Recently (5 minutes ago) I read 2
very different excerpts from the book Rereading America (Colombo, Cullen, and
Lisle) and both the excerpts dealt with the idea of what family looks like,
showing different kinds of families and the rolls that certain people play in
the family.
The first excerpt was An Indian
Story by Roger Jack depicting what it was like to grow up in a Native American
family strongly rooted in their ancestry and tied to the traditions and custom
of their people. Jack talks about living with his aunt Greta after a heated
argument at his father’s house causing him to leave. Jack doesn’t dwell much on
what the model family looks like, but he acknowledges the fact that the kind of
family he had wasn’t your everyday run-of-the-mill family, which is what made
his story so capturing. It gives a beautiful picture of what family bonds
should look like, even in an undesirable situation.
The second excerpt was entitled
What We Really Miss About the 1950’s by Stephanie Coontz. In this essay Coontz
asks why everyone thinks the 1950’s was the greatest time for family then goes
into detail about what was really taking place in this decade. She shares
statistics about the 1950’s that wasn’t shown on television. Many sitcoms in
the 50’s depicted the bread-winning father, the housewife and the perfect kids
that never fought and always had smiles on their faces. The model families
depicted in these shows were unrealistic and cliché at best and this essay shows
how it was never really like that and how the families in the shows may have deceived
an entire generation into believing that the 50’s were perfect.
I like how you went into depth into the media and the impact it made on our perception of the 1950's. I also like the point you made about these cliche show deceiving an entire generation. While I don't feel that the media deceived me, before reading your article, my view of the 1950's was skewed.
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