Sexism "then" and "Now": Gagablog 167

Some media magic last week prompted me to write this, another interlude, this one short, before getting back on "the right track" with this gagablog. It was two things I saw and heard, maybe a day apart, that prompted me to write.

The first was an episode of "Leave it to Beaver" that was probably from 1959 or so. In it Wally is going to a dance but his only way to get there is if his date, a girl, drives. This is totally unacceptable to him, being driven by a girl, and he fears it will make him a social outcast. Lumpy does try to get the other guys to harass him for it and everyone seems to understand why he is upset about it and the way they all talk about it - except his date - shows that this is "the way everyone thinks" that it is embarrassing for a boy to be driven by a girl.

But of course watching this 60 years later it seems so archaic, such an ancient and outdated way to think, that a woman can't drive a man. I speculated there are still people, today, who think this way -maybe they request male drivers on their Uber apps, or are shocked if a female driver arrives and orders another Uber. But it seems unlikely, as if only one in a hundred people would do that, today.

But in the 50's, apparently, by the way everyone acted, it was completely horrifying to a boy to be driven by a girl. Even in the episode, filmed in the late 50's or early 60's, the girl Wally is dating makes the comment that "Wally won't mind - he's not like the other boys, he's different."

This "difference" wasn't being "mature," in those days - Ward, Wally's dad, certainly understood his concern and could relate, had not aged out of this concern, in that culture. She was saying Wally was different because he was not influenced by those concerns, that he was more advanced than his "era" not just more advanced for his "age."

She was wrong - he was embarrassed and had to be told to keep the date when he was throwing a fit an refusing to go  - but he did learn, through the course of the episode and standing up to Lumpy, and ends up breaking spades on "letting girls drive" as a group of other kids end up riding with her, too.

She thinks Wally is "woke" and even though he isn't he starts to wake up, and wakes up other kids in the community with his example. The best thing about the episode, to me, was that she could assume he was better than the other boys, that he was Good where the others were faulty. This went against the current, that "everyone" thought boys should always drive girls, not the other way around. Even in the 50's there were some people who recognized injustice and KNEW, intuitively (in their hearts, where Justice originates) that girls and boys should be equal, and will be equal.

I find it easiest to say that this Good Future, that will be, is just what we all know, deep down, will happen. It makes it easier to think that way, to believe that way, but takes forever to talk that way because we aren't trained to use language like that, backwards from the future. That's why it's fun to find these moments in time where "past" and "future" meet, which happens all the time but we can notice it when the past shows us how far we've come - while we remember how far we still have to go.

I was feeling smug about the "progress" we have made, in 60 years, that it seems silly, now, to worry about a girl driving a boy in a car. But within 24 hours I heard another story, on the radio, that made me realize how far we have to go, how we really haven't changed at all, deep down, compared to the changes we need to make, to reach the Future.

There was an interview on the BBC radio with Glen Close who starred in the movie "Wife" that came on the next night. They mentioned that it had taken 14 years to make the movie because they could not find an actor to be a supporting actor to Glen Close, the lead. The interviewer seemed astounded by this, couldn't believe it, and mentioned how famous Glen Close was and how many awards she had won. When asked why they turned down the role Glen said basically "ego." She also mentioned how the business is still designed and people's perceptions are such that it's not good "business" to be the supporting male actor to the female lead and noted that the actor who did agree to do it did a fantastic job but was overlooked in awards even though she and the movie are nominated - it's apparently a great movie. And she says he is a great actor but it's true I did not recognize his name, Gregory Price maybe - but I can think of dozens or hundreds of other "lead male actors" who are more famous - and must have turned down the role.

Of course they didn't ask EVERY male actor but if you imagine that they DID ask numerous "Big Name" actors - and ALL of them turned it down, over the course of 14 years you know they weren't "busy" the whole time. The reason was the sexism of the business, of the culture, that makes it "not a good idea, professionally" - and the egotism and built-in sexism of each individual actor.

They didn't name names but if you imagine who they would have approached to be in a movie with Glen Close you can imagine all sorts of famous actors and know that at least some of those, and others, turned this movie down. For 14 years.

Why?

It's the exact same principle as 60 years ago, on "Leave it to Beaver" and accepted in "Golden Age America" - as so many morons see it.

