Those were the days.
I did not grow up watching All in the Family on television. By the time the show first aired, my growing up was nearly done. I was already sixteen years old. A year later, I graduated from high school and left home for college.
Of all the characters in the extraordinary television Norman Lear triumphantly brought to American screens, Michael Stivic most closely resembled my political and philosophical outlook on life. The Meathead, as his father-in-law called him, was also the character who I liked least. He was always right but in an almost unbearable way. It takes some good acting chops to bring off a character like that.
In contrast, his father-in-law, Archie Bunker played by Carrol O’Connor, was almost always wrong but you kind of liked him despite his obnoxious attitude toward just about everybody else.
In 2025, I have been thinking about that show from time to time. I have been thinking that America could use a show like that today.
In the 1970s, America was disengaging from Vietnam. Along with that defeat came an undercurrent of reflection and maybe even a little humility. We were exhausted from the ongoing turmoil associated with our irreconcilable political opinions. We wanted to believe not that we could find common ground but that we could find a way to tolerate our differences. We could find room for more of us. Maybe even all of us.
And we did find some…imperfectly but it beat a poke in the eye.
Black Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and gays and lesbians, one by one and in small groups, started to appear on the small screens and the big screens too. They also started making more appearances in our offices and other worksites. They joined us (white folks) in beer commercials. They cheered alongside us at football games.
During its nine years on the air, All in the Family got Archie Bunker to learn to accept the Jeffersons moving in next door. He didn’t like a black family moving into his neighborhood, and he said so to the Meathead. But over the following episodes, he learned that his neighbors were qualified as much as he was to be American. He even learned to appreciate their differences. The Meathead helped Archie get there.
And let me tell you, teaching a white bigot to change is practically a miracle.
Today some people would condemn a show like All in the Family as woke. Well, if that’s woke, I’m guilty.
As far as I can tell, Rob Reiner was woke too. His television and movies helped to unify America not only by connecting our shared values but also by celebrating unique and charming differences. He did not shy away from our problems. He confronted them and looked for means to solve them without shaming or excluding people for the color of their skin or the origin of their ancestry.
Rob Reiner was a great American. He and people like him are the human beings that still permit me to be proud to be an American…after a fashion.
I never had a chance to meet him, but I will miss him all the same. That makes sense. We’re all in the same family.