How do you do,
Star Wars. Bean bags. Lava lamps. Mood rings. Bell-bottom pants. Afro Hairs. Farrah Fawcett. Disco.
A couple of things people think of when they think of the 1970s. For Americans, the 1970s is a time in US history where things were topsy turvy, if not strange. This is after the 1960s where we saw so much turmoil and shocking sights to our image as a stable democracy* and champion of liberty. Now it's the "Me Decade", the period of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, when all the good things of the fifties are forgotten, when everything is being challenged, and when it seemed there was nothing to do about it. The Civil Rights era saw the break down of the Jim Crow, but there is no sign of improved race relations anywhere (and this was before society opted a more color blind approach that worked until recently). Women's lib opened doors for women in the new century, but the Equal Rights Amendment was in the works and doomed to fail while women lost all respect for objectification (cue the Maddie & Tae song). We had also gotten out of Vietnam, with many sore egos and dissolution to follow (we left the Southeast Asia to fall to Communism, after all). Gas became scarce and prices went up, while the nation was aware of the pollution to the point of going more eco-friendly after seeing fires in rivers. We also had a president resign.
A couple of things people think of when they think of the 1970s. For Americans, the 1970s is a time in US history where things were topsy turvy, if not strange. This is after the 1960s where we saw so much turmoil and shocking sights to our image as a stable democracy* and champion of liberty. Now it's the "Me Decade", the period of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, when all the good things of the fifties are forgotten, when everything is being challenged, and when it seemed there was nothing to do about it. The Civil Rights era saw the break down of the Jim Crow, but there is no sign of improved race relations anywhere (and this was before society opted a more color blind approach that worked until recently). Women's lib opened doors for women in the new century, but the Equal Rights Amendment was in the works and doomed to fail while women lost all respect for objectification (cue the Maddie & Tae song). We had also gotten out of Vietnam, with many sore egos and dissolution to follow (we left the Southeast Asia to fall to Communism, after all). Gas became scarce and prices went up, while the nation was aware of the pollution to the point of going more eco-friendly after seeing fires in rivers. We also had a president resign.
The 1970s was a time period not too different from the 2010s where the younger generation is more technology addicted and having cases of being smarter than the older one, yet can't seem to do simple actions or are busy using that intelligence to question the need for authority figures. At the same time, there are people who are wanting illegal substances, definitions of gender are being remade, the traditional courtship ritual replaced by a hook up culture, we saw a controversial war that was overseas end with us withdrawing; even the fact that on both decades a republican is in office is not to be forgotten, though it seems an inverse of the Seventies where the republicans were in office at the start and were replaced by a democrat, whereas we have a democrat replaced by a republican now (though plenty of Nixon imitators have happened). There are plenty of things different from the 1970s, of course, and I am not talking about the technology wise (though vinyl records are making a comeback, but not cassette tapes?).
I was not born in, nor grew up in the 1970s. I did those after, so I was like some European peasant who walked by the Roman ruins and saw evidence of a mighty civilization, without actually experiencing it. The Viewmaster, the cassette tapes, the VCR, and disco tunes were still done in the 1980s, while newer gadgets and toys were in the house. I also remember music being played on the archive reels at home, which is a far cry from the playlist on the ipod we have today (you couldn't carry the thing everywhere you went) and the TV was not made of plasma. My parents were in college in the seventies, so they saw some of it. People of their age and younger (the cut off point will be those born in 1978) had plenty of memories of laughter and tears of the decade, unless they were doped up or drunk from all the drugs and drinks during the keg parties. Some of the best shows on television, which air endlessly on TV Land and Hallmark first aired at this time: Dallas, Dukes of Hazard, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, to name a few. This was the decade of horror flicks, with the slasher films becoming common, beginning with The Exorcist and Halloween to Carrie and The Omen, and Alien. Besides Star Wars, classic movies like The Godfather, Rocky, Grease, Jaws, Close Encounters With the Third Kind, and Superman (which turned forty this year) are products of the decade while literature saw the arrival of John Updike, Steven King, William Styron, Alice Walker, and Peter Benchley, who all chose to return to the old fashioned ways of storytelling instead of focusing on so much on sex and violence. This was the decade Alex Haley published The Roots.
