All tagged Social Justice

The Television Sitcom: Social Change Through Laughter

So many of us take television for granted, relegating it to the lowest echelons of entertainment without giving it the due for the creative and cultural force that it is. TV holds a great deal of power, being the most-accessible of all entertainment forms, besting theatre and television for price and instant gratification. With this in mind, we have to concede that television has the greatest influence on our individual and collective social psyches, shaping how we see and greet the world. TV offers opportunities for us to see how other people live, people who may not be like ourselves. Laughter is something that is also universally understood. People like to laugh, by themselves and even more so with others. It is no surprise that one of the most beloved forms of television storytelling is the situation comedy, a device for creating humor by putting characters in relatable (if often extreme) situations where they learn and grow. The greatest leaps and bounds of social change in our country have occurred when a television audience was presented with topical and challenging material though the refreshing catharsis of laughter provided by the sitcom?  

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Hair at 50 and The Women’s Marches

This year, the musical Hair turns 50. Radical for its day with its unyielding assessment of 1960s America: civil rights, the Vietnam War, government corruption, its inclusion of LGB characters (the Q & T are inferred, I suppose), its embrace of rock & roll for the musical stage, it is interesting that its anniversary coincides so closely with the inauguration of “President” Donald Trump, and far more importantly, the historic Women’s marches that breathe a new hope into our hearts and resolve for change. Are we really, fifty-years-later, having to refight the battles of the 60s that are so represented as a powerful collage in the musical Hair?