whachoo talkin' about?

The love of my life has another love that rules her world.
A love that should never be spoken.

A love. . .of Diff'rent Strokes.

When a boxed set of the first season of the Gary Coleman hit arrived at our home **thanks Amazon marketplace** I laughed. I recalled watching the show in syndicated Saturday afternoon reruns while growing up in the 1980s, but I never thought it was anything special. In fact, it seemed kind of boring to my seven-year-old self.

But, OMG, this series is funny and smart in a way that almost seems impossible today. What happened to these goodhearted days? The humor has bite, DEFINITELY social awareness, but it lacks that unshakable, bitter sarcasm that infects today's comedy writing. Is the problem today that sitcoms like Diff'rent Strokes set out in the 1970s to make the world a better place, and just failed? Are today's comedy writers and television producers jaded by failed attempts at change, or are they just oblivious to such possibilities?

I think the most likely scenario is that television has just become more sophisticated. Sophistication does not equate with the warm fuzzy feeling I get at the end of each episode of Different Strokes. Sophistication has all kinds of causes, too. Probably the most powerful one is the almighty corporate advertising dollar. Ka-ching. In the end, producers/writers/actors want to get paid. Alot. The Hollywood lifestyle is expensive to maintain (Of course, I get that impression from reading the reams of magazines chronicling the lives of celebrities that arrive each week at the bookstore... isn't that a chicken or egg situation?). So, the idea's with good intentions have to find a way to serve the interests of advertising. And the interest of advertising are brutal. Manipulation through fear, pleasure, competitiveness. DS could not hold up today because viewers have more choices, and advertisers demand shows that get the ratings. So, shows need to be full of sex, unrealistic living situations, snarky humor... everything that DS is NOT. Granted, you have to take on a wing and a prayer Arnold and Willis' orphanhood, but can you imagine that DS did not have one sexy leading lady falling out of her blouse? And where are today's primetime television shows that give youth and voice that is not primarily whining, greedy and manipulative?

Maybe I need some other perspectives... was DS an anomaly of its time? I was busy watching Nick Jr. on the cable box when the series originally aired, so I don't remember any of its contemporaries. I guess I should acquire a cable box again, so I can tune in to see Nick at Night reruns of the Jeffersons and All My Family. But, these shows don't have a lot of meaning to me at this time. But, from all of my television history knowledge, I know that they pushed the envelope in terms of discussing social issues.

I know this post goes all over the place, but, amazingly, watching disc one of the first season of DS woke up all new questions in me about what I know about popular culture, race relations, social change, comedy, portrayal of black youth in the media... it is going to take more words to process this.