It's the same things as a boy not wanting a girl to drive him in a car. In 1959.

The Boy Stars didn't want a Girl Star driving them in a movie. Until 2019.

And even now Price is the first Star to do it, like Wally was the first one to break this taboo in his school.

So in 60 years we went from Boys not letting Girls drive them in a car to Boys riding in Girl-driven cars - but not letting Girls be the lead in a movie.

Wally is a Good Kid, well-intentioned, fairly nice and raised to be respectful and kind - but still suffers from the sexism of the times he lives in though that Goodness helps him overcome it. His dad is even "better", as a person, but is still a product of such a sexist age he never challenges Wally on the sexism of his situation but accepts that this is how the kids are about "these things."

But Wally, as a character, DOES come to see things differently, to awaken and help others out of these bad ideas.

The movie stars of Hollywood and the world aren't "just characters" - they are famous, rich, powerful, influential people, some of the most influential people on the planet, potentially. And they even enjoy a reputation for being "liberal." And yet, today, it still took 14 years to get one of them to take a supporting role - to Glen Close! You would think, if they weren't just being egotistical, they would know that being in a movie with her as the star would give them a lot of attention and consideration for awards - unless they know that "it doesn't work that way" - due to sexism. Still, keeping things this way instead of being the one to change it is ALWAYS wrong.

It's wrong for Wally, who is "just a character" - because he is supposed to be good and become better in the show. He's a Good Guy, basically. But all of these boy actors are wrong to refuse to support a girl lead in a movie, too. And they are "more wrong" because Wally is just "some schmuck" by comparison, a likeable enough kid in school but not particularly powerful or influential. But all these stars KNOW they are the ones holding back gender equality and just live being wrong and thereby increasing and prolonging wrongness.

The stars aren't just holding back the movie by refusing to make it - for fourteen years. They are holding back the moment of "breaking through", of being the first male star to play a supporting role to a female lead actor. I like the word actress, by the way, for the same reason I call myself a witch even though I'm a two-spirit boy.

And actors, movie makers, are some of the strongest influencers and creators of culture.

That episode of "Leave it to Beaver" was designed, at that time, to change these sexist attitudes, to modify them slightly at least, and was intended to change behavior of the sexist population who accepted that "no boy would be seen being driven by a girl" - at least for driving. By comparison I recently saw an episode of the Partridge Family that addressed "Women's Liberation" "head-on": it must have been a decade or two later and brought up some ideas but was really awfully "neutral" in a lot of ways and contained "warnings" about taking it too far.

The Movie Stars know that they create, craft, and steer culture and the ideas we live by - we still refer to levels of Gay Acceptance in society as "pre-Ellen" and Post-Ellen, for example. And they know that if they are the first one to star supporting a female lead it will make it easier for future actors to make that decision, too - the only way to end the sexism in the system is to start working against it.

And I'm not writing this to condemn modern movie stars as "nowhere near as liberal as they need to be" - it's about recognizing how deep these ideas and attitudes go, how persistent they are.

I was feeling smug, for humanity, that in 60 years we can look back and see refusing to ride with a girl as being silly. But a quarter of that time, 14 years, we still didn't have an actual movie star in the real, Modern and "more progressive, tolerant" world who would be in "Wife" with Glen Close. (As I type that Loni Anderson is doing a commercial for WKRP In Cincinnati and it reminds me she is the Only reason most people probably ever saw that show.)

But my smugness was gone a day later when I realized the Boys still won't let the girls drive the movies. And I knew that, anecdotally, from the way people have pointed it out more in recent years and from my own lifelong sensitivity to sexism. But I was still shocked to hear that it took 14 years to make "Wife" because they couldn't find an actor to do it.

It's just that we haven't actually changed, deep down, haven't changed enough - we still have far to go.

We can see the perfect examples of everything wrong with us in Trump: sexism, racism, and unscrupulous greed and abuse of "power" required to maintain such an unhealthy system. But we have to root it out of the deepest parts of Ourselves, not just the highest offices of government - we need to become our best selves to do EVERYTHING that needs to be done to save the world, we can't rest on thinking "I'm Woke, I let a girl drive me and only threw a fit for a day, first."

