The Moral Conscience of All in the Family

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People often forget how groundbreaking All in the Family was. And much of it was because of Edith (Jean Stapleton). She was never the dingbat Archie said she was. She was, in fact, the conscience of the show.

A couple of days ago I wrote about how the sitcom addressed sexism — at a time when it wasn't really a topic of conversation. We live in a time when a woman has been nominated for president and three women sit on the Supreme Court; the subject matter of that episode probably seems quaint to many people who weren't around when All in the Family was on the air.

Ironically Edith wasn't the conscience of that program, but the theme of the series evolved so that, five years later, Edith was the moral influence on the family.

Forty years ago today, All in the Family took on homosexuality, another topic that wasn't popular in the 1970s — and, in its typical fashion, did so in an unexpected way.

As the episode "Cousin Liz" began, Archie (Carroll O'Connor) and Edith had traveled to New Jersey for the funeral of one of Edith's cousins, Liz, who had died unexpectedly. As the Bunkers prepared in their motel room to go to the service, Edith lamented the fact that Liz had never married and Archie revealed that he had once had a crush on Liz.

"What did you do about it?" Edith asked.

"I kissed her," Archie replied.

"Was that all?" Edith asked.

"She wouldn't do nothin' else," Archie said.

No one — Archie, Edith, the audience — realized how much that said about who Liz really was.

Homosexuality simply wasn't brought up in those days. Roommates of the same sex were presumed to be in a platonic relationship, perhaps sharing a place to live to save on expenses; at least that is how it was always presented on TV. In Liz's case, she had been living with a woman (Veronica Cartwright) for a couple of decades, but everyone in the All in the Family universe assumed that, being low–paid teachers, they did so to save money.

Well, that may have been part of it, but in truth they were lesbians. The fact that they kept the true nature of their relationship secret is entirely consistent with the way things were in those days. Even Edith didn't know about her cousin's sexual orientation.

But she was about to find out.

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As Liz's closest living relative, Edith stood to inherit a valuable tea service that had been in the family for years and had been in Liz's possession when she died. So she brought it up with Liz's roommate at a post–funeral reception.

But Liz's roommate asked Edith if she could keep it, explaining that she and Liz had shared tea in the afternoons after school. It was a time they eagerly anticipated each day, a time that was set aside just for them.

When Edith pressed her on the matter, Cartwright tried to explain that she and Liz had been lovers, telling Edith that their relationship was "like a marriage."

That was hard for Edith to understand. Her concept of marriage was a traditional one, but her faith in love transcended that.

Edith had many memorable moments during the series' run, but some of her finest were in the episode that aired on this night in 1977.

She told Cartwright that she was sorry she knew the truth — not because she didn't approve but because Cartwright had lost the love of her life, and that grieved a kind soul like Edith's. And she told Cartwright she could keep the tea service because she really was Liz's next of kin — a status that has only been legally recognized in the United States in recent years.

But Archie would be a problem. Once he knew the value of the tea service, he had to have it — or, at least, had to have the money it would bring.

When Edith told him the truth about Liz's relationship, he threatened legal action, which would have meant the end of Cartwright's teaching career. That didn't bother Archie.

"Who the hell wants people like that teachin' our kids?" he bellowed. "I'm sure God don't! God's sittin' in judgment ..."

"Well, sure he is," Edith replied, "but he's God. You ain't!"

(I've always thought that is pretty good advice for anyone who presumes to speak for God on anything. And, in my experience, far too many do presume to speak for God.)

Then she shamed Archie for considering what amounted to blackmail, saying "I can't believe you'd do anything that mean."

Edith's assumption of the role of the family's moral conscience had been in progress for quite awhile, but I think it reached a turning point with this episode. Within the next few episodes, Archie — who had been a bigot's bigot from the start — moved so far to the center that he was taking on the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan. That was almost certainly the result of Edith's influence.

But the story of Archie's confrontation with the KKK is a story for another day.

'Invasion' Proved My Point About Remakes

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I have a definite opinion about remakes.

Usually, they aren't improvements on the originals. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Oh, I concede that technical advances in filmmaking have made it possible for a remake to be better than the original. But even in the 21st century, remakes are rarely, if ever, improvements.

I offer, as Exhibit A, "The Invasion," which premiered on this day in 2007.

