The Waltons: American Mythology

As I've said before, most of the major movements during the Seventies were accompanied by strong counter-movements. In the world of pop culture, the increasingly risque world of television was also accompanied by the rise of some of the corniest stuff to come out since "Father Knows Best." Probably the best example of this was the series "The Waltons," which aired on CBS from 1972 to 1981. If anyone needed proof that Americans were yearning for a return to their mythological, wholesome frontier days (which didn't really exist) this was it. Earl Hammer Jr., the author whose works formed the basis for the series, was a sociological genius; he spotted this trend years before the Neo-Cons with their focus groups and surveys.

"The Waltons" had its birth in a TV movie called "The Homecoming," which aired in 1971. CBS took a gamble on a series based on the flick, and it paid off. John and Olivia Walton and their seven kids were a family so squeaky clean that Disney himself could not have created them. The series depicted their hard lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains, frequently narrated by eldest son John, Jr., aka "John-Boy," who wants to be a writer. We see Ma and Pa Walton dealing with the Depression, World War II and other trials that test their resilient PVC souls, with the characters changing over the course of the years. In this sense the series was interesting, as viewers could watch the Walton clan marry, have kids, etc. Olivia Walton, the matriarch, was a very devout woman who seemed to always be in church, or talking about it (at least in the episodes that I saw), while Pa was one of those strong, righteous types celebrated in Westerns. Every episode ended the same way, at night, with one light on, as everybody says goodnight to everyone else, a process which seems to take forever.

To its credit, "The Waltons" was really not a bad show, and the writers certainly did not have to resort to vulgarity to get viewers. What I found so strange, and often irritating, about the series (which my parents loved) was how so many people wanted to believe that people like the Walton family existed. It also illustrated well the traditional view of rural life as good and righteous, perhaps as a counter-balance to what people thought was happening in the cities. True, things like murder, teen pregnancy and other things often associated with urban decay were really much more common in the rural "Bible Belt," but so many of us chose to forget that - at least while the show was on.