Keller @ Large: Brady Bunch Creator Sherwood Schwartz & American Women
BOSTON (CBS) - Sherwood Schwartz passed away yesterday at the ripe old age of 94, and if you don't have the slightest idea who he was, you're not alone.
But unless you grew up over the past four decades in one of the few American households without a television, you know - and have been seriously affected by - Sherwood Schwartz's work, specifically, the social impact of his most popular creation, the 1960s sitcom "The Brady Bunch."
Back in 1969 when "The Brady Bunch" hit the screen, a large and fast-growing minority of American marriages were ending in divorce, and the remarriages that often occurred were resulting in the rise of a phenomenon we take for granted today, the blended family of kids from prior unions. But "The Brady Bunch" was the first show to depict a blended family, the wife with her three daughters, the husband with his three sons.
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In the process of showing how these families could function and thrive, "The Brady Bunch" repeatedly showed the Brady girls struggling to win fair treatment, a sitcom reflection of the building social pressure for women's rights and social equality.
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In one episode I watched yesterday on YouTube, Marcia forces her brother Greg's scout troop to accept her after handling all the physical challenges they can think to throw at her. But she chooses not to accept their final initiation.
It was all about proving a point, that women and girls deserved respect and equality, not gender stereotyping and marginalization.
OK, it was a sitcom, and Marcia in the end prefers looking at fashion magazines with her mom to attending any more scout meetings. But the point "The Brady Bunch" made was a good one, and it came at a time when that message was reaching a huge audience not necessarily exposed to it otherwise.
The power of television isn't always, or even often, used for positive social purposes. But Sherwood Schwartz was the exception to that rule, almost enough for us to forgive him his transgressions, like his other big hit: "Gilligan's Island."