The memories of the decade, to an entire generation (two generations if we add in the Baby Boomers), included those movies and books, television shows and games, the good stuff and the tragedies, plus a few examples of flawed leadership, were preserved and kept on as everyone came of age in the 1980s. Then came the 1990s with a completely changed world. Nixon's war on drugs continued with new studies on the effects of drugs on people, though in a newer tone. Board games are being replaced by computer games, the thriller films replacing some of the bleak films of the past (and CGI effects were making movies look more pristine than before, if not more fake), and the AIDS scare has put a damper on sex while a hook up culture has sprung up. At the same time, what seemed like progress in the Seventies now became baby steps in comparison: black men were taking on places of power, while women were doing the same. Also, ghosts of the 1970s were being resurrected in the 1990s. The Lewinsky Scandal was the Watergate of my generation, while the OJ Simpson trials exposed the deeper seated racism in a country that had black men in power, and it seemed the generational gap was just as wide as before where the popular image has the parents wondering about their children who march to a different drum. This was the decade when gay children made headlines when they came out of the closet, with the Gay Culture being redefined and becoming normalized where same sex couples appeared on television and movies, and the decade ended with the tragic massacre at Columbine High. Though the arcade could still be found, a great many children were playing on Nintendo and game-boy at home, public places were becoming more smoke free, concerns of pollution replaced by global warming, and so many safety features required around children from seat belts to bicycle helmets. So, many Gen X'ers were looking back toward the 1970s, which they once believed was a low point in American history and now suddenly seemed another world; a Garden of Eden that they left long ago and now would prefer to return to. It's the same fever that came to Baby Boomers in the same decade and began to wax poetic about the 1950s, and some of my generation are doing the same with the 1980s and 90s (no doubt someone reading this has a pretty picture of the 2000s, also).
That sort of nostalgia was the genesis of the series known as That 70s Show. Following in the footsteps of the 1950s influenced Happy Days, plus the ABC TGIF line up night where Sabrina and Salem go from their show and see the others while taking each respected series to another decade (Sabrina went Sixties, Boy Meets World to the Forties, Teen Angel to the Seventies), That 70s Show takes the audience to the popular side of the decade and has characters live out their lives in the period. This period piece show is not really something like Mad Men of the Sixties, or like the upcoming family sitcom on ABC called The Kids Are Alright that also deals with growing up in the Seventies, coming out this fall, but rather a comedy skit, meaning jokes are played at the expense of the nostalgic picture the show is trying to present, making it seem that whatever rosy picture your parents had of the Seventies is all a big joke.
The show takes place in Point Place, Wisconsin, which makes it differ from most shows that take place in either the Northeast or in the South, or even out west. The opening credits include the song "In the Street", though Season Two begins the more familiar rendition by Cheap Trick. The First Season seems weird with the opening, where the kids are jamming to the song in Eric's vista cruiser, and ends with the singers going "Oh Yeah!". The Second Season has different players playing the song and includes the "We're all alright!" chant at the end, while added space is given (both versions have Kelso screaming "Hello Wisconsin!"). Of course, that's just an excerpt of the song, just as Dawson's Creek gave us only an excerpt of "I Don't Wanna Wait" in the opening credits and not the whole thing. Just click here and you'll hear the whole song.
The characters consist mostly of the teens and the adults. Eric Forman, played by Topher Grace, leads out the cast, along with Michael Kelso (Ashton Kutchner) and Stephen Hyde (Danny Masterson) -- the two boys who are often called by their last names, Kelso and Hyde -- plus Fez (Wilmar Valderrama), whose last name is never mentioned, and as the token minority, person of color in a mostly white cast, is a foreigner whose country is never mentioned, yet is hinted by his accent and and skin color (somewhere in the Caribbeans) as the guys. Eric has his close friend, later girlfriend, Donna Pinciotti (Laura Prepon), a red headed feminist girl who is said to be the strongest in the group, and Jackie Burkheart (Mila Kunis), basically Scarlet O'Hara and Verruca Salt merged into one, who dates Kelso. The group are at odds with the adults, consisting of Eric's parents, Red and Kitty (Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp), Donna's parents, Bob and Midge (Don Stark and Tanya Roberts), plus Eric's sister, Laurie, Hyde's mom, Jackie's dad, and Fez's foster parents, plus whatever teacher of Point Place High who comes in.
This review and commentary will cover the first two seasons. Season One features Eric and his friends going through 1976 and 1977, doing drugs in the basement while Eric and Donna go through the early stages of a relationship. However, the times are tough as Eric's father is losing hours at the plant and his mother is getting concerned of him getting big, yet Eric feels the need to prove that he is a man and goes into all sorts of attics to prove it so. Meanwhile, Jackie is dating Michael Kelso in a relationship that is taken to the next level, only to reveal it as shallow as they are.
