Core Response (#2)

Counter Currents in 50s TV?

In the essay, Parks and Recreation: The Cultural Form, Heather Hendershot uses the show Parks and Recreation as an example of a TV show that discusses the problematic traditions of binary American politics, i.e. right vs. left. Parks and Rec showcases a department devoted to bettering their community, and lefty Leslie works together with righty Ron (notice the alliteration of the political party names and the first letters of the characters’ names) to do so. The show is able to subvert the common issues of the left vs. right fighting over policies and practices by using humor to confront the issue of how neither side is able to please the entirety of the community–politics is supposed to be the art of the compromise, but rarely does a compromise happen, and if it does, rarely does it fix things.

Parks and Rec is a productive example of Newcomb and Hirsch’s ideas that TV can rally against hegemony beliefs. TV can undercut traditional values. Parks and Rec does this by mocking both parties, thus neutralizing political alignments. Hendershot suggests that this progressive show does this by using explicit examples of controversies to expose how ridiculous either party behaves. She notes the episode where two same sex penguins are married. The right becomes frustrated with the left championing gay rights (or at least they thought Leslie was). Which showcases how unreasonable and close minded the right is–they lose their heads over that?

In this post I would like to examine how countercurrents operate rather than the explicit use of satire that Parks and Rec employs. I noticed that two of the three readings look to the episode of Father Knows Best, titled “Betty, Girl Engineer” (2.30) to examine how countercurrents or the undercutting of traditional values may be occurring in “old TV.” In this episode there is of course a disgusting display of gendered violence. Doyle Hobbs, the male engineer who is supposed to train Betty, belittles Betty for challenging gender roles. Later in the episode Betty conforms to the role that is expected of her, which Doyle (and her father) enforces.

Roz Rogers, the screenwriter for this episode (2.30), stated that the ending did “not ring true to him” (Hendershot, 205). This may be the case because the ending had to conclude on a traditional end note for 50s TV. However, if we examine other 50s media it has been proven (via Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet), that some Classical Hollywood films were subverting the entertainment industry’s ironclad tropes. For example, Nicolas Ray’s A Rebel Without a Cause was released one year before the episode “Betty, Girl Engineer,” which aired in 1956. Cause has been noted as a quintessential text that displays a subversion of the Classical Hollywood coupling/ending. In the film, Jim and Judy couple immediately after their close friend/third wheel, Plato (who is coded as Gay in the film), is shot dead. Many queer studies scholars note that the ending occurs too quickly and is thus intended to leave the audience in shock. A main character is “cut” from the text so quickly and with little regard? The film nonetheless ends with a heterosexual coupling, thus ensuring the status quo of the industry.

I would like to suggest that based on Rogers comments and the overtly misogynistic “too quick ending” that occurs in episode 2.30 of Father, that the show follows similar trends that Nicolas Ray and other counterculture directors were initiating. The ending of “Betty, Girl Engineer” unfolds alarming quick, and this was the only way that the entertainment industry could suggest how fucked up the gender roles were for the time. By issuing a campy ending.

Comparatively, Parks and Rec has the liberty to explicitly rally against hegemony, whereas Father could not. But it is important to reexamine old TV, in case we missed the camp. Or at the very least we entertain the argument that the camp was there.