1960s Nuclear Families in the Media

by Sadie Goldstein

In order to understand the tensions of Martha and George’s tumultuous relationship in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, it is helpful to understand how couples and families were conventionally depicted at that time in media. With the boom of television programming of the 1950s coinciding with the post-WWII baby boom, situational comedies (sitcoms) about the nuclear family were in fashion. The concept and genre of the sitcom was still new to American audiences, with Mary Kay and Johnny (1947–1950) credited as the first sitcom, though it was not considered a “high brow” form of media. All the same, sitcoms like Leave It to Beaver, The Honeymooners, Ozzie and Harriet, and Father Knows Best were the primary depiction of American familial life in media in the 1950s. These shows showed the classic American nuclear family: a father, a mother, 2.5 children, all in a comfortable house in suburbia (or Brooklyn, in the case of The Honeymooners). The conflicts of these shows came from non-scandalous mishaps, mischievous (but well-meaning) children, or crazy ideas from the kooky neighbors next door. The families of these sitcoms depicted an idealized version of what the middle-class American family could be. However, in trying to depict this “typical” nuclear family, these shows missed out on major portions of the American public: anyone who is not in a white, middleclass, suburban family.

Four main social trends impacted the decline of the nuclear family in the 1960s: decreased fertility rates, the rise of the sexual revolution, women more rapidly entering the workforce, and the rise in divorce rates. Moving away from the postwar era, women were growing sick of their role of the idealized domestic wife. Therefore, when Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was released in 1963, many female readers welcomed its message. The Feminine Mystique refers to the (potentially false) idea that women are wholly fulfilled by their roles as housewives and mothers. Friedan called on women to instead examine the cultural, intellectual, and sexual freedom they could have if they focused their lives outside of the home. This cultural movement, part of the larger countercultural movement of the 1960s, had significant effects on the depiction of the nuclear family. As two-parent, two-child families became less common, those nuclear family sitcoms fell out of fashion as well. Instead came the rise of two different styles: the “Fantastic Family” sitcom and “Broken Family” sitcom.

In both of these sitcom styles, there is something slightly “non-nuclear” about the families depicted. In the case of the Fantastic Family sitcom, there is something “otherworldly” or magical about the characters. Shows like The Jetsons, The Munsters, or The Addams Family still present a conventional father, mother, and two children family set-up, but the contexts in which these families live are less relatable to an American audience. The Jetsons theme song comments on how conventional this family structure is: “Meet George Jetson… his boy Elroy… daughter Judy… Jane, his wife.” These words play as George Jetson zips his family around