For the most part, the first two seasons of That 70s Show is about the show attempting to get its bearings straight. In Season One, we start somewhere in 1976 with the teens in the basement while the adults are having a party, clearly showing how the two groups are different worlds from each other. Eric is pressed into stealing some drinks from the adults, akin to Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, and he wins it out. Then, it seems Eric is rewarded in what is shown as a rite of passage by being given the keys to the vista cruiser (in case anyone has forgotten, this was before the remotes we have now and the push button ignition in cars).
Basically, Eric's transition from boy to man is what kicks off the show, but there is so much confusion done. For the most part, Eric is coming of age with hardly to no respect whatsoever. He is not treated with respect in his family. His mother, Kitty, prefers to see him as the baby in the family. For example, in "Eric's Birthday", Kitty hosts a surprise party as though he were turning seven instead of seventeen. When someone gave Eric razors for a present, she grabs them away. Later, she fantasizes Eric wishing he begged her to stay as the kids are wild in the house without adult supervision. In season two, "Parents Find Out", she flips out at learning Eric is having sex with Donna, claiming her baby was defiled by "that red headed harlot", and spends days in bed, as though she lost someone. Eric's father, Red, has only two words to describe his only son, "dumb ass." Red is constantly referring to Eric as "the boy" or "dumb ass" over the course of the show, and threatening to put his foot in Eric's rear. In short, he's a bully to his son, who makes fun of him without mercy for most of the time, yet seems willing to come down on him when Eric tries to get him to stop. In "Streaking", when Eric makes a voice of opinion on politics, Red insults him by claiming he should use it for "Miss American speech." In "Battle of the Sexist", when Eric is bested by Donna in basketball, Red makes him do squat push ups to warm up for training, which only makes him too tired to play. He also is strict for the slightest infractions. In "Stolen Car", Red takes the keys to the Vista Cruiser away from Eric for "getting a purpler" which led to a small scratch. When Eric gets a job in "Eric's Burger Job", he doesn't consider it a real job because of the uniform. In many of the episodes, there are things Eric does that should have earned his respect, but in the start of the next episode it's back to before. "Streaking" is one where Eric helped out his dad when the latter is unable to ask the President his question, by streaking. Red practically thanks him for it, however it's all forgotten in the next episode. Finally, there's Laurie (played by Lisa Robin Kelly, who tragically died years after the show ended), Eric's older sister who is only sweet with her father while a terror to her brother and embarrassment to her mom. For her, Eric is basically a punch bag to insult and she could call on her father if Eric stood up for himself. Even his grandmother is hardly respectful of him, unless he is rubbing her feet, yet willingly trades him in for Fez.
Besides his family, Eric's friends mistreat him in the show. The nickname his friends give him is Oppie, after the boy from The Andy Griffith Show, and have him get into trouble constantly in Season One. First was the pilot where they have him steal drinks. Then, for the show, it's Eric driving everyone around in the Vista Cruiser, which should have given Eric power, but does not. When Eric is made to ride in another car in "Stolen Car", he is shuffled into the back like he was second class. Whenever Eric gets in trouble, his friends bail on him and then talk of how he always gets in trouble (remarkably, he stays loyal to these creatures). Donna, one close friend and later girlfriend, seems the one friend to be respectful of him, but does tend to not take his opinions to value. When he shows concern of a guy hitting on Donna in "A New Hope", she gets mad at him, even when he is proven right. Rich girl Jackie, in a later episode, claims she doesn't see Eric as a guy, but as a "masculine girl." Even Bob, Donna's father, looks down his nose upon Eric after Donna gets on the pill.
In short, Eric has to constantly prove to everyone that he is a man, which becomes a tough battle because the one episode story lines make it that everything reverts back to before in the next episode. Also, the degradation is done for laughs, which to some is akin to putting one in the point of view of the bully. Yet, Eric is something of an enabler in the way people treat him because he never once tells people to back off and call them out on it. Not at the start, anyway. Gradually, he begins to stand up for himself, which leads to trouble from Red, mostly (sort of inverting what we are taught that standing up to bullies will get them to back off).
