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norman lear
Groundbreaking TV Producer and Activist Norman Lear Dies at 101
"Anyone who ever had a chance to say something pointed or political in American television entertainment owes Norman Lear their adoration and awe," said TV writer and producer David Simon.
Dec 06, 2023
Actors and television and film producers were joined by progressive lawmakers, human rights advocates, and abortion rights groups in paying tribute to Norman Lear, the legendary TV writer and producer who ushered in an entirely new era of sitcom viewing to the American public in the 1970s, as his death at the age of 101 was announced Wednesday.
Lear has long been credited with expanding audiences' ideas about whether salient topics of the day like racism, poverty, and reproductive rights could be fodder for primetime television after his first smash hit, "All In the Family," was introduced in 1971.
The show, which ran for eight seasons and inspired several spin-offs, featured the bigoted Archie Bunker at its center, with his progressive daughter and son-in-law, influenced by the 1960s counterculture, frequently challenging his views.
"All In the Family" broke new ground by confronting Bunker's homophobia, his wife Edith's experience of going through menopause, widespread opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam, and racism.
"Honesty about white racism was such a relief," reflected Maya Wiley, CEO and president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
As critic Ben Brantley said on social media, Lear "redefined what could be said and seen on television" and "made the uncomfortably narrow American mind the center of a sitcom."
Other hit series included "The Jeffersons," which featured an upwardly-mobile Black family and which Lear said he was inspired to write after members of the Black Panthers told him, "Every time you see a Black man on the tube, he is dirt poor." The family at the center of the sitcom discussed issues including alcoholism, interracial relationships, and classism. As Danielle Cadet wrote at HuffPost in 2012, the show "opened doors for future black actors, and its success proved that African American sitcoms did, in fact, resonate with general audiences."
"Sanford and Son," about a Black junk dealer who often butts heads with his more open-minded son, "mine[d] laughs in a setting that in real life had been torn apart over police abuse issues not long before, during the Watts riots of August 1965," noted the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In "Good Times," a Black woman faced challenges as she raised her family in public housing in Chicago.
The success of Lear's series meant that "anyone who ever had a chance to say something pointed or political in American television entertainment owes Norman Lear their adoration and awe," said TV writer and producer David Simon.
The nonprofit group Abortion Access Front paid tribute to another series, "Maude," in which the title character had an abortion in an historic 1972 episode.
"We humbly aim to continue the legacy of smashing stigma and promoting the vitality of abortion access through humor," said the group, posting a clip for the episode in which Maude's daughter says, "We're free, we finally have the right to decide what we can do with our own bodies."
The show "broke many barriers," said researcher Steph Herold, not only by being the first sitcom to contain a plotline dealing with abortion care, but also by having "the first abortion plotline that centered the woman instead of her partner, doctor, or lawyer, the first legal abortion plotline."
"Norman Lear moved minds through the moving image," said U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "His commitment to social justice ran through his work."
Lear founded the progressive group People for the American Way (PFAW) in 1981 and oversaw its advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ rights, freedom of speech, and other issues.
He later established groups that aimed to push for voter registration among young people, promote socially responsible behavior by corporations, and encourage the entertainment industry to educate viewers about environmental damage.
Lear was awarded lifetime achievement awards from the Producers Guild of America, the Television Critics Association, and the free expression group PEN Center USA, as well as a National Medal of Arts in 1999.
As Common Dreams reported in 2017, Lear refused to attend a reception at the White House to celebrate the Kennedy Center's decision to honor him that year, saying he did not want to mark the occasion at the home of then-President Donald Trump, who had slashed arts funding.
"I can't see myself visiting a White House, what [Trump] called a dump, that dumps on the National Endowment for the Arts," he told The Washington Post.
PFAW noted on Wednesday that Lear considered himself a patriot, and once wrote that he would not "surrender that word to those who play to our worst impulses rather than our highest ideals."
"That belief shone through in his work," said the group.
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Climate Justice Movement Joins Forces With Entertainment Industry at Fire Drill Fridays to Take on Big Oil in Los Angeles
Los Angeles is the perfect city to host the launch of Fire Drill Fridays in California—where our "West Coast" image of environmental progressivism clashes with the reality of a city still grappling with its relationship to the fossil fuel industry.
Feb 06, 2020
At a private home on the west side of Los Angeles in late January, two worlds collided: the grassroots environmental activists working in our city's low-income communities--where toxic oil wells drill near homes and schools--and the the celebrity-activist firepower of Jane Fonda.
It might be shooting the next season of Grace and Frankie that brought Jane back to Los Angeles, and we are excited to partner with her and a handful of her friends in "the industry" to launch the Fire Drill Friday movement here in Los Angeles. Together, we are facing a common enemy: the fossil fuel industry that drives the climate crisis and pollutes neighborhoods from South Los Angeles to the Harbor.
