I’ve been reading about Gary Coleman and watching You-Tube videos about him. For a long time, I thought he got a raw deal. He worked so hard as a child actor, making him a ubiquitous presence in my own childhood. (You had the Saturday morning cartoon in which Gary Coleman was an angel, Different Strokes, movies like The Fantastic World of D.C. Collins, the Amazing Stories episode in which Barbara Billingsley called Gary Coleman “the Beaver”, and Dirk Benedict “Wally”, etc.) And, monetarily, he didn’t have much to show for it. I do recall hearing, however, that the tragic way that his parents handled his money inspired reforms to help other child actors, so maybe his pain wasn’t entirely for nought.
As I’ve read about Gary Coleman, I’ve found things that I admire about him. He was a virgin until his 30′s, even though he could have used his celebrity status to seduce women. He told a porn star (or whatever he was) that he didn’t just want sex, but intimacy. And he appeared on the show Divorce Court with his wife, only he wasn’t there for a divorce; rather, both of them wanted to save their marriage.
But people can point out some of his negative characteristics: his problems with the law, his difficulty in getting along with people, etc. I like to focus on the positives, however, since there are enough people who look at the negative! Moreover, I always liked Gary Coleman’s blunt, “matter-of-fact” way of talking. I probably would have gotten along with him, in medium-sized doses!
Something else I’ve been thinking about: When I was a little kid, my mom had me watch the episode of Different Strokes in which Kimberley and Arnold get into a car with a stranger, and the guy holds them hostage! She used that episode to teach me not to get into a car with strangers.
That’s the way the 1980′s were: the family sitcoms helped parents teach lessons to their kids. When there was an episode of Webster in which a teacher molested one of Webster’s friends, my parents used that episode to teach us that an adult shouldn’t touch children in particular spots, and that we should tell an adult we trust if that happens to us. When there was an episode of Mr. Belvedere in which a kid is stigmatized because he had AIDS, my dad said that we shouldn’t hate people who have that disease. Family Ties had its share of didactic episodes, as did Growing Pains and The Cosby Show. And, going beyond the family sitcoms, Michael Landon’s Highway to Heaven presented opportunities for my parents to teach me about why racism is wrong, why we should care for the environment, and the need to be kind and considerate to people. And The Smurfs also taught valuable lessons: we shouldn’t lie or tattle on others, for instance. “Don’t do drugs” was another message that came through loud and clear on these shows (even the Smurfs, which had an episode in which an orb was a drug for the Smurfs).
Does television help parents out like this nowadays? Many television shows—including Desperate Housewives—have a sense of morality, but are there shows that the whole family can watch, which parents can use as object lessons to teach their children right from wrong? I think that those types of shows were common in the 1980′s. In the 1990′s, ABC still had a few, such as Full House, Family Matters, and Step by Step. But, by-and-large, the 1990′s were the years of Seinfeld and Friends, which were about sex and making fun of life. And, now that the 2000′s have ended, I can’t think of any sitcom that the entire family can enjoy, from which parents can draw object lessons for their children.
Is the situation as bleak as I am seeing it? Do we see less of the types of shows that existed in the 1980′s because TV was catering to the baby boomers at that time, who had children; now, the baby boomers’ children are out of the house, and a lot of them are single.
Ultimately, things aren’t totally bleak, because we still can watch the classics on TV Land and other stations! But, in my opinion, TV has changed.