Lucy & Betty: Women Seeking Experience in the 1950s Sitcom
Throughout the past fifty years, the conventions of the situation comedy have remained unchanged. Though the landscapes have progressed from the traditional home-life of The Cleavers in Leave It To Beaver to the sexual politics of shows like Will & Grace, the primary structure of most sitcoms is the same: introduce a conflict only to ultimately reaffirm the status quo, and do so in approximately twenty-two minutes. Not only does this standard act as an integral formal element of the sitcom, but it also has thematic implications, particularly when considering disadvantaged groups.
Both television and women were negotiating their positions within society during the 1950s. Television was a burgeoning format, “investing itself and its place in American culture” (Landay, 88). Women, meanwhile, were experiencing a push back towards traditional roles after World War II had allowed them to enter the workforce at unprecedented rates. Television, with its inherently consumerist nature, became a weapon of sorts for helping to define the acceptable and desirable roles and environments of the American middle-class. But were all sitcoms blindly upholding standards of traditional gender roles? When considering two of the earliest, successful sitcoms, I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best, it can be argued that these shows, while to some degree supporting conventional ideas of domesticity, were also reflecting the tension and unrest felt by many American women of the time.
I Love Lucy is ostensibly about the marriage and hijinks of urban couple Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, played by real-life spouses Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. But as Larry Lopez (later to be renamed Ricky Ricardo) laments in the show’s 1951 pilot, “I want a wife who’s just a wife” (Landay, 90). This tension acts as the crux of the show: trickster Lucy, dissatisfied with her life at home, schemes her way out of the confines of her role. This conflict is well articulated in the 1952 episode, “Lucy Does a TV Commercial.” The episode begins with a shot of Lucy darning a sock. Though a fairly simple household task, Lucy manages to botch it, perhaps subtlety commenting on the notion that all women naturally make great homemakers. However, where such a fault would be chastised in more misogynistic sitcoms like Leave It To Beaver, Ricky merely laughs it off, suggesting a slightly more progressive attitude.
Soon after, Lucy finds out that Ricky’s television show needs a girl to the do the commercial and she begs for the opportunity. When Ricky points out that Lucy “lacks ‘sperience [sic],” Lucy retorts that she would be good “if someone would give [her] a chance.” Once again, the show uses subtle quips like this to challenge contemporary gender politics. In this case, Lucy’s reply could be viewed as a wider comment on the lack of opportunities that women have to prove themselves in less traditional roles outside the home.
Lucy manages to scheme her way into the commercial job but her plan falls apart when the product she’s promoting (and therefore consuming), Vitameatavegamin, contains 23% alcohol. Ball’s comedic prowess makes the sequence an instant classic, and the gags remain as funny today as they were over half a century ago. What’s interesting to consider about this scene, though, is where the root of Lucy’s failure lies. Neither Lucy, nor the producer, is aware that “Vitameatavegamin” contains alcohol—this is only revealed to the audience by a stage assistant. Thus, Lucy’s failure is not directly attributable to herself personally or to her gender, but rather situational forces beyond her control.
It is in this way that “Lucy Does a TV Commercial” most challenges the notions of traditional gender roles and the forces that are keeping women at home. For the ideology of the 1950s to remain intact, certain assumptions needed to be confirmed. These include the idea of a specific skill set inherent in women that makes them suitable for domestic work, as well as the characteristics women were lacking. If a woman’s failure is attributed to anything but her own personal and biological characteristics, then institutional structures must be reexamined and the entire system is threatened.
This concept of failure attribution marks the difference between Lucy’s situation in “Lucy Does a TV Commercial,” and Betty Anderson’s failure in the 1954 Father Knows Best episode “Betty, Girl Engineer.” In this episode, Betty, daughter of Margaret and James, decides that she’d like to pursue engineering as a career. Similar to Lucy, Betty finds the domestic sphere unappealing and expresses her excitement of finally finding her calling in a profession, one that will inevitably keep her out of the home.
The Anderson family does not take her ambition seriously. When Betty claims she has aptitude for the job, her father retorts that she hasn’t reached a hard enough math level. Her mother brushes off her announcement that she’ll be shadowing a surveying crew, insisting Betty try on a new dress instead. From the beginning, the cards are stacked against Betty’s favor, as the show works to maintain traditional gender roles, going as far to make a complete mockery of women. In an early scene, a female classmate of Betty’s announces, “I want to be a ski instructor—they have such cute clothes!” only to ask a teacher moments later, “How do you spell cinema?”
Ultimately, Betty only lasts half a day at her surveying internship, proving her father right. Even more disconcerting, Betty ends up accepting a date from a man on the surveying crew, the very one who drove her away from the job. Outwardly, this show may be viewed as only upholding gender conventions. But when considering the place held by Father Knows Best in the American consciousness at the time, it can be argued that there are other, more challenging forces at work within the episode.
As Mary Beth Haralovich notes in her essay, “Positioning the 1950s Homemaker,” “Father Knows Best…was applauded for realigning family gender roles, for making ‘polite, carefully middle-class, family-type entertainment, possibly the most non-controversial show on the airwaves’” (71). For a show as “non-controversial” as Father Knows Best, the introduction of such a topic at odds with traditional ideals as Betty’s situation is inherently progressive. That is, the show was addressing the unspoken tension and unrest felt by women during the mid-1950s by attempting to articulate, though ultimately realign, a “problem” which must have existed, otherwise a show such as Father Knows Best, would not have addressed it.
While not providing a necessarily successful challenge to gender ideals, this episode articulated a growing unrest, as well as growing tensions between the “social economy” directed at women and woman’s need for experience. Both Betty and Lucy were seeking experiences outside the home, but in Betty’s case, those around her were trying to distract her with dresses and material things girls should want.
So when considering these two episodes, which, if either, ideological position wins? Though I Love Lucy seems to be subtlety challenging the status quo, no concessions are made and the audience is to assume that things return to equilibrium once Lucy sobers up, as is mandated by sitcom conventions. Later, Lucille Ball’s real life pregnancy is integrated into the show, and the Ricardo’s are no longer a childless couple, further aligning their family with the typical notions of American middle-class life (Landay, 92). Father Knows Best, being the most traditional and wholesome of family sitcoms, is naturally oriented towards ultimately upholding gender roles.
However, it’s important to consider the political and economic factors intrinsically tied to television. Advertising was, as it is today, integral to the success of television programming. With the homemaker as an important market for the 1950s economy, it was in the advertisers’ best interests (and therefore television writer’s best interests) to further propagate the ideal of the homemaker, with her perfect home, appliances, and apparel.
I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best, though two very different sitcoms each with its own comedic style, did not exist within a vacuum and therefore were reflexive to the social issues of their time. While neither may have made particularly progressive stances in favor of the advancement of women, both offer insight into the social consciousness of 1950s America.
Works Cited
Dalton, Mary M., and Laura R. Linder, eds. The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Print.
Haralovich, Mary Beth. “Sitcoms and Suburbs: Positioning the 1950s Homemaker.” Critiquing the Sitcom: A Reader. Ed. Joanne Morreale. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003. 69-85. Print.