I love Mad Men. But its focus is generally on white upper class white collar people. We see the changes of the 60s, but only really from their POV. Imagine a series which showed the same changes and time frame, roughly say, 1958 to 1972, but from the perspective of Blue Collar Italians, Blacks, and Puerto Ricans living in NYC. I think it would be much more "real."

But this isn't a "current television show"

Read this book entitled Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America by Donald Katz. It's about a working class Jewish family from Brooklyn. It starts in 1945 and ends in 1990, but the 1960s/1970s are the focal point.

Imagine a series which showed the same changes and time frame, roughly say, 1958 to 1972, but from the perspective of Blue Collar Italians, Blacks, and Puerto Ricans living in NYC. I think it would be much more "real."


It's already been done. And it was done in the early 70s. "All In The Family". Yes, the main character was a very blue collar white guy living in Queens, NYC, but he show was populated with Italians ("Frank Lorenzo"), Blacks (The inimitable Jeffersons, among many others), Pueuto Ricans ("Teresa Betancourt" among others), LGBT people ('Steve"), transgender people ("Beverly LaSalle") and pretty much any other group you would care to name. And their points of view came across loud and clear. It was a groundbreaking show of the sort that couldn't be made today.

I love Mad Men. But its focus is generally on white upper class white collar people. We see the changes of the 60s, but only really from their POV. Imagine a series which showed the same changes and time frame, roughly say, 1958 to 1972, but from the perspective of Blue Collar Italians, Blacks, and Puerto Ricans living in NYC. I think it would be much more "real."


Well, it was situated on the West Coast, but Sanford and Son pretty much fits the bill.

I always laughed when Fred Sanford would clutch his chest and say "Weezy, it's the big one! I'm coming to join you!"  ;D

Have you ever seen Hoffa with Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito? It takes place during that era.

There was also "Good Times" which ran in the mid 70s. Another Norman Lear show like "All In The Family",  "Good Times" featured a working class African American family in a Chicago Housing project.  In the later 70s there was "The White Shadow" about a high school basketball team of mostly low income African American kids as well as a diverse group of other races and ethnicities in South Central L.A.

It does seem like TV in the 70s featured a lot more blue collar and working class people. In  recent years there were not so many. The now-disgraced "Roseanne" comes to mind, as well as "The Middle", which just called it a day after nine seasons.

Lest we forget “Welcome Back Kotter”.

Well, it was situated on the West Coast, but Sanford and Son pretty much fits the bill.

I always laughed when Fred Sanford would clutch his chest and say "Weezy, it's the big one! I'm coming to join you!"  ;D


his wife wasn't named Weezy, that was George Jefferson's wife's name.

Sanford & Son is the exception but of all the other shows mentioned....

While All in the Family does tackle these issues, the main character is a middle aged WASP who looks down on all these other groups. The main group are his family.

Welcome Back Kotter is hardly socially significant. It was essentially a teen show that featured what was at the time an Ethnic minority cast.

Hoffa is a gangster movie.

Also, these shows, while groundbreaking, were still restricted by 70s TV "no nos." No nudity, no violence, no profanity. What I am talking about is something more along the lines of say, the Sopranos meets Joe (1970 film), meets Gangs of New York meets Mad Men, but set in the 60s, in Harlem perhaps. Brutal, raw, honest and hardhitting. Showing these disparate groups as they struggle to get by with, and sometimes against, each other, in a hot, sweltering melting pot. Showing how your Italian, Irish, and Greek American went from being Kennedy Democrats in 60 to Nixon Republicans by 68. Things like the 1964 NYC race riots. The rapidly changing times. Showing both sides of the Civil Rights movement - the nonviolent MLK side and the more separatist Malcolm X/NOI side; showing how Puerto Ricans blended in with, and yet were also distrusted by, both groups.

Get on it 90s Guy.