| During a debate on legislation that would require a minimum of
three hours of "educational and informative" television
each day, a USA Today article quoted readers' viewpoints on
the definition of "educational and informative". One
show that brought about disagreement among readers was "I
Love Lucy," a favorite of mine.
The view of many adult panelists was expressed by a Detroit
reader: "While some of life's valuable lessons may be
included in shows designed primarily for entertainment, that does
not qualify them as educational. Education can be fun, but
it is a disciplined activity. 'I Love Lucy' just doesn't fit the
bill."
The children who wrote to USA Today took a different view,
pointing out that "I Love Lucy" teaches valuable lessons
about the consequences of one's actions. They saw Lucy Ricardo,
whose escapades often backfire, as a sort of reverse role model,
and the show as something of a morality play. This is an
intriguing perspective, because Shakespeare's plays developed from
comic characters in early morality plays, and his theatrical
productions, written for audiences of a broad social background,
were the "popular entertainment" of the day. As
author-historian Frank Wadsworth noted in his World Book
entry on Shakespeare, "Most of the Globe's audience consisted
of middle-class citizens, such as merchants and craftsmen and
their wives. They went to the theater for the same reasons most
people today go to the movies - to relax and to escape for a while
from their cares."
Shakespeare's plays were written with the intention of
entertaining a mass audience, just as many TV sitcoms and dramas
are written now. At the time they were written, his plays were
definitely not considered "educational and
informative"; nor would they have "fit the bill" as
a "disciplined activity". It was only from a later
perspective that Shakespeare's plays were deemed
"educational". In his day, there was even some criticism
of Shakespeare as an actor-turned writer, uneducated in
traditional theatrical production. Had television been invented in
Elizabethan times, it does not seem too far-fetched to imagine
that "Hamlet" would have been one of the first TV
dramas, criticized for its violence and passion. Today, of course,
Shakespeare's plays are considered a required part of a
"disciplined education," with the unfortunate result of
dissuading many students from enjoying the pleasures of his works.
Clearly, the determination of whether a production is
"educational" can change over time. Ultimately, any show
can provide "educational and informative" material and
food for thought on the thinking, fashions, roles, and lifestyles
of its time. In fact, early shows like "I Love Lucy" are
currently studied in university courses on American cultural
history.
But is "I Love Lucy" educational in the ways that
most people define that term? As a writer on parenting issues, I
have been impressed with the way parenting is presented on this
show. "Little Ricky" is consistently treated with more
love, kindness and patience than is depicted in most current
television families. From my perspective, nothing is more
"educational" than that which promotes and models
empathic parenting skills, especially as this essential topic is
not included in most school curricula.
My son believes he has learned a great deal from
"I Love Lucy" over the years, on many topics of
interest. Here are the subjects of some of our conversations about
this show: that a good show requires skilled writers; that
talented actors can improvise some of the best moments in a show;
that most of the currently produced shows are more violent, less
consistent in quality, and more poorly written than earlier shows;
that persistence (such as Lucille Ball's insistence that Desi be
her costar) can bring about success; that smoking was common in
the 1950's and not well understood; that marital roles have
changed over the decades; that an actor's personal life can be
very different from the role he or she plays; that if you look
into history you can sometimes discover where social changes may
have been introduced (such as the three episodes in which Little
Ricky is permitted to join his parents in bed when he needed
emotional support); that even loving couples may not be able to
sustain a marriage ... I could go on and on.
Children are born with an insatiable curiosity. As long as we
trust this process, and avoid destroying their curiosity through
doubts and threats, and stuffy definitions of what is
"educational" and what is not, children will continue to
learn from every experience they have. Any arbitrary
division of the child's experiences into "entertainment"
and "education" is inaccurate, misleading,
self-defeating, and ultimately harmful.
Something we all know at birth, but which is soon reprogrammed
by well-meaning but misinformed adults, is that anything and
everything on this planet is educational. We do a real
disservice when we teach a child that only some things are
"educational", meaning "dull",
"difficult", "serious", "for their own
good", and something they would never want to investigate on
their own. This always backfires anyway, as children receive the
unintended but unavoidable message that the
"educational" topic being presented must be difficult
and dull, otherwise why is it being forced on them? Perhaps the
most non-educational thing we can do is to convince children that
"education" equates with "dreariness".
Children know intuitively that learning should be fun. With
this definition, "I Love Lucy" certainly "fits the
bill" in our house.
It may be that more people enjoyed Shakespeare's plays when
they were told it was "entertainment" than they do now
that they are told it is "educational". Let us hope the
same thing never happens to Lucy.
|