Eric's coming of age coincides with other events in the first two seasons. First, Red finds out his hours in the plant are being cut, gradually ended with the plant closed down by "A New Hope." In "The Best Christmas Ever", Red is forced to take a job with Bob. President Ford comes to town in "Streaking", though shown from the back and doing a tread mark stumbling. To clarify, President Gerald Ford did stumble from getting off Air Force One, but it was a one time event that mortified most. According to , he also got himself locked out of the White House while walking his dog. Eric gets a job in "Eric's Burger Job" in what looks like White Castle meets Wendy's. They find a keg for beer in "The Keg" and throw a party over it. The gang go out to see The Omen and Star Wars in the season (the season takes place from 1976 to 1977), Eric's grandmother visits after Thanksgiving ("Sunday Bloody Sunday") and then dies ("Grandma's Dead"). Jackie and Kelso have sex for the first time in "Stolen Car", have a pregnancy scare in "The Pill", after which they break up, leading to Kelso to date a girl named Pam Macy in "Prom Night" before they are reunited and are back together. Hyde crushes on Donna in most of the season, but gets a girlfriend in "Punk Chick". Season One ends with "Hyde Moves In" and "The Good Son", which play off as a remake of the Second Season finale to Boy Meets World, where the main boy invites his poor friend in after his parents split, though problems come up in the process. Except for Eric and Donna becoming a couple, Red's job loss, and Midge discovering feminism, Season One has no story arc and consists mostly of one episode story lines.
Season Two continues with Hyde and Eric living in the same house, until "Laurie and the Professor" where Hyde moves into the basement. The issue of feminism splits the Pinciottis with Bob and Midge constantly trying to get Donna's favor. They split for a while, but get back together and renew their vows in "The First Time." As the title suggests, the same episode ends when Donna loses her virginity to Eric, and vice versa, making them one of the few television virgins to do the deed with another virgin. "The Afterglow" has them discussing the sex, with Donna feeling it wasn't like she thought it would be. However, they continue to couple up as long as they are together. "Parents Find Out" is when Red, Kitty, Bob, and Midge learn of what Donna and Eric were doing with the reactions you would expect: Kitty and Bob upset over it, Red still questioning them being adults, and Midge asking how it was. Kelso gets into a love triangle between Jackie and Laurie, which is shown in the opening credits of him between them in the car and glancing back and forth. He finally decides Jackie is the girl for him, but Laurie's good bye kiss is seen by Jackie, resulting in him losing both (hate it when television does that). The season also has stories over in one episode, like with a Halloween episode, one with Eric and Laurie deciding to not go to church, and Donna mooning. One that really stands out is "Laurie Moves Out", where Red finds out she is living in sin with a guy, and he reacts with great disappointment. Red has just found out Laurie was what Kitty and Eric saw her as, yet his reaction is treated as the lowest he could go just for having righteous anger about it, whereas Kitty and Eric get away with verbal jabs at her. Sad thing about the episode is Laurie could have reformed from that moment, but instead remains the she-devil upon returning home. In the same episode that Donna moons the world (all nudity censored away), Jackie and Hyde spend time together and Hyde gets arrested for holding drugs, taking the heat from Jackie. And, of course, Red learns of this (the drugs, not the sacrifice). Season Two's "Moon Over Point Place" has the ending where the main cast get into the circle time set up and shake their bottoms at the camera.
The show tackles authority issues of the teens in a few episodes, largely consisting of the adults versus teenagers battles. The adults are only shown through Red and Kitty Foreman and Bob and Midge Pinciotti for the most part while everyone else are background characters who show up only once or twice. The teen rebellion against the adults happens from episode one with Eric crashing the party his parents are hosting and then driving to an out of town concert. In "Streaking", we see a clip also of the principal going into a speech about the president's arrival, coming across as patriotic drivel, where in an attempt to discourage anything bad, the boys get an idea on it. In some episodes, like "The Keg", the adults do respond and come down on the teens, but even without it, we see the same themes of the teen movies: the teenage rebellion is never conquered. Red could punish everyone all he can, and so can everyone else, but in the end the teens' spirit is never broken and they will try again on another day. One thing to catch in Season One is while the teens are part of the "Me Generation", the adults are shown to be just as selfish and self centered as the kids. In "Sunday Bloody Sunday", Kitty and Red join them in the basement because they don't want deal with Grandma Foreman. The previous episode even had them pretending to not hear the phone ring when she calls. The set up is basically the hypocritical "do as I say, not as I do" stance of the adults. In fact, Kitty actually says it in "Eric Gets Suspended" where she lights a cigarette in full view of Eric and Donna. In Season Two's "Kelso's Serenade", Kitty brings Laurie and Red to visit Aunt Pearl, something no one in the family likes, including Aunt Pearl herself. In the end of the episode, Kitty only hopes people would see her when she goes to a retirement home.
