I am of an age that I *did* watch Happy Days as it was airing. The Fonz wasn't my first tv crush (that would be Speed Racer), but he was fairly high up the list. My greater affection was for Pinky Tuscadero, though. Cool redhead role models in pop culture were few and far between in those days and Pinky was THE BEST.
Your essay is allowing me to put words to something, though, and I'm really appreciating that. Namely, that there is a need (based on an obvious lack) of people in activist spaces whose primary job is to model and push for emotional intelligence. We have to change systems. That's the big goal, yes? But systems are full of people who are affected in a variety of ways connected to identity, trauma, and trauma's close cousins-- rage, disassociation, spiritual bypassing, conflict avoidance, etc. Doing big system change work, in other words, gets us way up in our feelings, but somehow taking the time to acknowledge that and figure out how to support each other through that is often considered indulgent, beside the point, or a deliberate attempt to derail "the work" to coddle the White folks in the room. And it can be indulgent. And it can be derailing. But it doesn't have to be. And I suspect that if we don't figure out how to do that deep emotional work together the big system change work will always eventually be undone because *we* aren't changed in the end.
I'm beginning to suspect that's the thing I actually bring to the work, that commitment to supporting the development of emotional intelligence in our change-making spaces so that the system change we make changes us.
I can not agree more with the need for this, Asha, and it is such a gift to get to watch you write that out loud (and to find yourself in that work). A necessity (but, unfortunately, a rarity).
And I appreciate you modeling that so clearly here. Observing yourself and being able to say, Yes, this simplicity speaks to an emotional need that I have, which is human. Perhaps counter to achieving the change I seek, but human. And I can acknowledge that human need without shaming myself for it, which then allows me to think both critically and compassionately.
Henry Winkler is a National treasure . I arranged his appearance at a Gala of 500 for The Springer School in Cincinnati. Children with learning issues who go on to become excellent highschool , university and varied professions. He has written Hank Zipzer. Children’s books about different learning issues. Anyway he sat with my husband and me. Spoke to guests 30 plus minutes. Sans notes. He’s dyslexic (you probably know and a Yale grad ) his last words “ Thankyou for listening my parents never did.”
In addition to everything in this essay, I thought two other things in the Happy Days scene were worth noting:
1) The biggest and longest laugh came from the joke, "That's him over there!" "I can see that." To me this laugh comes from the "colorblind" rhetoric of the time and the scene. It seems like the fact that the sheriff states plainly that there's only one Black man in a room of white people, and therefore he doesn't need the man pointed out to him, is titillating to the audience. Maybe I'm wrong about this! It is a genuinely funny joke. But it was interesting to me just how big the reaction was.
2) The sheriff explicitly uses the term "outside agitators"! Nothing is new under the sun! And of course, as the phrase always does, it completely takes agency away from Charles and assumes he has been coaxed into this by the evil midwesterners. Not much to say about this, it's just wild how long and consistently the same language has been used — even in parody.
Oh that's fascinating. It DOES get a bigger reaction than I'd expect. I think your analysis is spot on-- it relies on the audience to recognize that color-blindness is the correct stance, and of course the sheriff and diner owner don't have that stance (and also that they're not very bright).
AND THE OUTSIDE AGITATOR LINE! I was going to talk about that and then I forgot, so thank you for pulling it out. FASCINATING, right???
There was also a previous 3rd season episode called Fonzies New Friend that tackled racism right there in the Cunningham living room, when Fonzi and Richie hire a black drummer (creatively named Sticks!) for their band, which causes their racist neighbors to not want to attend their luau. Fonzi once again makes a sort-of interesting, almost nuanced point about performative anti-racism, but then Sticks has to play drums behind Potsy, and you are left wondering whether the neighbors had other perfectly good reasons to avoid that luau. Sticks appeared in one other Season 3 episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkTGECe1Yfo&t=149s
The second Sticks episode (I think called Fonzie the super star or something) also features a Laverne & Shirley cameo, which probably makes it also worth checking out. And speaking of Laverne & Shirley, if I am going to recommend Happy Days episodes, try to find the two-parter called Fonzies Funeral, which does not have any social justice themes, but DOES include a funeral home fronting a counterfeit money operation, kidnapping, Richard Moll from Night Court (with hair), Fonzie faking his own death and then reappearing in drag disguised as his own mother, and a cameo from the entire cast of Laverne & Shirley that culminates in Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams wrestling for a boot over the closed casket, which remains one of my favorite bits of physical comedy from that entire decade. There was also a Mork & Mindy episode in which Mork almost joins the KKK, which was was, uh, interesting.
