My kids have discovered the Brady Bunch and we’re ordering them up from Netflix. Just hearing the theme song has triggered odd childhood memories. I literally had not seen these episodes in 30 years.
So, regarding the intro with the tic tac toe squares with each character in the box – why is Florence Henderson in the top box above Ralph Reed? At one point he looks up and she looks down almost as if he is worshiping and her glance is almost angelic in bestowing grace upon him. Was this a early feminist inspired concession to signal a minor break from the traditional nuclear family (actually, there’s not much “traditional” about the nuclear family – it’s a fairly recent phenomenon in history) in undercutting the image of contextual male authority, or is the female image simply put upon the pedestal as a tribute to the anti-feminist notion that women are actually morally superior if intellectually weaker because they are too good for the world and it’s the man’s job to handle the drudgery of worldly concerns. It was originally used against suffrage, that women should not be expected to demean themselves with political concerns. This was the explanation I heard by a John Birch Society advocate explaining a bumper sticker they were selling calling for the repeal of the 19th Amendment on the basis that “you can’t fool Mother Nature.”
I’m told that the Brady Bunch represented a “liberal turn” from the 50s nuclear family-based television offerings such as Leave it to Beaver and The Donna Reed Show, but Ralph Reed’s character does seem to be the ultimate authority in the plot lines, so if they were trying to break from the mold they didn’t get very far.
On the other hand, there is a kind of liberal aura to the plot lines in this family’s dealings with the outside world – nobody is truly evil, and most conflict is the product of misunderstanding rather than malice, and even where there are hints of malice from outside characters, those characters are really just the products of their environment. The show certainly did not paint a picture of a fallen sinful world. It was always about the power of reason and compassion to govern human affairs ultimately. Punishments were always correctional in nature, and there were no villains (not even the guy who played Howell on Gilligan’s Island who tried to push the evil pool table on the family).
Anyway, back to the tic tac toe square positioning – feminist progress, or putting women on a pedestal?
Addendum: Okay, for some reason people keep clicking on the picture above. Are you expecting the video? Here you go.
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February 23, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Mitch
Neither. It’s a Marxist critique, putting the maid and her labor at the true center of the bourgeois family unit.
February 23, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Anonymous
look at the lay out. same sex on outside boxes. she had to be on top with him on bottom to keep the lay out balanced. lower right hand corner 2 same sex and upper left 2 same sex. it’s all about balance. kinda like fox news.
February 23, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Brian
This show was cutting-edge at the time- a divorced family- DIVORCED. They were breaking all the rules. I agree the Mom on Top was another diviation from societal norms, on purpose. This could be the beginning of the end
February 23, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Not A Native
A very traditional wedding picture would pose the man sitting and the woman standing behind. (the symbolism was a seated monarch and a standing subject). I always thought that was the antecedent for the Brady Bunch.
But a better interpretation of the traditional pose is after the wedding party, the man is too tired to stand and the woman is too sore to sit !
In an updated 21st century sitcom version, both spouses would have the same gender and Eric won’t have mindless trivia to distract the masses, except maybe to gossip which is the top which is the bottom.
February 23, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Unk John
Let’s not be harsh, if in fact that was your intent, NAN. Maybe Eric just wants to get away from all the endless nastiness out there. At least he threw the mindles stuff into the framework of some socio-political questions. He could have gone into the sexy stuff, like how Reed eventually came out of the closet, or the rumors that say that Henderson and the oldest “son” exhibited behavior that was decidedly not gay.
Who cares? Nobody I know. But it does kind of take your mind off of the other stuff for a brief moment. The thing is, it can’t be long before Eric posts something about a certain phone call. Then there will be real fun again on this blog.
February 23, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Unk John
Of course, I meant “mindless”. I hate typos.
February 23, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Eric Kirk
or the rumors that say that Henderson and the oldest “son” exhibited behavior that was decidedly not gay.
You mean the one that seems oddly incestuous?
February 23, 2011 at 6:32 pm
brian
Like I said before, some people thing WAY too much………….
February 23, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Bolithio
The Brady Bunch also sets the stage for the quintessential American household. Big family, big house, big cars, big (large, huge?) footprint.
February 23, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Eric Kirk
The set house was actually bigger than the one shot from the outside, where they actually cut in a window to make it look like a two story house. And yet there was only one bathroom.