The other adults include Jackie's father, who shows up early for the town's republicans, and then disappears, and Hyde's mother, who is first heard as a foreshadow to Howard's Mom from The Big Bang Theory, later revealed to be something akin to Lunch lady Doris from The Simpsons, played by Katey Sagal (with plenty of jabs are the lack of hygiene awareness in the cooking), who also disappears. Unlike Mr. Burkhart, Mrs. Hyde abandons Hyde as does his father, leaving him alone. Finally, there's Fez's foster parents, who only appear in "Drive In", yet are mentioned by Fez as being judgmental about him, from his music likes, his choice of friends, to his wearing of cologne. From this, parents are either present and tyrannical and hypocritical, or they are absent, never somewhere in between.
The one adult in the show that the teens really could relate to, who had any staying power in the show, is Leo, a lovable, yet senile, hippie, played by Tommy Chong. The last first appears in Season Two. He comes in largely to hang with the kids and pass some words of wisdom, that hardly mean much, and they are okay with it (mocking the values dissonance where a man like Leo would have been seen as a creep by everyone if he were doing the same today).
Though the tone of the show is liberal, a few things that seem conservative for the sake of comedy do show up. For one, the most stable family just happens to be the Formans, despite the members being totally opposite of each other. Kitty and Red are pretty much conservative, with Kitty embracing her role as a house wife while taking part time as a nurse when Red's hours are cut. This puts them at odds with their children who are liberal. In the meantime, Bob and Midge, plus Donna, embrace some of the liberal politics and it leads to their family becoming strained until it breaks up in Season Two. At first, Midge and Donna disagree on being a woman in the era of ERA, but things change over time. Of course, there is a slant in what one would call straw-man argument in the show where the one adult woman who supports feminism just happens to be a blonde bimbo, while the traditional housewife is the more down to earth sort, which really could be offensive to some (which explains why they made Donna the voice of feminism for the most part while Kitty becomes irrational in later seasons).
The feminism is brought on the teens, also, shown through Jackie and Donna. Donna becomes a feminist, largely in her lack of femininity and her rebellion against gender roles, which makes Jackie out to be the traditional girl, and she happens to be a spoiled rich girl. The fourth episode brings in the issue of sexism in the accurately titled "Battle of the Sexist", which The List included in their article "Misogynistic 90s TV moments that'll make you cringe"[1]. Eric is shown to not be athletic in comparison to the tomboyish Donna. It gets illustrated how humiliated he feels by showing shots of him in a dress, while Donna is pressured by her mom to let Eric win. Tons of things come from this moment, one it shows some of the sexism of the times where it's considered mature if a woman put aside her principles and let men feel all big and great. As a man, I will say I never get an ego boost or anything when women try something like that. I'll go into this more in a later part.
The show takes place in Point Place, Wisconsin, which makes it differ from most shows that take place in either the Northeast or in the South, or even out west. The opening credits include the song "In the Street", though Season Two begins the more familiar rendition by Cheap Trick. The First Season seems weird with the opening, where the kids are jamming to the song in Eric's vista cruiser, and ends with the singers going "Oh Yeah!". The Second Season has different players playing the song and includes the "We're all alright!" chant at the end, while added space is given (both versions have Kelso screaming "Hello Wisconsin!"). Of course, that's just an excerpt of the song, just as Dawson's Creek gave us only an excerpt of "I Don't Wanna Wait" in the opening credits and not the whole thing. Just click here and you'll hear the whole song.
The characters consist mostly of the teens and the adults. Eric Forman, played by Topher Grace, leads out the cast, along with Michael Kelso (Ashton Kutchner) and Stephen Hyde (Danny Masterson) -- the two boys who are often called by their last names, Kelso and Hyde -- plus Fez (Wilmar Valderrama), whose last name is never mentioned, and as the token minority, person of color in a mostly white cast, is a foreigner whose country is never mentioned, yet is hinted by his accent and and skin color (somewhere in the Caribbeans) as the guys. Eric has his close friend, later girlfriend, Donna Pinciotti (Laura Prepon), a red headed feminist girl who is said to be the strongest in the group, and Jackie Burkheart (Mila Kunis), basically Scarlet O'Hara and Verruca Salt merged into one, who dates Kelso. The group are at odds with the adults, consisting of Eric's parents, Red and Kitty (Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp), Donna's parents, Bob and Midge (Don Stark and Tanya Roberts), plus Eric's sister, Laurie, Hyde's mom, Jackie's dad, and Fez's foster parents, plus whatever teacher of Point Place High who comes in.
