How Norman Lear changed American television
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00:00 in the 70s and 80s into living rooms across the country through his television sitcoms.
00:05 As a six-time Emmy Award winner, he was one of the first to be inducted into the Television
00:10 Hall of Fame.
00:12 We are a nation of excess.
00:17 There is too much television.
00:20 Now I'm somebody who loves so much of it and cares about it so much and cares about bringing
00:29 new aspects of life to a wide audience.
00:35 And he did it through comedy.
00:37 He was beloved for his work on several popular sitcoms, including All in the Family, Sanford
00:41 and Son, Maud, and The Jeffersons.
00:44 Lear was also a political activist.
00:46 He died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday from natural causes.
00:51 CBS Mornings co-host Gail King has more.
00:56 My name is Norman Lear.
00:59 I do believe laughter adds time to your life.
01:02 One, two, three.
01:06 What may have been uncomfortable territory for some would become a trademark for producer
01:11 Norman Lear.
01:12 Come on, the weather, that's not what's bugging you.
01:16 It's sex, isn't it?
01:19 Sex.
01:20 His iconic shows like All in the Family changed the landscape of television.
01:28 You were fearless in terms of the topics that you tackled, bigotry, sexism, abortion, racism.
01:36 Everything you have just listed, nothing was unfamiliar to every family in America, not
01:42 one subject.
01:44 Born in 1922, Lear was a World War II veteran who flew in 52 combat missions over Europe.
01:51 He drew from his own life experiences.
01:55 One of the most formative was back in 1931 when his father was convicted of fraud.
02:00 And you were nine.
02:02 And I was nine years old.
02:04 You have to begin to understand something about the foolishness of the human condition.
02:09 Lear says his dad inspired All in the Family's Archie Bunker.
02:13 You are a meathead.
02:14 He was described as a lovable bigot.
02:18 And I always hated that term because I think, is a bigot lovable?
02:21 Your intention?
02:22 The intention was to show there's humor in everything.
02:26 I never thought of him as a, as a hater.
02:36 So much as a fearful man of progress.
02:39 My home, sweet home.
02:45 The show won 22 Emmys over its nine-season run.
02:53 Lear released Sanford and Son and All in the Family spin-off Maud in 1972.
03:02 Followed by hit shows The Jeffersons and Good Times.
03:08 Esther Ruhl and John Amos who played the first African-American parents.
03:15 Family.
03:16 Heavy responsibility.
03:18 The country had not seen this before.
03:20 They were the people representing their race to the rest of America.
03:25 Norman Lear has held up a mirror to American society and changed the way we look at it.
03:33 Lear was honored in 1999 with the National Medal of Arts and in 2017 he became a Kennedy
03:40 Center honoree.
03:41 I sometimes stood behind an audience and when, when they belly laugh and you will find them,
03:52 they come a little bit out of their seats, they go forward like this and they come back
03:56 like this.
03:57 I don't know a more spiritual moment than a belly laugh.
04:03 Music to your ears, right?
04:05 Yes.
04:06 And add music to my ears and time to my life.
04:23 We are joined now by Entertainment Tonight co-host Kevin Frazier.
04:26 Kevin, it's great to talk to you about Norman Lear because he really changed the way American
04:33 television was consumed by touching these lightning rod topics that were uncomfortable
04:38 sources of conversations among family members and friends.
04:42 How did he manage to make it funny?
04:45 You know, he mixed in and introduced social commentary and also change into the sitcom.
04:53 But I mean, think about this, when he did those groundbreaking episodes on Maud, it
04:58 was called Maud's Dilemma, a two part episode about abortion and about a Maud having an
05:04 abortion and at the time, it was a hot button topic across this country and he somehow,
05:12 some way managed to humanize it and infuse it in a way into that sitcom that Americans
05:19 could digest it and think about it.
05:22 Kevin Lear really was a change maker.
05:26 Sure, he wrote television and he made great movies, but he also changed the way we thought.
05:32 And that was an important thing.
05:34 Thinking about interracial relationships in the 70s and he dared to put an interracial
05:40 couple on the Jeffersons.
05:42 He dared to show a black business owner who was very successful and had a sassy attitude
05:50 in the 70s.
05:51 He dared to show black life in the projects with John Amos and Good Times and introduced
06:00 us to JJ and Dynamite and so many different things to change the way we think.
06:06 You know, Kevin, his social commentary, as you say, changed the way that television was
06:12 created.
06:14 But I'm thinking about Gail's interview with Lear and her saying how she hated the idea
06:18 of Archie Bunker as a lovable bigot.
06:20 As you were talking about how he changed, he changed along with America changing.
06:26 I'm thinking America is in another period of social change.
06:31 Can producers, writers still make TV like his in a way that unites us?
06:36 Because part of what was interesting was that in these shows, there was a wide variety of
06:41 people who came from different aspects of life who enjoyed it.
06:46 And now as we see our society becoming more segmented, I'm wondering if that's something
06:50 that was a bygone era.
06:55 First of all, you need someone who has guts, both on the network side or whatever streamer
07:02 or whatever airs that kind of programming, and also a producer who is willing to tell
07:08 the truth through his eyes.
07:10 And if you think about Archie Bunker, you're looking at a white man in the 70s who was
07:16 trying to deal with a changing world and a diverse America that was springing up.
07:22 And so besides his black neighbors and his very liberal son, he had to confront so many
07:28 different issues.
07:29 And they did it with a laugh, but there were very serious issues that were confronted on
07:34 this show.
07:36 And for a lot of Americans, they saw themselves in the mirror when they saw Archie Bunker,
07:42 because they agreed or espoused to many of the things that he personified on that show.
07:49 Norman Lear said that it reminded that character was built somewhat around his dad, his dad
07:54 who went to jail when he was just not when Norman was just nine years old, and that left
08:00 a mark on him.
08:01 But he always looked at those people who differed from him, but he wanted to bring everyone
08:07 into the fold to have that discussion.
08:09 And that's what he did with these shows.
08:10 And that's what we don't see in our society today.
08:13 People coming into a discussion where we can confront these issues that we might differ
08:19 on widely.
08:20 All right, America, you heard it from Kevin and me.
08:24 There is your challenge.
08:26 Try and try and live up to Norman Lear's legacy.
08:28 Kevin Frazier, always so good to talk to you.
08:30 Thank you.
08:31 Always great to talk to you.