Anti-American Dreams
by Laura Craig Mason © 2003

It’s a weird fact that the television show 'The Wonder Years' came out the same year as John Water’s film ‘Hairspray’. One was a show reveling in it’s own mediocrity, another was a film humorously dealing with some heavy issues in a not so heavy way. One can’t help but find it even odder that another show, 'American Dreams,' would (a decade later) would choose to tread the same bland ground in the same non-confrontational way that ‘TWY’ had. Has it been long enough since we watched Fred Savage’s simple face muddle through the murky waters of the 60's? Do we really want to live through it again via a Sunday night television drama?

Acknowledge the fact that pop singers like ‘Usher’ really can’t hold a candle to the artists they portray (Marvin Gaye, in his case) and that all other singing stars are a mixture of blurry filmed extras and spliced old footage, and you start to see that this is a lot of shadow and a lack of substance.

The writers and producers picked a safe year to start their characters' world in: 1963. What would the 60's be without the assassination of a president and the ‘American Bandstand’ show? Dick Clark, the head producer of the new NBC drama ('coincidentally' the host of 'American Bandstand') has at least, so far, kept the facts and timings from blurring, overlapping or straight out lying. Although, if this show lasts longer than a year we’ll see if they uproot the secondary cast (the staff of the teen dance show) for sunny CA.

What is bothersome about this show isn’t a unique problem and actually it’s a problem that pervades all television. The cast and characters lack any real diversity or depth. Dealing with ‘issues of racism’ always translates into one or two African-American characters, with no other races or ethnicities represented. There is no mention of poverty although an economic struggle is always hinted at. Any sexism that is covered is carefully kept repressed within the confines of the Catholic Church (which hasn’t changed its stances since the 60's) so that any action towards actual family planning still feels revolutionary. While the son is shoved against a wall in one episode, the fact that child abuse was still common at this time (as it is still common now) goes completely ignored. All in all the past has been sanitized enough to prevent any real introspection, and we all get to pat ourselves on the back for surviving such ‘tough but important' times. Well, the people who were around then and choose to foist their revisionist nostalgia on the rest of us, at least.

As far as individual characters (when seperated from their decade-specific contexts) and dialog goes, at best the show is dull. Like so many Speilberg films there are constant and clumsy jabs at the tear ducts. Whether it’s big brother winning the big game or big sister not getting the date, no story is fleshed out or original enough for audience interest. In an effort to achieve sentimentality for all of the Baby Boomers out there the show has been scrubbed squeaky clean and free of any realism. But that’s the way ‘real Americans’ like their television, no matter the decade.