All in the Family

Politics, Controversy, and Stereotypes

The 1970s were a time of cultural change, and All in the Family was both entertainment and a mirror of conservative versus liberal ideology in daily life. Newspapers and nightly news programs broadcast Vietnam War opposition, women's liberation struggles, new standards of morality, and changing attitudes about race and ethnicity across the nation.

Norman Lear, All in the Family's creator, believed that great humor came out of great pain and wanted to capitalize on these issues through what he imagined as a “tragicomedy” series. Typical television programs, unlike plays or films, however, depended less on plot and more on characters because of 30-minute time restrictions. Lear envisioned a new program videotaped before a live studio audience that would serve as a window into an authentic family's generational disagreements.

Norman Lear was further inspired by a British television comedy, Till Death Do Us Part, (1965–75) and with coproducer Bud Yorkin changed the lead character from a mean, bigoted dockworker to a likable blue-collar laborer in Queens with intolerant viewpoints. Archie worked through his wrenching social issues, misperceptions, and prejudices with counterpoint provided by the rest of his extended family. In summary, the characters at 704 Houser Street were Archie, a man with narrow-minded values and dismissive of anyone not in agreement with him, and his stay-at-home, somewhat naïve wife Edith, who catered to her husband's every need. By contrast, daughter Gloria Stivic and husband Mike, a full-time graduate student and counterculture radical, were both liberal-minded idealists who enthusiastically endeavored to fight racism, sexism, and Archie's old-fashioned thinking. Politically and socially misguided Archie used myriad inflammatory racial epithets, bullied his “dingbat” wide Edith, and fought with his “Polack pinko meathead” son-in-law Mike.

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