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that "The Invasion" was "the fourth, and the least, of the movies made from Jack Finney's classic science fiction novel." I don't feel qualified to agree or disagree with that statement since I haven't seen all three of the previous incarnations. But Ebert's assessment surely affirms my own of remakes.

I also have a definite opinion about Nicole Kidman, the female lead of "The Invasion." I like her. I liked her the first time I can remember seeing her — in "Dead Calm." And I have liked other movies in which she appeared — "To Die For," "The Others" and "Eyes Wide Shut" come to mind. So does "Moulin Rouge," for that matter.

But Kidman has had about as many misses as hits in her career, especially in recent years, and I would put "The Invasion" on that list.

And it isn't necessary to see the other three film versions of the story to reach that conclusion, either.

All four movies do have a few things in common — primarily, the extraterrestrial invasion. The first couple of movies were transparently titled "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The third was named, simply, "Body Snatchers."

(Returning — ever so briefly — to the plausibility angle, Ebert asked, "Do you expect a movie titled 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' to be plausible?" It is a fair question, and my answer, after careful reflection, would be, "Yes. It doesn't have to be completely plausible — which is good since it is hard to imagine how it could be. But there needs to be enough plausibility to allow the viewers to suspend considerable disbelief.")

As I presume it was with each movie version of Finney's novel, "The Invasion" opened with the arrival of alien spores on Earth. In the only version I saw previously (and I have heard it was the same in the other two), these spores took the form of pods that encased their victims. They changed that a bit in "The Invasion" — the spores apparently attached themselves to a space shuttle that crashed following re–entry and scattered its debris from Dallas to Washington (that's a pretty impressive debris field). The debris was contaminated, and anyone who touched it became infected. When the victims fell into deep sleep, the infection seized control of them entirely.

Replacing the pods in "The Invasion" was a kind of film that covered the victim while he/she slept.

No one really seemed to notice what was happening at first. Oh, there were reports in the news of some strange virus in the U.S., and there were more dire reports from abroad. But, like most people, Kidman (a Washington–area psychiatrist in the movie) went about her daily routine, oblivious to what was happening until one of her patients, a victim of domestic abuse (Veronica Cartwright, who appeared in the 1978 version of the story), told her, "My husband just isn't my husband anymore."

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Now, given the conversations those two were sure to have had in the past, it would be plausible for Kidman not to understand that Cartwright wasn't discussing abusive behavior — but rather the zombie–like behavior of those under the influence of the aliens. Her husband was one of them. The viewers never saw that character when he wasn't under the aliens' influence, but they knew it the first time they saw him sitting in Kidman's waiting room.

He had the look.

If you ever saw "The Stepford Wives," you would recognize the look — flat, dull, emotionless. Bloodless. Soulless. Measured in words and actions.

Kidman's character had to become proficient at the look, pretending to be one of them in order to maneuver around the city without drawing attention. That required her to maintain total outward neutrality no matter what was happening around her.

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Absent any real plausibility, "The Invasion" suffered when it asked viewers to accept some pretty preposterous things.

Like, for example, the fact that a medical researcher (played by underrated actor Jeffrey Wright), a colleague of Kidman's love interest (played by Daniel Craig), was able to discern all kinds of information about this previously unknown virus from a single sample — in a couple of days. He was also able to determine how to eradicate the virus. Cancer researchers who watched this movie must have been jealous.

That would have been enough as far as I was concerned, but then there was a scene when Kidman and her young son were trying to get away in a car that was set afire by a Molotov cocktail. After it was struck the car could be seen virtually engulfed in flames, and I am pretty sure the windshield was broken when the vehicle was hit, but the car kept going, even seemed to accelerate, toward the occupants' appointed rendezvous with a helicopter.

I had to wonder how would it be plausible for someone to keep driving with flames all around like that? I mean, I was never any great shakes at science when I was in school, but you don't have to be a physics major to imagine what would happen to someone who tried to keep driving under those conditions.

Sorta like someone trying to continue driving with one flat tire. Common sense tells you it won't end well.

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Then there were things that required specific knowledge of how they do things in Washington to comprehend how off the charts the plausibility factor had become.

For example, in Washington the law prohibits any building in the city from being taller than the Capitol — yet the movie clearly showed the helicopter landing on top of a (nonexistent) D.C. skyscraper.

I know how Hollywood loves to run a good thing into the ground, but trust me, this story has been driven deep into the ground. Let's move on to something new, shall we?