Have been exploring the roots of my own white saviorism and clearly it started in childhood. How many backyard carnivals for Muscular Dystrophy did my sister and I put around Labor Day thanks to Jerry Lewis? Television provided the stories as did music. Looking forward to the summer movie series.
Oh wow, the Labor Day Telethons were a MAJOR childhood memory (I have a cousin with muscular dystrophy) but I haven't thought about them in years-- those would be fascinating artifacts to revisit.
And I proudly wore a safety patrol badge and carried a traffic flag. Saving the world since fourth grade. I ate canned peas because there were starving children in Korea; and this first taste of what my white privilege meant didn't agree with me.
Very cool. Fonz etc. sadly the reason for no comfortable seats at the airport is because of the homeless people who have come to literally live there. JFK is worse with no seating available
you were correct..I volunteer at the Airport. It is up to the individual Airlines who control the terminals (along with the Port Authority,) to provide for security to see to it that those who are homeless and are causing difficulties are "taken care of." My group, the Travelers' Aid tries to get them to another group that will drive them to a shelter. Sadly, many of the homeless are mentally ill and/or fear shelters.
I finished listening to this week's Culture Study Pod episode which is about nostalgia and I think it has interesting parallels with what you've written here - they touch on Happy Days actually as an example of the 70's being nostalgic for the 50's and how dangerous it can be to confuse rose-colored memories of something with an ideal we should return to.
I watched *so much* Happy Days on Nick-at-Nite as a kid (also, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, MASH) and the Fonz is so iconic.
I don't particularly remember those eps, but it is really a fun meta thought experiment to pick through why we needed this episode in 1982 if the Fonz solved racism in 1962. What's happening in 1982 that TV writers think deserves our attention? What are they trying to tell their (presumably) white middle class audience? If we need that heroic allyship modeled for us, because racism is still a thing, then we must know that the civil rights movement in the 60's didn't fix everything... in which case... is Fonz just a fool who won one battle in a failed war?
Are we meant to be fat and happy knowing that the heroism of a few white people in the 60's gave us the utopia we live in today? Or are we meant to see that there are still battles to be fought and draw courage from the Fonz? Or, most likely option, were TV writers just out of material 9 seasons in and thought race content might drive ratings?
Oh wow I hadn't listened to this week's episode (though I love the pod)! So random that they talked about it too!
But yes, your line of thought is exactly what's fascinating here, and you explore it so much more deeply than I did. The interesting question isn't "was the 1982 episode about 1962 racism good or not?" it's "why did we need that episode in 1982?" 100%
Ah, you've distilled my whirling thoughts to the essential question!
Interesting personal follow up questions include "what did White middle class latchkey kids in 1996 take away from this fraught messaging?", "why on earth did these 90's pre-teens consider this appointment television?", and "is the Fonz the basis of my lifelong sexual attraction to confident people in leather jackets? What percentage can we attribute John Travolta in Grease? and, Is it important enough to bring up in therapy?"
After your second push, I watched the clip, and it was indeed worth it. I found almost all of it dumb in a charming (and weirdly moving) way, except for Al and the Fonz basically coercing Charles to stay. What it reminded me of most was the "police" scene at the beginning of Get Out. Like, I don't know Fonzie, MAYBE Charles has a better handle than you do on what he's putting at risk by sitting at the counter of a business in HIS town!
That's a really good catch, and does seem really telling of the racial attitudes the show is reflecting, right? "Don't worry, this situation isn't that dangerous. If well meaning (White) people are around, you'll be safe."
I am of an age that I *did* watch Happy Days as it was airing. The Fonz wasn't my first tv crush (that would be Speed Racer), but he was fairly high up the list. My greater affection was for Pinky Tuscadero, though. Cool redhead role models in pop culture were few and far between in those days and Pinky was THE BEST.
Your essay is allowing me to put words to something, though, and I'm really appreciating that. Namely, that there is a need (based on an obvious lack) of people in activist spaces whose primary job is to model and push for emotional intelligence. We have to change systems. That's the big goal, yes? But systems are full of people who are affected in a variety of ways connected to identity, trauma, and trauma's close cousins-- rage, disassociation, spiritual bypassing, conflict avoidance, etc. Doing big system change work, in other words, gets us way up in our feelings, but somehow taking the time to acknowledge that and figure out how to support each other through that is often considered indulgent, beside the point, or a deliberate attempt to derail "the work" to coddle the White folks in the room. And it can be indulgent. And it can be derailing. But it doesn't have to be. And I suspect that if we don't figure out how to do that deep emotional work together the big system change work will always eventually be undone because *we* aren't changed in the end.
