America’s families are broken. Dreams won’t build new ones.
By Larry Kummer, Editor 24 September 2019
Summary: The last in this series shows the core engine of the family as it was, how it broke, and why we will find it difficult to fix. The clock is running down on us – while we run in circles, loudly.
Domesticating a wild beast is not easy.
Western civilization was built on a system of highly polarized gender roles, each of which evolved over time but always remained quite different. In 20th century America, one of women’s traditional roles was to domesticate young men. That is, attract him into marriage and harness him in the “rat race.†This project was a frequent subject of books and films. For example, John Wayne’s films often portrayed him as a wild mustang hunted and seduced by women into marriage, as in Angel and the Badman, Tall in the Saddle, and Hatari! Of course, it was good for him, necessary for society, and patriarchy was his reward. It worked more or less well for everyone.
A few films looked at this from the perspective of a man unwilling to join the rat race. Inside each of us is a thousand versions of our self, packed in like a clown car at the circus. Society functions only if they remain packed in the car, with the stable hard-working family man in the driver’s seat. The 1965 film A Thousand Clowns shows the life of Murry (Jason Robards) after the clown car door pops open and all his selves roll out onto the street. He can no longer function as a cog. He is no longer “fit for useâ€. He and his adopted son enjoy a few months living outside the borders. Both are re-introduced to reality by agents of Child Protective Services. One is a coldly competent but somewhat comic social worker, played with multi-layered depth by William Daniels. The other is the beautiful Barbara Harris giving a brilliant portrayal of a warm, insightful psychologist unsuited for the necessarily brutal bureaucratic machine she belongs to. She coaxes Murray back into the rat race – the price he pays to keep his son and get her – while she becomes a wife and mother.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2019/09/24/american-families-are-broken-dreams-wont-build-new-ones/
