Column: The complicated legacy of Norman Lear and ‘Good Times’

If the personal is political, then Norman Lear found a way to make the political funny.

The writer and producer of some of the 20th century’s most enduring and influential TV comedies — from “All in the Family” to “Maude” to “Sanford and Son,” among others — died Tuesday. He was 101.

Lear’s sitcoms of the 1970s reflected the social changes of the era, and his shows understood the resulting tension and friction could be smart and knowing, but also a source of comedy.

There will be many worthy pieces written about his career and contributions. But to appreciate his accomplishments also means recognizing an inconvenient side to his legacy.

There are countless basic cable channels offering a lineup of older shows and Lear’s work is featured prominently. Last year one of those cable channels ran a post on social media promoting “Good Times.” Originally airing from 1974 to 1979, it was “the fourth consecutive hit sitcom created by Norman Lear.”

It’s frustrating to see Eric Monte continually erased from the record. Along with actor Mike Evans, Monte was the show’s co-creator and based “Good Times” on his own childhood growing up in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green. The struggle of the Evans family in the show wasn’t sugarcoated, but it was depicted with grace and humor and humanity. Rare was the sitcom that put a Black family at its center, and through reruns, it would remain an enduring pop cultural force for decades.

In 2006, a reporter with the Los Angeles Times caught up with Monte. At the height of his career, he was “among a group of young African American writers and directors who sparked an explosion of Black culture. He wrote and helped create some of the most popular — and groundbreaking — movies and TV shows of the 1970s. He started with one episode of ‘All in the Family,’ moved on to cocreate ‘Good Times’ and wrote the 1975 film ‘Cooley High’ which, in turn, inspired the hit 1976 TV series ‘What’s Happening!!’”

That’s an impressive resume. Monte felt he wasn’t rightly recognized for that, financially or otherwise.

According to the LA Times, “In 1977 he filed a lawsuit accusing ABC, CBS, producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin and others of stealing his ideas for ‘Good Times,’ ‘The Jeffersons’ (an ‘All in the Family’ spinoff) and ‘What’s Happening!!’ Eventually, he says, he received a $1 million settlement and a small percentage of the residuals from ‘Good Times’ — but opportunities to pitch new scripts dried up along with his money. He lost the car, the four-bedroom house he shared with his two daughters and almost all the trappings of his successful life.”

Monte was one of the few — if not the only — Black writers on “Good Times” and he didn’t stay for long. He was frustrated with the show’s direction, which he felt leaned too heavily into stereotypes and an emphasis on Jimmy Walker’s breakout character J.J. Evans, who was often reduced, in Monte’s view, to “shucking-and-jiving.”

He wasn’t the only person to voice his concerns to Lear about the writing on “Good Times.” The show’s stars Esther Rolle and John Amos also pushed back. This comes up in the 2016 PBS documentary “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You,” in which Lear looks back on his career in hindsight.

Here’s what he says about tensions on the set of “Good Times” and the cast’s desire to discuss more deeply the show’s portrayal of Black people: “It was extraneous to the needs of a show that had to be done every week.”

Delays cost money. And unlike the flexibility that streaming would later usher in, broadcast television ran — and still runs — on a tight schedule.

“And so I sat everyone down,” Lear says, “and said, ‘These are decisions that I’m gonna have to make. But we couldn’t deal with this reaction of actors being upset with the script all the time.”

And old interview clip of Rolle, who died in 1998, is included in the documentary. “I insist that you can have comedy without buffoonery.”

Her co-star Amos was written off the show in 1976 “because I had become a ‘disruptive element,’” he said on a radio interview years later. In the PBS documentary, he says this: “My thing was, take the crap out, or let’s fight.”

Does this mean you can’t admire Lear’s achievements and his influence on the TV landscape? Of course not. But it complicates that history in ways we shouldn’t be reluctant to reckon with.

When “Good Times” premiered, it was groundbreaking to center a sitcom on a Black family. Lear helped make it happen. That has value and it matters.

The experience of Black people working on that show, and their opinions about its portrayals, matter just as much.

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic

nmetz@chicagotribune.com