I'm beginning to suspect that's the thing I actually bring to the work, that commitment to supporting the development of emotional intelligence in our change-making spaces so that the system change we make changes us.
I can not agree more with the need for this, Asha, and it is such a gift to get to watch you write that out loud (and to find yourself in that work). A necessity (but, unfortunately, a rarity).
And I appreciate you modeling that so clearly here. Observing yourself and being able to say, Yes, this simplicity speaks to an emotional need that I have, which is human. Perhaps counter to achieving the change I seek, but human. And I can acknowledge that human need without shaming myself for it, which then allows me to think both critically and compassionately.
Thanks for seeing that!
Henry Winkler is a National treasure . I arranged his appearance at a Gala of 500 for The Springer School in Cincinnati. Children with learning issues who go on to become excellent highschool , university and varied professions. He has written Hank Zipzer. Children’s books about different learning issues. Anyway he sat with my husband and me. Spoke to guests 30 plus minutes. Sans notes. He’s dyslexic (you probably know and a Yale grad ) his last words “ Thankyou for listening my parents never did.”
Now THAT'S a great speech :)
In addition to everything in this essay, I thought two other things in the Happy Days scene were worth noting:
1) The biggest and longest laugh came from the joke, "That's him over there!" "I can see that." To me this laugh comes from the "colorblind" rhetoric of the time and the scene. It seems like the fact that the sheriff states plainly that there's only one Black man in a room of white people, and therefore he doesn't need the man pointed out to him, is titillating to the audience. Maybe I'm wrong about this! It is a genuinely funny joke. But it was interesting to me just how big the reaction was.
2) The sheriff explicitly uses the term "outside agitators"! Nothing is new under the sun! And of course, as the phrase always does, it completely takes agency away from Charles and assumes he has been coaxed into this by the evil midwesterners. Not much to say about this, it's just wild how long and consistently the same language has been used — even in parody.
Oh that's fascinating. It DOES get a bigger reaction than I'd expect. I think your analysis is spot on-- it relies on the audience to recognize that color-blindness is the correct stance, and of course the sheriff and diner owner don't have that stance (and also that they're not very bright).
AND THE OUTSIDE AGITATOR LINE! I was going to talk about that and then I forgot, so thank you for pulling it out. FASCINATING, right???
There was also a previous 3rd season episode called Fonzies New Friend that tackled racism right there in the Cunningham living room, when Fonzi and Richie hire a black drummer (creatively named Sticks!) for their band, which causes their racist neighbors to not want to attend their luau. Fonzi once again makes a sort-of interesting, almost nuanced point about performative anti-racism, but then Sticks has to play drums behind Potsy, and you are left wondering whether the neighbors had other perfectly good reasons to avoid that luau. Sticks appeared in one other Season 3 episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkTGECe1Yfo&t=149s
This is such exciting new information for me. I can't wait to watch this episode! Sticks!!
The second Sticks episode (I think called Fonzie the super star or something) also features a Laverne & Shirley cameo, which probably makes it also worth checking out. And speaking of Laverne & Shirley, if I am going to recommend Happy Days episodes, try to find the two-parter called Fonzies Funeral, which does not have any social justice themes, but DOES include a funeral home fronting a counterfeit money operation, kidnapping, Richard Moll from Night Court (with hair), Fonzie faking his own death and then reappearing in drag disguised as his own mother, and a cameo from the entire cast of Laverne & Shirley that culminates in Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams wrestling for a boot over the closed casket, which remains one of my favorite bits of physical comedy from that entire decade. There was also a Mork & Mindy episode in which Mork almost joins the KKK, which was was, uh, interesting.
The other Sticks episode sounds like it LITERALLY has everything but wait... More almost joined the KKK????
Have been exploring the roots of my own white saviorism and clearly it started in childhood. How many backyard carnivals for Muscular Dystrophy did my sister and I put around Labor Day thanks to Jerry Lewis? Television provided the stories as did music. Looking forward to the summer movie series.
Oh wow, the Labor Day Telethons were a MAJOR childhood memory (I have a cousin with muscular dystrophy) but I haven't thought about them in years-- those would be fascinating artifacts to revisit.