This review and commentary will cover the first two seasons. Season One features Eric and his friends going through 1976 and 1977, doing drugs in the basement while Eric and Donna go through the early stages of a relationship. However, the times are tough as Eric's father is losing hours at the plant and his mother is getting concerned of him getting big, yet Eric feels the need to prove that he is a man and goes into all sorts of attics to prove it so. Meanwhile, Jackie is dating Michael Kelso in a relationship that is taken to the next level, only to reveal it as shallow as they are.
For the most part, the first two seasons of That 70s Show is about the show attempting to get its bearings straight. In Season One, we start somewhere in 1976 with the teens in the basement while the adults are having a party, clearly showing how the two groups are different worlds from each other. Eric is pressed into stealing some drinks from the adults, akin to Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, and he wins it out. Then, it seems Eric is rewarded in what is shown as a rite of passage by being given the keys to the vista cruiser (in case anyone has forgotten, this was before the remotes we have now and the push button ignition in cars).
Basically, Eric's transition from boy to man is what kicks off the show, but there is so much confusion done. For the most part, Eric is coming of age with hardly to no respect whatsoever. He is not treated with respect in his family. His mother, Kitty, prefers to see him as the baby in the family. For example, in "Eric's Birthday", Kitty hosts a surprise party as though he were turning seven instead of seventeen. When someone gave Eric razors for a present, she grabs them away. Later, she fantasizes Eric wishing he begged her to stay as the kids are wild in the house without adult supervision. In season two, "Parents Find Out", she flips out at learning Eric is having sex with Donna, claiming her baby was defiled by "that red headed harlot", and spends days in bed, as though she lost someone. Eric's father, Red, has only two words to describe his only son, "dumb ass." Red is constantly referring to Eric as "the boy" or "dumb ass" over the course of the show, and threatening to put his foot in Eric's rear. In short, he's a bully to his son, who makes fun of him without mercy for most of the time, yet seems willing to come down on him when Eric tries to get him to stop. In "Streaking", when Eric makes a voice of opinion on politics, Red insults him by claiming he should use it for "Miss American speech." In "Battle of the Sexist", when Eric is bested by Donna in basketball, Red makes him do squat push ups to warm up for training, which only makes him too tired to play. He also is strict for the slightest infractions. In "Stolen Car", Red takes the keys to the Vista Cruiser away from Eric for "getting a purpler" which led to a small scratch. When Eric gets a job in "Eric's Burger Job", he doesn't consider it a real job because of the uniform. In many of the episodes, there are things Eric does that should have earned his respect, but in the start of the next episode it's back to before. "Streaking" is one where Eric helped out his dad when the latter is unable to ask the President his question, by streaking. Red practically thanks him for it, however it's all forgotten in the next episode. Finally, there's Laurie (played by Lisa Robin Kelly, who tragically died years after the show ended), Eric's older sister who is only sweet with her father while a terror to her brother and embarrassment to her mom. For her, Eric is basically a punch bag to insult and she could call on her father if Eric stood up for himself. Even his grandmother is hardly respectful of him, unless he is rubbing her feet, yet willingly trades him in for Fez.
Besides his family, Eric's friends mistreat him in the show. The nickname his friends give him is Oppie, after the boy from The Andy Griffith Show, and have him get into trouble constantly in Season One. First was the pilot where they have him steal drinks. Then, for the show, it's Eric driving everyone around in the Vista Cruiser, which should have given Eric power, but does not. When Eric is made to ride in another car in "Stolen Car", he is shuffled into the back like he was second class. Whenever Eric gets in trouble, his friends bail on him and then talk of how he always gets in trouble (remarkably, he stays loyal to these creatures). Donna, one close friend and later girlfriend, seems the one friend to be respectful of him, but does tend to not take his opinions to value. When he shows concern of a guy hitting on Donna in "A New Hope", she gets mad at him, even when he is proven right. Rich girl Jackie, in a later episode, claims she doesn't see Eric as a guy, but as a "masculine girl." Even Bob, Donna's father, looks down his nose upon Eric after Donna gets on the pill.
In short, Eric has to constantly prove to everyone that he is a man, which becomes a tough battle because the one episode story lines make it that everything reverts back to before in the next episode. Also, the degradation is done for laughs, which to some is akin to putting one in the point of view of the bully. Yet, Eric is something of an enabler in the way people treat him because he never once tells people to back off and call them out on it. Not at the start, anyway. Gradually, he begins to stand up for himself, which leads to trouble from Red, mostly (sort of inverting what we are taught that standing up to bullies will get them to back off).
