Tag: television

TV: controversy over a Cheerios ad?

She was adamantly against mixed-race marriage. “What about the children?” she proclaimed. They’ll never fit in, they’ll be scorned by both blacks and whites, and be outcasts in society.

My fascination over a cereal ad – no, actually, THE Cheerios ad featuring an interracial couple and their child – is that all the hate it has engendered doesn’t surprise me at all. The argument from opponents – besides the scatological responses so bad that General Mills had shut off the comments on the YouTube video – is that “they are throwing” miscegenation “in our faces”, whereas the cereal producer’s claim is that they’re showing the diversity of the population. There has been a clear uptick in the number of mixed-race marriages in the US this century.

Of course, you KNOW what the real problem is for some people with that ad? It suggests that black people and white people were – hold onto your hats – having SEX! When you first see the ad, one could assume that the girl might be adopted, but seeing the dad pretty much eliminates that option. The long-standing taboo about interracial sex in the United States is still very strong, from white male slave masters and black female slaves to the young black Emmett Till getting killed for looking at a white woman too long.

This reminds me of a situation about 35 years when my girlfriend at the time, who was white, went apartment hunting for us, and she found a nice place. But the surprised look on the landlord’s face when I showed up to sign the lease was priceless. Rather like the look on the faces of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy when Katharine Houghton brought home Sidney Poitier in the movie Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner.

About 25 years ago, I was having some general philosophical conversation about marriage with this secretary in an office in which I was working as an intern. Very nice woman, and particularly to me. But she was adamantly against mixed-race marriage. “What about the children?” she proclaimed. They’ll never fit in, they’ll be scorned by both blacks and whites, and be outcasts in society.

Obviously, I have a vested interest in trying to make sure the Daughter lives in a better world than that. Her preschool was ethnically diverse; her elementary school is somewhat less so, but we hope for the best. Our church is predominantly white, but with increased diversity, including, most recently, an influx of Asian Indians.

You just keep trying to make a decent world for your child, which is pretty much irrespective of race.

BTW, Chuck Miller knows the woman in the Cheerios ad.
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Of course, I remember Jean Stapleton in All in the Family, who died recently. THE most disturbing episode of that series is referenced here.

T is for Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson starred in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, the story of a woman born in slavery who lived long enough to be part of the civil rights movement.

I had mixed, though mostly positive, feelings when I saw the 2011 movie, The Help. However, I was unabashedly thrilled to see Cicely Tyson as one of the older maids. I’ve been watching her for nearly 50 years.

The first time I knew her by name was in the 1963 television series East Side, West Side. It was, as I vaguely recall, a gritty and realistic show, which starred George C. Scott (Emmy nominated) as social worker Neil Brock, and Tyson as the secretary Jane Foster. The series lasted only 26 episodes, but my recollection was that it was great having a black person, a black woman, no less, in a significant role that was in a drama, and she WASN’T a maid, or a caricature. Before Greg Morris on Mission: Impossible or Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek, there was Cicely Tyson.

Subsequently, I saw her in episodic TV shows. Her next big role was in her Oscar-nominated role in the movie Sounder (1972). Then she played the title character in the 1974 television movie The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, the story of a woman born in slavery who lived long enough to be part of the civil rights movement. The film won nine Emmys, including two for Tyson.

Cicely was Emmy nominated for playing Kunta Kinte’s mother in Roots (1977), Coretta Scott King in King (1978) and the title educator in The Marva Collins Story (1982). She was nominated four additional times, winning for The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (1994).

She was married to jazz legend Miles Davis from 1981 until their divorce in 1988.

Cicely Tyson appeared on CBS Sunday Morning in April 2013. What I did not remember is that, before her acting career, she appeared as a model in Ebony magazine, though when I saw the images, they were oddly familiar to me. Her decision to model meant her mother didn’t speak to her for two years.

The new television piece was about her first acting on Broadway in 30 years, to appear in a stage version of The Trip to Bountiful, based on Horton Foote’s story. Her research included visiting Foote’s daughter and seeing the places that inspired the story.

She is actively involved in Cicely L. Tyson Community School of Performing and Fine Arts in East Orange, New Jersey.

There is some argument about Cicely Tyson’s age. The IMDB suggests that she turns 80 in December 2013, while the story, and Wikipedia, suggested she may be as old as 88. Regardless, she has been a beacon as an actress who only took roles she thought enhanced the portrayal of her people.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

As Illya Kuryakin, the baby sister

I was the debonair Solo, while Marcia emulated the clever Kuryakin.

As I perused the pictures my baby sister Marcia sent me this spring via Facebook, I noted only one of just her and me. That’s not that surprising; I have not a lot of memories of things she and I did alone together. There were many things the THREE of us did together: Leslie, 16 months younger, and Marcia, five years my junior. Also, Leslie and I sang together, and Leslie and Marcia shared a room.

Still, there was one thing Marcia and I did together that was just ours, without Leslie or my parents: we played spies, based on the 1964-1968 NBC-TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; the acronym stood for the United Network Command for Law Enforcement. The two prime agents were Napoleon Solo, played on the series by Robert Vaughan, and Illya Kuryakin, played by David McCallum (who now plays Ducky on the TV series NCIS). It was one of those spy shows undoubtedly influenced by the success of the James Bond films, complete with an array of gadgets.

When we played, I was the debonair Solo, while Marcia emulated the clever Kuryakin, busy fighting evil in the form of a group called THRUSH. I don’t remember storylines, but I do recall vaulting off the side porch of our house to capture the imaginary bad guys, with “Illya” on the stairs right behind me.

Happy birthday, Marcia; thanks again for all those photos. (Can’t call her little sister; she’s taller than I am!)