And I proudly wore a safety patrol badge and carried a traffic flag. Saving the world since fourth grade. I ate canned peas because there were starving children in Korea; and this first taste of what my white privilege meant didn't agree with me.
Literally!
Very cool. Fonz etc. sadly the reason for no comfortable seats at the airport is because of the homeless people who have come to literally live there. JFK is worse with no seating available
I was worried that was the case!
you were correct..I volunteer at the Airport. It is up to the individual Airlines who control the terminals (along with the Port Authority,) to provide for security to see to it that those who are homeless and are causing difficulties are "taken care of." My group, the Travelers' Aid tries to get them to another group that will drive them to a shelter. Sadly, many of the homeless are mentally ill and/or fear shelters.
Thanks for doing your part to make an unwelcoming space more welcoming!
Thank you for this/ It is a fascinating and educational experience to meet people (& pets,) from all over the world!
I finished listening to this week's Culture Study Pod episode which is about nostalgia and I think it has interesting parallels with what you've written here - they touch on Happy Days actually as an example of the 70's being nostalgic for the 50's and how dangerous it can be to confuse rose-colored memories of something with an ideal we should return to.
I watched *so much* Happy Days on Nick-at-Nite as a kid (also, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, MASH) and the Fonz is so iconic.
I don't particularly remember those eps, but it is really a fun meta thought experiment to pick through why we needed this episode in 1982 if the Fonz solved racism in 1962. What's happening in 1982 that TV writers think deserves our attention? What are they trying to tell their (presumably) white middle class audience? If we need that heroic allyship modeled for us, because racism is still a thing, then we must know that the civil rights movement in the 60's didn't fix everything... in which case... is Fonz just a fool who won one battle in a failed war?
Are we meant to be fat and happy knowing that the heroism of a few white people in the 60's gave us the utopia we live in today? Or are we meant to see that there are still battles to be fought and draw courage from the Fonz? Or, most likely option, were TV writers just out of material 9 seasons in and thought race content might drive ratings?
Oh wow I hadn't listened to this week's episode (though I love the pod)! So random that they talked about it too!
But yes, your line of thought is exactly what's fascinating here, and you explore it so much more deeply than I did. The interesting question isn't "was the 1982 episode about 1962 racism good or not?" it's "why did we need that episode in 1982?" 100%
Ah, you've distilled my whirling thoughts to the essential question!
Interesting personal follow up questions include "what did White middle class latchkey kids in 1996 take away from this fraught messaging?", "why on earth did these 90's pre-teens consider this appointment television?", and "is the Fonz the basis of my lifelong sexual attraction to confident people in leather jackets? What percentage can we attribute John Travolta in Grease? and, Is it important enough to bring up in therapy?"
Really, a lot to unpack here, 😆
Amazing questions all around. As for your last one, I'll say: If it wasn't the Fonz, it would have been somebody else!
This reminds me of a great Sam wineburg essay about “historical thinking” whose name escapes me but I probably have a pdf of it
After your second push, I watched the clip, and it was indeed worth it. I found almost all of it dumb in a charming (and weirdly moving) way, except for Al and the Fonz basically coercing Charles to stay. What it reminded me of most was the "police" scene at the beginning of Get Out. Like, I don't know Fonzie, MAYBE Charles has a better handle than you do on what he's putting at risk by sitting at the counter of a business in HIS town!
That's a really good catch, and does seem really telling of the racial attitudes the show is reflecting, right? "Don't worry, this situation isn't that dangerous. If well meaning (White) people are around, you'll be safe."
If only they’d know about safety pins…
(I feel like I can make that joke as I was a safety pin wearer)
As soon as I wrote that comment, I thought "should I add something about the safety pins?" so thank you for adding that in!
My first recurring dream was when I was a kid and featured The Fonz. Big time crush! Last year, I watched him in Barry. He’s such a great actor.
Not bad for a first recurring dream!
“It’s a revealing question, not about that community’s unique failure to completely liberate itself…”
What, exactly, was burning Minneapolis down supposed to liberate it from?
Not sure what you were hoping for, but as a departed former citizen of that wretched metro area I can tell you what it isn’t free from:
Crime
Drugs
Tent cities for drug addicts
Violence
Leftist lunacy
And I can tell you what it *is* free from:
A viable downtown
Successful public schools
Stable, wholesome families
The idea one can walk alone anywhere after dark
But that’s the story of every large city in the US that is controlled by leftists, so the second question is, what makes it unique in your estimation?