No More Meathead (RIP)

Rob Weiner and his wife Michele were allegedly murdered by their son for reasons not yet known. Probably over money. The son had a history of drug addiction.

Anyways, I only really knew Rob Reiner through his Meathead role with Archie Bunker in All In The Family. I suppose I saw him on his other roles in other TV shows, and films he Directed but I didn’t usually pay attention to Directors. For example I didn’t realize he was a Director for Bucket List which I have watched many times.

In fact I didn’t even realize Rob Reiner was Meathead until I looked him up on wikipedia.

I found Meathead pretty annoying growing up watching All In The Family. Too liberal for my taste and too preachy and judgmental. Archie was my guy. Sure he was a Racist but not in a hateful way, and he treated Edith horribly but not much different than my Grandfather treated my Grandmother. I guess I was more of a Conservative in those days. Big fan of Nixon who today would be considered a flaming liberal. Conservatism in the 70’s was not the same as it is today. Not by a long shot.

Over the years your views tend to change, reacting to events you experience and today as I look back on Meathead I find I have become more like Meathead, no doubt a reaction to Trumpism.

Trump is like a Billionaire Archie Bunker in a suit but instead of Archies ignorant Racism and benign Sexism, Trump is more hateful and malignant. Instead of growing up poor like Archie Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, kind of like Richie Rich, and received hundreds of millions from his father. Sadly there is no Meathead in his sphere of influence.

True to form Trumps reaction to Rob Reiners death is demonic

“Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME,” Trump wrote.

President Donald Trump then doubled down on his criticism of Rob Reiner, asserting the slain Hollywood director was “a deranged person.”

There are no words for how inappropriate this is.

I want to say something more about All In The Family and Archie Bunker. As we all know Hollywood was in someways a CIA-Tavistock Front used to influence and accelerate Cultural Change. All In The Family was no exception. Back in the day you only had 3 main. TV Channels. Most of the country would all watch the same popular show , and these shows became topics of conversation at school or work. As a result we had more of a shared reality than today and TV shows had more of an effect

Archie Bunker was a working-class white conservative, racist, sexist, nationalistic and suspicious of social change. A significant portion of the conservative, working-class included identified with Archie’s frustrations. They felt he was “telling the truth no one else would” and saw the liberal characters like Meathead as condescending or naïve

Archie was funny, charismatic and often portrayed as losing arguments but “winning” emotionally. Even when he was wrong, he was the most vivid character the voice of grievance and the one articulating anger others felt but couldn’t say aloud. This allowed some people to treat Archie as a folk hero, not a cautionary tale.

It normalized politics as grievance, cultural change as loss, disagreement as humiliation, expertise as elitism. For those already anxious about civil rights, feminism, Vietnam and changing social norms, the show validated resentment, legitimized outrage and hardened identity boundaries (“us vs them”)

Crucially, the effect ran both ways.

For others, the show made bigotry look dated, encouraged self-reflection and provided safe exposure to opposing views. Many reported increased tolerance while younger people skewed toward Edith, Gloria, or Meathead

So the show helped polarize society even more.

Liberals generally saw their views affirmed, felt culturally validated and had institutional support elsewhere (media, universities)

Conservatives felt embattled, saw themselves portrayed as backward and experienced ridicule as cultural exclusion. That sense of status threat is a known driver of political hardening.

Ironically, a show seemingly meant to critique conservatism helped crystallize conservative identity. What followed was and an increased volume of talk radio grievance politics, “political correctness” backlash, populist conservative rhetoric and new media ecosystems built around resentment and authenticity

The seed was planted that has grown into todays Woke Left and Woke Right MAGA Politics, although All In The Family had more of an impact on the latter whereas other shows may have contributed more to the Woke Left . I might be biased though because it did help shift me more to the right in the 70’s which was also facilitated by the forced bussing and shit show experienced in South Boston in the early 70’s

End