raymond Burr lived, and it's hard to say if he could have gotten away with such a deception today.

Cary Grant once said something to the effect that he hadn't been born "Cary Grant", but that "Cary Grant" was a creation, a style and a persona, a way of walking and talking and moving, and that he simply acted the part, over and over, until eventually "Cary Grant" became Cary Grant, and he became the man that people wanted and expected him to be. In the same way, I think all of us have dual personalities: the people we are, and the people we want to be. Sometimes in becoming the second, the person we want to be, we take factual liberties with the first, the person we are. Some of those liberties are small; others, as in the case of Raymond Burr, not so small. It is, however, a quirk of the human condition - and that is something that will never change. TV