The Changing Household on Sitcoms

Tune in with your feedbackBAF follows up a past episode The People Next Door with a further look into the changing household beyond just the nuclear family. Social roles played a key part over time in defining what households in sitcoms were portrayed to audiences from the late 1940s all the way into the early 1990s. It starts out with those of servants in the early sitcoms The Laytons, Beulah, My Three Sons, and Hazel into the 1980s with Who's the Boss? and how these servants depending on race, gender, or relation interacted with the family with whom they lived. Portrayal of race and socio-economic status is explored from the television version of Amos 'n' Andy to the Norman Lear sitcoms All in the Family, Good Times, and The Jeffersons plus the 1980s impact of The Cosby Show. Also, explored is how a household is not just limited to the idea of a family in the roommate sceanrios of The Odd Couple, Laverne & Shirley, Three's Company, and The Golden Girls. Support the show