She was loved (Annette), hated (Maggie)

I have no recollection that the deaths of Richard Nixon (1994) or Ronald Reagan (2004) generating anywhere near the same level of vitriol as Margaret Thatcher’s passing.

I was feeling as though I wanted to write about a couple of recent deaths, but I needed an angle. Then it came to me.

Annette Funicello, who appeared on the Mickey Mouse Club, was my first TV crush, as I have previously noted; I was hardly the only one – e.g., see Ken Levine’s piece. Heck, my wife said she had a little crush on her. And it wasn’t just my generation: Cheri remembers her as well.

I watched Annette in a number of Disney programs, and almost certainly in Make Room for Daddy with Danny Thomas. Here’s a story about her in Salon. And enjoy this Parade magazine photo flashback.

But the best love letter to Annette I saw was from Chuck Miller, who even included a clip of the Disney comedy called ‘The Monkey’s Uncle,’ where she performs the title song with the Beach Boys!

Almost everyone loved Annette.


Margaret Thatcher was another matter. I had mixed to negative feelings about her tenure as Prime Minister of Great Britain. I agree with these complaints about her: presiding “over the Falklands War with Argentina, provided critical support to the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and famously labeled Nelson Mandela a “terrorist” while backing South Africa’s apartheid regime.” She opposed the reunification of Germany, while, at home, was a union buster.

Arthur from New Zealand, by way of the US, wrote: “They say if you can’t say something nice about a person who’s just died, you shouldn’t say anything. Not very useful advice for a blogger.” Meanwhile, Shooting Parrots from the UK damned her with the faint praise of thanking her for the way that spin has become an end in itself.

These were mild complaints, though, compared with these: The woman who wrecked Great Britain and A terror without an atom of humanity.

Apparently, Margaret Thatcher inspired a whole unique genre of British culture: “We can’t wait till Margaret Thatcher dies”, years ago, including songs by several musicians. Now that she is deceased, Brits have sent “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead” into music charts.

There have been American politicians who were reviled by certain segments of the population. But I have no recollection that the deaths of Richard Nixon (1994) or Ronald Reagan (2004) generating anywhere near the same level of vitriol. I have two not mutually exclusive theories about this: 1) the world has gotten even nastier in the past decade, and 2) the politics in the UK is more rough and tumble; if you’ve ever watched the debates in Parliament, with the Prime Minister in the thick of it, you’d know it’s measurably different from the way US Presidents are generally treated.

Certainly, it must have been difficult being a woman in a very male-dominated field, as the movie Iron Lady made clear. I thought that film, picking up her story in her dotage, was rather unfair, even though finely acted by Meryl Streep, who got her well-deserved Oscar. Speaking of unfairness, I found it very distressing that she has repeatedly been referred to by the c-word; amazingly sexist.

I should note that Mikhail Gorbachev said that she helped end the Cold War. You can read Parade magazine touts her accomplishments.

Racialicious’ take on Roger Ebert. I must say getting the Westboro Baptist Church to fuss at his funeral must be a badge of honor.

Evanier has more about Carmine Infantino.

Van Cliburn, and the Temptations

I saw the Temptations perform live twice.

When I was growing up, pianist Van Cliburn was the most famous classical musician in the United States. He had an album sell a million copies, unheard of in the genre. It was a function, in part, of the fact that when he won a prestigious competition in the Soviet Union, he was considered a Cold Warrior.

The only problem, as Dustbury noted, is that Cliburn never saw himself that way; he just loved playing the music. Listen to the link Jaquandor provided, and read the sweet story, while you’re at it.
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I was a HUGE fan of the singing group The Temptations from roughly 1964 to 1984; I could even tell you roughly when members came and went. Damon Harris (upper right) came into the group in 1971 to be the high-range vocalist after Eddie Kendrick left for a solo career; he left in 1975, having sung on Papa Was a Rolling Stone. He was only 62 when he died, succumbing to prostate cancer, which, not incidentally, is what killed my father.

Richard Street (upper left), though, was an even more vital part of the Temps history. He was part of The Distants back in the late 1950s with future Temptations Otis Williams (the sole surviving original member of the Temps; lower left) and Melvin Franklin (lower middle). Paul Williams (no relation to Otis) started having problems with alcoholism and depression. “By 1969, Richard Street… was touring with the group as a backup replacement for [Paul] Williams. For most shows, save for his solo numbers, Williams would dance and lip-sync on stage to parts sung live by Street into an offstage mic behind a curtain. At other shows, and during most of the second half of 1970, Street substituted for Williams on stage.” When Paul Williams left the group, Street replaced him in 1971 and stayed until 1992.

I saw the Temptations perform live twice, c 1982 during the reunion tour when Kendrick and David Ruffin temporarily rejoined the group, which was one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen; and c 1984, on a double bill with the Four Tops, a lesser event because it was at a baseball field, Heritage Park just outside Albany. Of course, Street was a participant in both shows. In the former show, when four of the original Temps did some of their old hits, it was Street once again filling in for the late Paul Williams. BTW, that’s Dennis Edwards pictured in the lower right; he had replaced Ruffin, and is still alive.

Richard Street died at the age of 70.

Does Petula Clark know about Petula Lark? New album by the 80-year-old Clark, including a cover of her massive hit Downtown.

Ken Levine wrote about the 30th anniversary of the last episode of the TV show MASH. I was a huge fan of the show from about midway through the first season until partway through the eighth. I’ve long thought, though, that they should have quit when Radar left in the eighth year. That bloated 2.5-hour program, still the TV finale with the highest ratings, I pretty much hated. I think MAD magazine nailed it.
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The YouTube video for Tim O’Toole’s book The American Pope.

 

Ramblin' with Roger
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