A Norman Lear Documentary That Could Use Less Lear
That Norman Lear is one of the most important producers in the history of television is beyond dispute, as some of the shows he created, wrote, and oversaw in the 1970s were landmarks in various ways. All in the Family and Maude brought a degree of crass realism to the sitcom that had never been seen before. Good Times and The Jeffersons were among the key comedies to feature primarily black casts. Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was one of the first self-consciously postmodern TV experiments. You get some sense of this in Tuesday night’s American Masters presentation Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, but the show comes packaged in an unnecessarily decorated production.
The tip-off arrives almost immediately, when we see Lear in his trademark white porkpie hat, followed soon after by a shot of a little boy putting on the same hat — we’re supposed to think this is the superproducer as a young man. The child is a recurring figure in this documentary directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, and it usually signals a mawkish moment.
Related: Norman Lear Talks His Past, Present, and #PeakTV
The best material here is the footage of Lear working on his classic shows. There are good, representative clips from All In The Family and Maude. (I recently rewatched the latter show’s famous two-part “abortion episode” from 1972, and it really holds up as Lear’s defense of abortion rights while, miraculously, also working as comedy.) There’s even more interesting film of Lear facing down the stars of Good Times — Esther Rolle and John Amos — who had become resistant to the use of Jimmy Walker as that sitcom’s breakout star. Rolle and Amos thought that the character was a racial stereotype and that the show should be an agent for progressive change. Lear, as a white progressive, was, shall we say, not down with their program. (It’s amazing to be reminded that there was a time when members of the Black Panthers could visit the offices of a network TV show to demand alterations in a sitcom.) The Jeffersons, primarily because its black stars Isabel Sanford and Sherman Hemsley were presented as strong, independent people, met with less resistance, and Russell Simmons gives the documentary’s filmmakers a new interview to explain the show’s importance, and to be filmed laughing at George Jefferson’s use of the N word in a scene that would never make it to air on a network nowadays.
Too much of Just Another Version of You, however, invites Lear to be self-congratulatory, and to read passages from his recent autobiography, Even This I Get to Experience. Commentator Bill Moyers appears primarily to say, “I cannot overemphasize what a patriot this man is.” Rob Reiner — who co-starred opposite Carroll O’Connor’s bigoted Archie Bunker in All in the Family as liberal son-in-law Michael (aka Meathead) — reads aloud an early, unattributed negative review of Family, then looks up from the paper to say with immense self-satisfaction that the show “ran for eight seasons.” Always, commercial success trumps any possible criticism.
Lear comes across as a man who, at 94, is immensely charming, even as you are aware of the backbone of ambition and stubbornness that has driven him all his life. (The subtitle, “Just Another Version of You,” is, Lear tells us, how he thinks of himself, but clearly he is an exception to you and me.) His achievements might be more impressive to viewers new to his work had this documentary shown us more of that entertainment, placed in a broader context with a wider range of voices.
American Masters: Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You airs Tuesday night on PBS. Check your local listings. It is also available on DVD and Blu-ray.
