MovieChat Forums > Leave It to Beaver (1957) Discussion > This isn't what the 50's was really like...

This isn't what the 50's was really like.

posted 8 years ago by shadaif
72 replies | jump to latest

I often worry that people think this show (and Donna Reed, Andy Griffith, Father Knows Best) present a factual account of 50's life. While the show and TV at the time was "wholesome" 50's reality was harshly different. Teen pregnancy was just as common except girls were sent off to convents or unwed mothers' homes where they were forced to endure painful childbirths and their babies were taken away without them even getting a chance to see them. Women were trapped in abusive marriages because divorce was illegal in many states. Segregation and racism was the accepted norm. I get really sick and tired of people longing for "the good old days." They never existed. We should never want to return to an era where one race or gender is allowed social dominance. The only part about the 50's that we should "yearn for" is the ability to support a family on a single income. But, even back then, 60% of households had two working parents.

YOUR VOTE MATTERS! Please vote in every election. Thank you.

[–] mobocracy (903) 4 years ago

Unmarried child bearing was pretty low, most statistics show unmarried births at under 15% until the mid 1960s, despite the overall birth rate being much higher. While segregation and racism were much worse, how does the life portrayed on LITB change because of this? It was probably still idyllic for the Cleavers, they weren't minorities and segregation and racism would have been irrelevant to their lives. I mean, slavery still exists in the third world but it doesn't really change my day to day life because it doesn't have any impact on it.

[–] TimMC (9143) 4 years ago

I cried all the way through your post.

LOL.

Not really.

[–] TandyMan (11351) 4 years ago

I don't know, this sounds pretty great to me. All humans should suffer.

[–] pioneergrrrl (2412) 4 years ago

Don't worry I know that my dad grew up in a home where his dad was a fall down drunk who beat his mom.

[–] liscarkat (19418) 4 years ago

The OP has no idea what he's talking about. He makes it sound like the 1950s were some kind of nightmare. He sounds like a brainless leftist to whom everything is negative and there must always be a crisis to complain about, even if he has to invent one. But the first mistake he makes is that he doesn't realize that "Leave it to Beaver" was a lightweight sitcom about the everyday adventures of a cute little kid, not a solemn woke commentary on misery, oppression, and racism. Actually, "Leave it to Beaver" bears quite a good resemblance to my childhood in the 1950s, except that in real life everything wasn't funny and my mom didn't wear pearls to do housework. Of course, somewhere outside of my neighborhood somebody was suffering, somewhere. There has always been suffering, and there always will be. That's not what the show was about. There were plenty of cop shows, westerns, and soap operas to watch in the 1950s that were all about people killing each other or suffering in one way or another. Sitcoms exist to allow us to escape from life's miseries for half an hour, a concept that is probably over the head of a humorless social activist.

[–] kenburke (2397) 4 years ago

Leave it to Beaver was what the ROMANTICIZED 50's were really like.

[–] bond998 (1213) 4 years ago

Well 80's Sitcoms had no mention of the Aids Crisis, Iran Contra, the Challenger Exploding. Realistically characters like Sam Malone should have checked with Doctor Regularly to make sure he didn't have HIV. It dosnt surprise me that 50's sitcoms didn't highlight some of the more unsavory parts of the decade.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

People who hate their lives always say, "There were no good old days!"