As I typed this, wanting to keep it short, there was an episode of "Wagon Train" on and it caught my eye because June Lockheart was the "mother" in it and I'd spent many hours as a kid with her as my TV mom watching Lassie. The episode was intense, she had been raped by an Indian while her husband was on an Indian-scaring raid with his racist friend who believed Indians had killed his dad and driven his mom to silence so he was stoking up anti-Indian sentiment all the time. She was pregnant and her husband insisted she give the baby to the Indians to raise because the society would be against the kid. He made some poignant comments about how it was okay to be alone when they were on the frontier, when "no one else lived there" but it was terrible to be alone with other people around, people who wouldn't talk to him. He tried to keep his friend, or anyone, from knowing about the baby but the hero - from the Wagon Train - got the midwife, his friend's wife, against the man's wishes. And when they find out the baby is Indian the racism takes over and they shun them. The Hero kicks the man out of his house for abusing his wife, threatening to take the child when she will fight him to keep it, and she thanks him. Then he goes to get the friend, they have a fist fight and the blood shocks the racist man's mom out of her stupor. She reveals that the Indians did not kill his dad and destroy their farm, it was a White man. Then the racist checks himself and apologizes, to the Hero, then to his friend and explains to him "You know how I had to hate all Indians because one Indian killed my pa? Well now I have to figure out how to hate all white people because that's who it really was, a white man."

Of course he is being "sarcastic" in a way but it points out the insanity of racism, how it just doesn't make any sense. The husband makes it make all kinds of sense why they can't keep the baby - recognizing the racism of the town and even says, if they take the Wagon Train, they still have to give the baby away because "people are the same all over" and no one will accept them.

But when his friend realizes how wrong he was he has a change of heart and it changes the whole town, around him. This is how it has to work, the wrongest of us needs to wake up to the wrongness - but we all have that "wrongest" part in us that needs to wake up, the "town" in the show, or America in the news, is an analogy for what is wrong within each of us.

I wrote months, years ago, that Trump was a Troll but as such, a useful tool for overcoming our own ego - because Ego is the problem, blocking our access to the Heart.

The end of the Wagon Train episode has the racist family visiting the new baby and when their little girl says "That's an Indian baby! I guess I shouldn't have touched it" and they all seem embarrassed - though the parents were saying far worse an hour before  - June Lockheart sums it up by saying something like "They learn to hate and love what we teach them and the younger they are the faster they learn." No one says anything beyond that to correct the little girl, June just looks at her baby - almost to say "well that 7-year-old has already learned racism pretty well, better focus on this new one."

Of course, the Parents, the Husband - all of them are New to not being racist after decades of practicing it and teaching it - but they were not beyond redemption and neither is their little girl. Still, they have to be redeemed, to transform - and we all need that, at any age.

That final scene, like the whole episode, was emblematic of looking fearfully at the past versus looking hopefully for the future, but also knowing that we are all on the frontier of it. We all have a role to play to make the future happen - some of us need to change who we are, overcome evil ideas, and others need to live out the goodness we know about ourselves and become even better.

The best thing about that show, to me, was emphasizing how this baby was innocent  - the definition of innocence, a baby - but was subject to the evils of people and their wrong ideas of Justice. Racism makes people say some people are "guilty" or its worth it to punish innocent people if some people who are "like them" are deemed "guilty" - but everyone is innocent like that baby, just born to be who they are and introducing the judgment of "guilty" on people you don't even know is the source of the Evil, the cause of the evil, that gets perpetuated throughout society.

We just need to Cut It Out, all of it, and we can grow, evolve, into paradise, the best dreams for humanity. We need to cut it out of our government and that seems tough since it is so entrenched.

But we CAN do it, magically, if we believe that we have SOME to cut out of ourselves, too, and seek to find that and remove it - that quest will have magical effects and teach us magical lessons about how to do it in the "Outside" world, too.

Dreams are from our hearts and for Everyone, they bring us all together - give them a chance, give up on the things that hold us all back, let's learn to love and trust each other!

Thanks for reading, sharing, and doing something! Paws up, Gaga, I love you forever!

PS: My spellcheck doesn't recognize "Uber" but also doesn't recognize "Wagon". Also it was racist but when Red Hawk's wife came to take the baby she said "I take care" to reassure the mother and when she gave him back she said "You be Very Happy Now"