12/25/2023 0 Comments Goodtimes janet jacksonWe’re supposed to stick up for one another. That’s some shit, when family is killing one another. Higher than the sky! Indeed, who shot J.R.? One of his own damn relatives (not to be named - go Google it and learn about the season cliffhanger that made television history). Unlike any wonderland, it’s the people who have to pull ourselves out of fantasy, and create a reality well above ground. Poet Gwendowlyn Brooks, a Chi-town native, imagined an entire universe on that asphalt, and places like the Golden Shovel. Unlike Alice in any wonderland, this was the ghetto - the asphalt grows. The Evans family, their neighbors, their friends, the love amongst them, was truly a picture of the ability to choose happiness in one’s life. The irony of the show, of course, is that they lead lives much happier than the wealthy soap opera characters. No matter how good-spirited the folks remained, and no matter how many times the neighbor Willona calls the building handy-man, Bugger, the reality of the ghetto is never absent. Penny made up all sorts of lies, creating a fantasy life for herself far away from the living hell of the Chicago projects. Indeed, the entire series was as thoroughly dope. rejected her affections, claiming that if the dumb kid (the doll) were better, then the man would have stayed. How good are these times? And to what end to we owe any responsibility to act collectively? The nosey neighbors stood up for the neglected child they witnessed her beating up her doll after J.J. It’s pitiful and difficult to watch, but whom else to speak on behalf of children if not popular culture. Actually, Penny was more attracted to her mother like a moth to a flame her mother heavily bruises her and burns the child with an electric iron. Penny inappropriately transfers her need for love to J.J., even interrupting the man’s dates, hanging onto him like a - dare I say - moth to a flame. Penny, barely reaching tall-actor Jimmie Walker’s chest, is a heavily abused and neglected child raised by a young ghetto mamma. The episode centers around Janet Jackson’s character, Penny. In this one episode, the number of social messages transmitted is incredible. Larry Hagman, of course, played a supreme patriarch in the hit show I Dream of Jeannie, where a scantily clad, Arab-wannabe, female slave bid his every wish, falling over herself to please her “master.” What kind of patriarchal wet dream is that? The same as shows like Dallas and the rest, where money reigns supreme - just like in the world of Bling! Ewing’s (Larry Hagman) dad made ethereal guest appearances after the actor had died in the evening soap opera drama Dallas (‘78-‘91). I mean, it’s a family show where they killed off the father. ![]() sons, welfare hot mamas like that of Penny, and so on. Rolle eventually quit the show in shock and resistance to those same clichés about poor people and Black people: single, domineering mother, sex-sillified P.I.M.P. ![]() closely mirrors that of Fred Sanford and his sanctified sister-in-law on the show Sanford and Son (’72-’77). The comedic tension between Sis-Bro duo Thelma and J.J. I can imagine that for the ’70s crowd, the show was chock-full of ghetto fabulous stereotypes and archetypical characters. The infamous intro/outro of Good Times is clipped, uploaded like a series of other Sit-Com intros from the late 70’s, early 80’s when we were settling into terms like urban decay and renewal. ![]() The whole show runs over three, maybe four episodes. This is just a nine-and-a-half-minute excerpt. “The Evans Get Involved” is groundbreaking.
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