February 23, 2011 at 11:03 pm
FROM
i dont care what anybody says..MARSHA WAS A HOTTIE////
February 24, 2011 at 9:56 am
beachcomber
I’m wondering about Brian’s DIVORCE theory. I always presumed they were both widowed. Probably this was owing to the lack of exes and the ensuing drama as well as my lack of personal experience with the concept of divorce, coming from an intact family. There may have actually been mention of a “late” spouse at some point.
Oh, Eric? It’s Robert, not Ralph Reed. He was WAY too cute to be a “Ralph”.
February 24, 2011 at 10:20 am
tra
Yeah, I haven’t seen any of those episodes for something like 30 years, and I’m not really clear on whether they were supposed to be divorcees or widow/widower. (I guess a third possibility would be two previously never-married single parents who had won sole custody of their respective kids and then got married to each other…but I’m having a hard time imagining a show with an explicit backstory of premarital parenthood being allowed on network TV back then).
As best I can recall, there was never any mention of the previous spouses, whether deceased or divorced. I don’t remember any reference to Mr. or Mrs. Brady as being the “stepmom” or “stepdad” to all the kids, and all the kids just called them Mom & Dad, right?
It was definitely a “blended family,” the theme song makes that clear. But it doesn’t explain what happened to the other parents.
Maybe after you and the kids have watched a few episodes, Eric, you could post here and remind us what hints, if any, are given about that. Perhaps there is some explanation in one of the early shows?
February 24, 2011 at 11:48 am
Michelle
He got top billing, so she got top positioning to balance that out.
February 24, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Eric Kirk
For what it’s worth on the divorce question, this is from Wikipedia.
Mike Brady (Robert Reed), widowed architect with sons Greg (Barry Williams), Peter (Christopher Knight) and Bobby (Mike Lookinland), marries Carol Martin (née Tyler) (Florence Henderson), whose daughters are Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Jan (Eve Plumb) and Cindy (Susan Olsen). The wife and daughters take the Brady surname. Producer Schwartz wanted Carol to have been a divorcée but the network objected to this. A compromise was reached whereby no mention was made of the circumstances in which Carol’s first marriage ended, but many believed she was widowed (one would assume Mike adopted the girls, as they took his surname). The newly formed juvenile sextet, parents Carol and Mike, Mike’s live-in housekeeper Alice (Ann B. Davis), and the boys’ dog Tiger settle into a large, suburban home designed by Mike. The writers never specify the Bradys’ specific location during the series, although there are numerous indications that show takes place in Southern California.
Mary on the Mary Tyler Moore show was also supposed to be divorced, but the networks objected there as well claiming that the audience would think that she was divorced from Dick Van Dyke. But this seems implausible as the original proposed plot line was a little dark – she had supported her husband through med school and then he dumped her for a younger woman. Way too much for the network censors at the time, and so probably the earlier proposal for the Brady Bunch went even less well. Norm Lear changed all that forever.
February 25, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Noman Lear rocks
But wasn’t Lorne Green in Bonanza divorced?
February 26, 2011 at 8:45 am
moviedad
“Divorce” did not exist in the 60′s on television.
February 27, 2011 at 9:37 pm
jendocino
I always thought it was interesting that this show was one of the first programs on television to show a married couple sharing the same bed. LOVE the Brady Bunch, by the way. Tiki curses, Johnny Bravo, and Marsha, Marsha, Marsha… Love it!
February 27, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Eric Kirk
Jen – Snopes says it’s true.
http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/marykay.asp
However, I’m told offline that the Munsters were in fact the first television couple to sleep in the same bed.
But as progressive as the Brady Bunch was in that respect, the bathroom did not have a toilet. While Lucielle Ball and Dezi Arnaz slept in separate beds, we did see a toilet in at least one episode – when they were all four the main characters trapped in the bathroom.
February 27, 2011 at 11:53 pm
TV buff
It was not the first nor was the Munsters. Ozzie and Harriet was the first in 1952. The Flintstones came next. Then the Munsters. Then Green Acres. And then the Brady Bunch.
February 28, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Ross Rowley
Of course, you folks all know Robert Reed was a gay man portraying a married man. Look how cutting edge it would have been if Mike Brady had come out. Was Florence Henderson television’s first beard? How’s that for trivia.
Also, the Peppermint Trolley Company’s theme song from Season One is by far the better version. Almost equal to The Cowsills version of Love, American Style.
April 18, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Neville Ross
No, he was widowed-three times, IIRC.
April 18, 2011 at 9:06 pm
Eric Kirk
And his sons were all unmarried almost into their middle age. Hmmmm.