The Age of Optics and the Optics of Age(ism)
Back in 1955, some long-forgotten television critic pompously declared that the newly premiered situation comedy The Honeymooners presaged “the end of Western civilization”. He offered this dire prediction in spite of the show’s uniquely original storyline, its utterly hilarious weekly episodes, its stellar cast of gifted comic actors (Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney, and Joyce Randolph), and its immense popularity among viewers.
Why? One can only guess now, nearly seven decades after the show first aired. But I rather suspect that at least part of the explanation might be due to the “optics” involved. Here’s how the Wikipedia article referenced in the link above describes the show’s optics: “The Honeymooners was one of the first U.S. television shows to portray working-class married couples in a gritty, non-idyllic manner, as the show is mostly set in the Kramdens' kitchen in a neglected Brooklyn apartment building.”
Quite possibly, our nameless critic was put off by the “working class” nature of the male characters’ jobs (Gleason’s “Ralph Kramden” was a city bus driver, and Carney’s “Ed Norton” was a sewer worker). Or perhaps by Ralph’s never-ending (and never successful) harebrained schemes to get rich quick, and Norton’s perpetually wacky (but unerringly funny) attempts to collude in those ill-fated schemes. Or maybe it was the “gritty non-idyllic” nature of the cramped domestic life that Meadow’s “Alice” and Randolph’s “Trixie” patiently yet good-naturedly endured as the wives of their respective two hapless but devoted husbands.
Whatever factors might have been at work, I suspect that this individual was an unsuspecting victim of “optics”, a term not widely (if at all) used in the 1950s, though very much in use in our times. I conjecture that he inadvertently permitted the show’s optics to blind him to its virtues - its originality, its humanity, its humor, its celebration of goodness, friendship, and yes, even love. Even if you’ve only watched a handful of the 39 episodes, you’ve probably seen at least once the familiar scene that ended most of them - Ralph and Alice embracing and - following Ralph’s now-classic expression of devotion, “Baby, you’re the greatest” - kissing into the fade-out.
The traditional Buddhist teachings exhort us to “see things as they really are”. This, of course, is easier said than done. In the case of our doomsaying critic, he failed to see this show as it really was, and instead took note of only its surface appearances. In contrast, most viewers at the time, and countless others in the years since, have seen The Honeymooners exactly as it is - a classic example of television’s “golden age”.
Which brings us to today’s far-from-golden “age of optics”, where so many pay so much attention to the surface optics of a situation, and devote so little effort into seeing what’s really going on beneath those optics.
I’m thinking here about the mounting attention being paid to President Biden’s “optics”, even (and especially) among the liberal and progressive communities. Yes, he is 80 years old; and yes, his features, his gait, and sometimes his speech show that age. No doubt about that.
But there’s also no doubt that he is presiding over one of the most effective administrations this country has ever experienced. He is doing so in the face of unrelenting challenges in both domestic and foreign affairs. And he is doing so at an age when many of his peers have neither the physical energy nor the mental acumen to put in such effort day after day.
The optics of Joe Biden’s age have been receiving far too much attention. Like our Honeymooners critic, too many of us are being blinded by the optics of ageism, and failing to see the real picture.
It’s time for the progressive community - every single one of us - to peer below the surface, to appreciate the many invaluable accomplishments of the Biden administration, and to recognize the ominous future that awaits this country should Trump and his MAGA enablers prevail in clouding our vision with their optical delusions.
In short, it’s time to see things as they really are.
Interesting reading from the past few weeks:
New York Times opinion columnist Charles M. Blow took this insightful look into the deeper meanings of the language Trump is using in some of his more recent public pronouncements … “As I was reviewing the increasingly erratic posts and comments of Donald Trump, I [came] to understand that when Trump says ‘people,’ it is confined to his people, [and] then his inane utterances make more sense to me. In fact, the whole of the MAGA universe begins to make more sense to me. On Sunday, Trump posted on Truth Social, claiming Comcast, MSNBC’s owner, and ‘others of the LameStream Media’ are ‘THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE’ who should pay ‘for what they have done to our once great Country.’ ‘The people’ here means his people, the only worthy and legitimate people, the only ones worth defending because they are the only ones defending him. When he says ‘our once great country,’ he means the country when it most benefited those most devoted to him, at a time when the racial hierarchy was more fixed, the patriarchy was more entrenched, immigrant communities were often whiter and gender identities were more rigid. Trump [also] lashed out at the ruling [by a New York judge that Trump committed fraud for years by intentionally misvaluing his properties for personal financial benefit] in a statement posted on Truth Social regurgitating many of his familiar attack lines: calling the judge ‘DERANGED,’ undermining the credibility of the prosecutor and claiming that attempts to hold him accountable are all part of an election interference scheme to prevent him from retaking the presidency. But part of his complaint, which has become a cliché at this point, was that his civil rights are being violated and ‘If they can do this to me, they can do this to YOU!’ He and his people, the true people, are the new civil rights victims, in need of a defensive mobilization to prevent continued injury. Trump defense becomes self-defense.”
The essayist and cartoonist Tim Kreider reflected movingly on the contrasting elements of privilege and deprivation that not only characterize the inequality that afflicts the broader society, but that can also sometimes commingle and coexist within the narrow confines of our individual lives, in this recent guest essay that appeared in the New York Times … “The world is arranged to discreetly conceal this side of life from us — the messy, ragged back of the tapestry. Arranged, I should say, with our enthusiastic complicity. We prefer to see, and very much to be on, the side with well-dressed couples promenading through the streets, eating at elegant cafes, having drinks at bars or clubs, going to cinemas, buying used books and silk scarves. It’s not as if the pretty facade is false and the obverse the ugly truth; it’s all life. We just try, for as long as possible, to keep that other side hidden from ourselves — the hospitals and nursing homes, prisons and sweatshops, mortuaries and slaughterhouses. But at some point, by the end of our lives — unless we’re very rich or dubiously lucky enough to die suddenly or young — that other side is the only one we’ll get to see anymore. It’s where we’ll live. We’ll have been banished from the other, lovelier world, because we’ve now become one of the things that need to be concealed.”
Thanks for reading this issue of TLBR. Please look for the next one in three weeks, posting on Thursday, October 26th.
Thanks for this! Focusing on The Honeymooners was a perfect way to shift the perspective so we readers are able to look back at the superficial judgments that so easily grab our attention. And thank you for taking me back to remembrances of that show. One of my favs - Ed Norton when he sat down to play the piano!