Last winter, I found myself in the unenviable and all-too-common position of being out of work.  Rather than giving up my other vices ─ cocktails and home furnishings ─ I decided that the fiscally responsible thing to do was cut my cable.  I kept my Netflix account (after all, if you can’t stay in and watch a movie, you know you’re headed to the bar), and started a bartering system with my friends.  The only issue with my new DVD-only habit was . . . I’m not huge on movies.  I like them okay─ great, even ─ but there’s no comparison to my true love, television.

Naturally, I started with TV shows on DVD.  The thing is, I didn’t want to rent current shows, because then I’d have even more reasons to restart my cable!  I started perusing the retro section.  It seriously surprised me.  On the one hand, the outfits alone definitely date the material.  On the other hand, I found myself wondering if such frank discussions of sex, race, and politics could be found on the airwaves today.  Check out these videos and see what you think:

This short clip from The Golden Girls shows the travails of our elderly heroines as they attempt to buy condoms.  Doesn’t sound groundbreaking enough to you?  Keep in mind that The Golden Girls aired from 1985 to 1992 on NBC, but commercials for condoms didn’t appear during network primetime until mid-2005.

In the episode “Ms. Understanding” on A Different World, undergraduate and author Shazza Zulu starts a Battle of the Sexes at historically black Hillman College.  He calls out Kim for dating a white man, and she calls him out for pseudo-intellectualism.  After the Great TV White-Out of 1999, when was the last time we saw such varied depictions of African American characters on a mainstream television show?

In the first-season episode “Maude’s Dilemma,” the forty-seven year old title character discovers that she’s pregnant.  Abortion was legal in New York State in 1972, but the episode aired before the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.  Although Maude wrestles with her decision, she eventually decides to terminate the pregnancy.  Unlike most TV depictions of abortion, she doesn’t later (A) miscarry or (B) decide to have the baby after all.

From the very first episode, The Jeffersons was in the business of challenging assumptions.  George and Louise, a well-to-do black couple, move into a high rise on the East Side.  They immediately begin arguing about whether to have a maid.  In the long clip below, we see altercations about class, race, and miscegenation.  This episode can make the “post-racial” viewer gasp in shock, but as always, the best part is when the shock turns to laughter.

People love controversy, and standing up against censorship.  But how did we go from these forward-thinking sit-coms of the seventies, eighties, and nineties to the watered-down faux radicalism of today?  When the only controversy is about  a bunch of rich kids having threesomes on TV, you have to wonder if we grew up . . . or just got old.

—

Cate Root was born and raised in Kansas City, Mo.  She graduated from New York University with a Bachelors in Journalism, and is currently pursuing her Masters in Creative Writing from UNO.  She holds it down in Central City.