Eric's coming of age coincides with other events in the first two seasons. First, Red finds out his hours in the plant are being cut, gradually ended with the plant closed down by "A New Hope." In "The Best Christmas Ever", Red is forced to take a job with Bob. President Ford comes to town in "Streaking", though shown from the back and doing a tread mark stumbling. To clarify, President Gerald Ford did stumble from getting off Air Force One, but it was a one time event that mortified most. According to , he also got himself locked out of the White House while walking his dog. Eric gets a job in "Eric's Burger Job" in what looks like White Castle meets Wendy's. They find a keg for beer in "The Keg" and throw a party over it. The gang go out to see The Omen and Star Wars in the season (the season takes place from 1976 to 1977), Eric's grandmother visits after Thanksgiving ("Sunday Bloody Sunday") and then dies ("Grandma's Dead"). Jackie and Kelso have sex for the first time in "Stolen Car", have a pregnancy scare in "The Pill", after which they break up, leading to Kelso to date a girl named Pam Macy in "Prom Night" before they are reunited and are back together. Hyde crushes on Donna in most of the season, but gets a girlfriend in "Punk Chick". Season One ends with "Hyde Moves In" and "The Good Son", which play off as a remake of the Second Season finale to Boy Meets World, where the main boy invites his poor friend in after his parents split, though problems come up in the process. Except for Eric and Donna becoming a couple, Red's job loss, and Midge discovering feminism, Season One has no story arc and consists mostly of one episode story lines.
Season Two continues with Hyde and Eric living in the same house, until "Laurie and the Professor" where Hyde moves into the basement. The issue of feminism splits the Pinciottis with Bob and Midge constantly trying to get Donna's favor. They split for a while, but get back together and renew their vows in "The First Time." As the title suggests, the same episode ends when Donna loses her virginity to Eric, and vice versa, making them one of the few television virgins to do the deed with another virgin. "The Afterglow" has them discussing the sex, with Donna feeling it wasn't like she thought it would be. However, they continue to couple up as long as they are together. "Parents Find Out" is when Red, Kitty, Bob, and Midge learn of what Donna and Eric were doing with the reactions you would expect: Kitty and Bob upset over it, Red still questioning them being adults, and Midge asking how it was. Kelso gets into a love triangle between Jackie and Laurie, which is shown in the opening credits of him between them in the car and glancing back and forth. He finally decides Jackie is the girl for him, but Laurie's good bye kiss is seen by Jackie, resulting in him losing both (hate it when television does that). The season also has stories over in one episode, like with a Halloween episode, one with Eric and Laurie deciding to not go to church, and Donna mooning. One that really stands out is "Laurie Moves Out", where Red finds out she is living in sin with a guy, and he reacts with great disappointment. Red has just found out Laurie was what Kitty and Eric saw her as, yet his reaction is treated as the lowest he could go just for having righteous anger about it, whereas Kitty and Eric get away with verbal jabs at her. Sad thing about the episode is Laurie could have reformed from that moment, but instead remains the she-devil upon returning home. In the same episode that Donna moons the world (all nudity censored away), Jackie and Hyde spend time together and Hyde gets arrested for holding drugs, taking the heat from Jackie. And, of course, Red learns of this (the drugs, not the sacrifice). Season Two's "Moon Over Point Place" has the ending where the main cast get into the circle time set up and shake their bottoms at the camera.
The show tackles authority issues of the teens in a few episodes, largely consisting of the adults versus teenagers battles. The adults are only shown through Red and Kitty Foreman and Bob and Midge Pinciotti for the most part while everyone else are background characters who show up only once or twice. The teen rebellion against the adults happens from episode one with Eric crashing the party his parents are hosting and then driving to an out of town concert. In "Streaking", we see a clip also of the principal going into a speech about the president's arrival, coming across as patriotic drivel, where in an attempt to discourage anything bad, the boys get an idea on it. In some episodes, like "The Keg", the adults do respond and come down on the teens, but even without it, we see the same themes of the teen movies: the teenage rebellion is never conquered. Red could punish everyone all he can, and so can everyone else, but in the end the teens' spirit is never broken and they will try again on another day. One thing to catch in Season One is while the teens are part of the "Me Generation", the adults are shown to be just as selfish and self centered as the kids. In "Sunday Bloody Sunday", Kitty and Red join them in the basement because they don't want deal with Grandma Foreman. The previous episode even had them pretending to not hear the phone ring when she calls. The set up is basically the hypocritical "do as I say, not as I do" stance of the adults. In fact, Kitty actually says it in "Eric Gets Suspended" where she lights a cigarette in full view of Eric and Donna. In Season Two's "Kelso's Serenade", Kitty brings Laurie and Red to visit Aunt Pearl, something no one in the family likes, including Aunt Pearl herself. In the end of the episode, Kitty only hopes people would see her when she goes to a retirement home.