Los Angeles is the perfect city to host the launch of Fire Drill Fridays in California--where our "West Coast" image of environmental progressivism clashes with the reality of a city still grappling with its relationship to the fossil fuel industry. People know about our massive freeways, millions of cars and smoggy air. Fewer know that Los Angeles--and the entire state--are still taking huge amounts of oil out of the ground, and release massive amounts of toxic emissions into our air and climate.
"Aside from its health-protective benefits, a health and safety buffer is also an opportunity for Los Angeles to model for the rest of the state and the world what it looks like to make a just transition away from a fossil-fueled economy, leaving no community or worker behind."
While Mayor Eric Garcetti and our City Council position Los Angeles as an international climate leader, our city is home to the largest urban oil field in the nation. Hundreds of active oil wells drill for climate-shifting and health-harming fossil fuels a stone's throw from classrooms, homes, and parks. In the Southern California Air Basin, over 620,000 people live within a half-mile of a polluting oil well. Unsurprisingly, these wells are often clustered in low-income communities and communities of color, who are disproportionately exposed to health impacts such as increased rates of asthma attacks and other respiratory illness, increased cancer risk, and risk to the reproductive system.
Frontline communities--those experiencing the brunt of fossil fuel pollution--are leading the movement to protect Californians from the toxic impacts of the oil industry. Here in Los Angeles, communities in South Los Angeles, University Park, and Wilmington have organized and mobilized together as an environmental justice coalition called STAND-L.A. to urge the City Council to implement a 2,500-foot health and safety buffer that separates oil wells from homes, schools, and other sensitive areas.
A health and safety buffer can protect Angelenos--and hopefully, with action from Gov. Gavin Newsom, frontline communities across California--by removing their exposure to toxic chemicals and emissions from active oil wells in their neighborhoods, where they never belonged in the first place.
Aside from its health-protective benefits, a health and safety buffer is also an opportunity for Los Angeles to model for the rest of the state and the world what it looks like to make a just transition away from a fossil-fueled economy, leaving no community or worker behind.
"Just as frontline, working class communities have experienced the brunt of the pollution and have led the fight to transition away from fossil fuels, they should also be the first to benefit from the economic opportunities of a clean energy economy."
Just as frontline, working class communities have experienced the brunt of the pollution and have led the fight to transition away from fossil fuels, they should also be the first to benefit from the economic opportunities of a clean energy economy. In all the doom and gloom of the climate crisis, this is the silver lining of opportunity and justice.
This Fire Drill Friday in Los Angeles is the beginning of an intersectional, multi-generational series of actions, gathering Californians together to urge our elected leaders to take brave and visionary action in the face of our state's climate weakness: oil. The message that our elected leaders should take away from today's action is this: We need you to be bold in your commitment to frontline communities. We need to be visionary in your commitment to our future. And we need you to act now.
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Norman Lear to Boycott Reception With the 'Archie Bunker' President
"If anything can bring us hope and encouragement in these difficult times, it has to be the arts and humanities."
Aug 04, 2017
The artists that will be celebrated at this year's Kennedy Center Honors were just announced. But one of them--legendary television producer Norman Lear--has said he'll be boycotting the pre-gala White House reception in protest of President Donald Trump.
The New York Timesdescribed his boycotting of the reception as "a rare move in the Honors' 39-year history." Yet it is perhaps not at all surprising, given that the 95-year-old has said of Trump: "He IS Archie Bunker. I think of Donald Trump as the middle finger of the American right hand."
The Dec. 3 ceremony takes place at the Kennedy Center Opera House, but the ceremony is always preceded by a White House reception where the president hosts the honorees.
Lear cited Trump's proposal to slash arts funding as being behind his snubbing of the reception.
"I can't see myself visiting a White House, what [Trump] called a dump, that dumps on the National Endowment for the Arts," the progressive activist and "All In the Family" creator said to the Washington Post.
"This is a presidency that has chosen to neglect totally the arts and humanities--deliberately defund them--and that doesn't rest pleasantly with me," he said to the Times.
Those realms, Lear explained on his social media accounts, are of the utmost importance in the Trump era.
"I couldn't be more excited to be among this year's Kennedy Center honorees. If anything can bring us hope and encouragement in these difficult times, it has to be the arts and humanities," he wrote.
The other artists receiving the Kennedy Center honors this year are dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade; singer-songwriter and actress Gloria Estefan; hip hop artist and entertainment icon LL Cool J; and musician and record producer Lionel Richie.
Estefan's recognition marks just the fourth time the honors go to a latina, while LL Cool J will be the first hip hop artist to receive the award. Estefan, for her part, addressed the current anti-immigrant White House, telling the Times that she plans on using the gathering with the president to stress to him the contributions of immigrants to the country.
"Each of this year's Honorees became known to and loved by the world because of their complete originality and bold genius," said Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter. "They are creators of the highest order, and as President Kennedy's living memorial, the Kennedy Center is proud to shine a light on their boundless 'contributions to the human spirit.'"
The awards will be broadcast on CBS on Tuesday, December 26 at 9pm ET.
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