Sitcoms: Past and Present

All in the Family, which was a popular TV show in the 70s has many of the same features of sitcoms today. The way the characters interact with each other is very similar, there is always the character who appears less intelligent than the others, as well as the character who is not accepting of whatever issue is being discussed during the show, along with the one's who are trying to open the audience's minds to accept the new view of the specific issue. These roles are the key elements to the hilarious situations the characters get themselves into.
However, All in the Family also differs from sitcoms today. Mainly this occurs in the types of problems that are talked about, but also in the language that is used, and the roles I described above played by different kinds of people. In All in the Family, the person who's intelligence appears to be less than the rest is, of course, a woman because that was societies collective way of viewing women at the time. Also the way the daughter acts towards her husband as kind of a servant in the kitchen reflects this stereotype of the times. In current shows, such as How I met your Mother, roles of cast members are not quite as gender biased. While sometimes stereotypes like that are used to incite comedy that is the only reason, because the views in society have changed and people can accept independent women as a character and not just see that as a comical situation.
The issues talked about in this episode of All in the Family were somewhat outdated but still relevant to issues talked about in shows today. Some of the side issues in All in the family were about how Archie didn't like giving people handouts and how he hated the welfare program. This issue while still has some relevance today, the majority of society has embraced helping those who are most in need and feel that the welfare program does more good for the less fortunate than it does bad for the upper classes. Another side topic was how going on strike affected the economy and cost of American goods along with how buying non-American made things also contributes to the problem. This problem is the most outdated, even though it still has an effect on society today, it isn't as big of a deal and wouldn't be the focus of a discussion on a TV show. The main issue in this episode of All in the Family was if it was acceptable to be gay. Archie represented the mindset of the nation in the 70s which is also still quite an issue today. The only difference today is more focused on getting gay people rights because they have slowly been accepted as part of our culture. While sitcoms having issues about gay people today may still be semi-controversial, this episode was extremely controversial in the 70s because so many people had the same opinions portrayed by Archie that gay men were bad for society. Luckily those views have become less severe but acceptance of gay men is still a large problem with society and therefore is reflective of how past and present media have similar ideals.