Wait Till Your Father Gets Home

Wait Til Your Father Gets Home is often compared to All In the Family. There are some similarities: it is a family during a time of social upheaval so the common ground of understanding between the parent generation and children has, sometimes quite a gap. Like All In the Family, it was fairly non-partisan, confronting ideas and issues from across the spectrum, to couch it in the narrowterms that people have reverted to in contemporary times, it shined a critical light on the left as much as it did on the right. I watched this show as a young boy in it's own time, and I have watched it in current times as i am nearing 50 and I find it just as fascinating, justr as thoughtful and just as warm. I like it's message that different players have their own perspectives and it can be challenging to be heard, to hear, to get along, to tolerate and to grow together. Frankly, I think this website's take on this show misses the point altogether and betrays the frantic finger-pointing intolerances of the polarized times we live in again. The site describes the show as not having positive messages because characters outside their sense of moral uprightness are tolerated. The show depicts Harry as a moderate sensible adult, like most, slow to take in new ideas, but still open. The show depicts him often embarrassed of and disapproving of his neighbour, Frank's militant racist caricatured character, but doing his best to get along--as they are nighbours sharing a community. It isn't black and white with a us-and-them, but sadly, todays black and white pathology sees this as some kind of collaboration with the enemy. The series was quite sharp in tackling some uncomfortable topics and ideas that weren't often discussed on television. If you are going to look at television from a moralistic standpoint, it was a standout series for showcasing different perspectives of old and young, left and right, men and women, and not being afraid to laugh at anyone's short-sightedness, short-temperedness or rigid unrealistic ideologies interfering with understanding each other. It had a progressive message that was open to a culture that was evolving, yet was tempered in a way that wasn't in any hurry to throw the baby out with the bath water. It did all this with clever writing, warm stories, a loving family with real tribulations, keen wit, and a beautiful visual style that was paradoxically both rich and sparse. Today's resentful self-righteous scorning shaming culture of intolerant leftists and rightists, harmful and alienating closed identity groups and people who are blind to any self reflection while always pointing fingers could learn a lot from watching this series.