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No real arguments. I never understood why Samantha would willingly submit to Darren when she was more attractive, more intelligent, and more skilled at everything. The show 'explained' it as her desire to be 'human'. Perhaps there were benefits unseen by the TV audience.
Jeannie, of course, was bound by her magical strictures. "Great Mystical Powers.... Eeeeny little living space..."
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60's and even 70's television wasn't exactly a good example of role models for either gender.
I was struck when watching MeTV at a certain episode of The Brady Bunch, where Carol makes some decidedly un-liberated and un-feminist remarks about what a wife's role should be. These remarks are promptly reiterated and reinforced by her husband Mike. I guess I shouldn't have been shocked by that dialogue, but not having really lived through the 60's myself, I would have thought that the writers would have been a little more careful... I guess it wasn't until you got to the episode where Marsha tries to do things a boy would do (essentially the Boy Scouts), that the writers finally got a clue.
Edit: oh, and my goodness... Elizabeth Montgomery... wow, just wow. Nothing against Barbara Eden, but she wins that particular contest easily, IMO. And Mary Ann, definitely not Ginger.
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Did I have a stroke or something?
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OF COURSE Darren was paranoid. He could be replaced at any second with another Darren without anyone even noticing the difference...AND HE WAS!
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cbelt3 wrote:
No real arguments. I never understood why Samantha would willingly submit to Darren when she was more attractive, more intelligent, and more skilled at everything.
In male-dominated movies and television, unattractive, unappealing men nearly always get women who in reality would not want anything to do with them. No big surprise.
Equally offensive is the long-suffering hubby who has to keep his feeble-minded leech of a wife from blowing his hard-earned money on hats (substitute any frivolous item you like).
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At least in the Honeymooners, Alice gave it right back to Ralph, and was generally seen as having the upper hand in almost every case.
Although it did make me wonder why she'd put up with such a verbally abusive husband.
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decay wrote:
At least in the Honeymooners, Alice gave it right back to Ralph, and was generally seen as having the upper hand in almost every case.
Although it did make me wonder why she'd put up with such a verbally abusive husband.
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Ahead of their time, now that it's become somewhat more common for the woman to be the one with the broad environment-altering powers...
I agree w/ your op premise, but also keep in mind what I thought was meant as the motivation for the milquetoast husbands' horror of their beloved's magic: the desire to avoid cheating, not using the shortcut spell to get ahead or solve problems.
-Maybe a veiled attempt at an anti-drug message /& response to the woman's lib movement.
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PeterB wrote:
Elizabeth Montgomery... wow, just wow. Nothing against Barbara Eden, but she wins that particular contest easily, IMO. And Mary Ann, definitely not Ginger. 
:agree:
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I should not have called Milburn Drysdale ineffectual. He may have been impossibly greedy, conniving and ultra slimy, he was indeed adept at maintaining and growing the wealth bounty of the Clampetts. His customer service was also unparalleled, quite often to the detriment of his social climbing dilettante of a wife.
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