Father Knows BestMary R.Desjardins. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2015.

Abstract

Father Knows Best Mary R. Desjardins. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2015.Father Knows Best is something of a cultural litmus test. Defenders praise it as a realistic, warm-hearted depiction of five people who tried hard to be a moral and caring family. Detractors (including almost all scholarly treatments) lamb as t it as self-satisfied, heavyhanded melodrama that fostered paternal-directed conformity.Interestingly, the show almost was cancelled after the first season on CBS, which broadcast it, when most kids were in bed, at 10:00 p.m. on Sundays. NBC picked it up and moved it to Wednesday at 8:30 p.m., so that kids could watch. It ended its six award-winning seasons (1954-1960) as number six in the Nielsen ratings. Jim Anderson (Robert Young) is an insurance agent happily married to Margaret Anderson (Jane Wyatt). Their main job is parenting three children: Betty (Elinor Donahue), Bud (Billy Gray), and Kathy (Lauren Chapin). In the first season, their ages are seventeen, fourteen, and nine.Desjardins makes a convincing case that, despite its title, the show is not all that authoritarian or sexist. Father may know best by the end of most episodes but only because he is willing to listen to other family members and learn from them, sometimes swallowing his own obstructive pride in the process.Father Knows Best began life as a radio series (1949-1954) with identically named characters but broader treatment, more jokes, and slapstick sound effects. Radio's Jim and Margaret were dictatorial; Betty was naive and boy crazy; Bud was a smart aleck; and Kathy was a whiny brat. Robert Young approached his coproducer Eugene Rodney with a kinder and gentler television reincarnation. Young, the only actor from the radio cast to make the transition to the television version, wanted to portray a reasonable father, unlike television's standard boob father on shows like Life of Riley. Another contrast would be technical quality. Filmed by Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, the series had a featurefilm look.Desjardins is best when she analyzes specific episodes. Take, for example, her comments about gender roles as they are experienced by the parents. In The Grass Is Greener (Season 2), Jim feels inadequate around a college friend who is now a prominent tycoon. Turns out, the friend, estranged from his wife and children, has always envied Jim's involvement as a father. In An Extraordinary Woman (Season 5), Margaret has a similar exchange with an unmarried college rival, now a famous author. In each twenty-six minute teleplay, Jim and Margaret feel anxious and frustrated: they envy apparently more successful cohorts who chose public status over parenthood. …