The other adults include Jackie's father, who shows up early for the town's republicans, and then disappears, and Hyde's mother, who is first heard as a foreshadow to Howard's Mom from The Big Bang Theory, later revealed to be something akin to Lunch lady Doris from The Simpsons, played by Katey Sagal (with plenty of jabs are the lack of hygiene awareness in the cooking), who also disappears. Unlike Mr. Burkhart, Mrs. Hyde abandons Hyde as does his father, leaving him alone. Finally, there's Fez's foster parents, who only appear in "Drive In", yet are mentioned by Fez as being judgmental about him, from his music likes, his choice of friends, to his wearing of cologne. From this, parents are either present and tyrannical and hypocritical, or they are absent, never somewhere in between.
The one adult in the show that the teens really could relate to, who had any staying power in the show, is Leo, a lovable, yet senile, hippie, played by Tommy Chong. The last first appears in Season Two. He comes in largely to hang with the kids and pass some words of wisdom, that hardly mean much, and they are okay with it (mocking the values dissonance where a man like Leo would have been seen as a creep by everyone if he were doing the same today).
Though the tone of the show is liberal, a few things that seem conservative for the sake of comedy do show up. For one, the most stable family just happens to be the Formans, despite the members being totally opposite of each other. Kitty and Red are pretty much conservative, with Kitty embracing her role as a house wife while taking part time as a nurse when Red's hours are cut. This puts them at odds with their children who are liberal. In the meantime, Bob and Midge, plus Donna, embrace some of the liberal politics and it leads to their family becoming strained until it breaks up in Season Two. At first, Midge and Donna disagree on being a woman in the era of ERA, but things change over time. Of course, there is a slant in what one would call straw-man argument in the show where the one adult woman who supports feminism just happens to be a blonde bimbo, while the traditional housewife is the more down to earth sort, which really could be offensive to some (which explains why they made Donna the voice of feminism for the most part while Kitty becomes irrational in later seasons).
The feminism is brought on the teens, also, shown through Jackie and Donna. Donna becomes a feminist, largely in her lack of femininity and her rebellion against gender roles, which makes Jackie out to be the traditional girl, and she happens to be a spoiled rich girl. The fourth episode brings in the issue of sexism in the accurately titled "Battle of the Sexist", which The List included in their article "Misogynistic 90s TV moments that'll make you cringe"[1]. Eric is shown to not be athletic in comparison to the tomboyish Donna. It gets illustrated how humiliated he feels by showing shots of him in a dress, while Donna is pressured by her mom to let Eric win. Tons of things come from this moment, one it shows some of the sexism of the times where it's considered mature if a woman put aside her principles and let men feel all big and great. As a man, I will say I never get an ego boost or anything when women try something like that. I'll go into this more in a later part.
As to the show's content, it's very secular. Only two episodes in the first two seasons feature church going, with one of them focusing on religion, "Holy Crap." In the episode, Eric claims that having lost his virginity there was nothing to pray for, something I disagree with. Non-virgins can still be religious as virgins can, and plenty of men of the cloth previously lost it before they had their calling. For example is St. Augustine, who fathered a child out of wedlock before he was Bishop of Hippo, but he changed his ways over time, hence why he is canonized a saint. This is never brought up in the episode, since the Formans are depicted as protestant (the Pinciottis being Catholic isn't brought up until later), however it falls back on the familiar television trope: the mom being a regular church goer who pushes her family to go every Sunday, the dad taking church with indifference while focusing on sports (Red practically admits to losing his faith during a war, but only goes to set an example, and mostly asking for God to let his favorite team win, and making his children go to church anyway), and the children whining about how church going is bad. Since Laurie is portrayed as a slut, who hits on Pastor Dave later on, and Eric is in rebellion, the whole thing is treated with approval by the show, especially when they give out reasons to not go, and you can read them out in this link. Steven Hyde is shown to have no need for religion in this simple speech:
While I respect the Judæo-Christian ethic, as well as the Eastern philosophies and, of course, the teachings of Muhammad, I find that organized religion has corrupted those beliefs to justify countless atrocities throughout history. Were I to attend church, I'd be a hypocrite.[2].When he gives the said speech, the audience cheers approval. Later on, he teaches Jackie the art of Zen, though there is never anything deep given other than maintaining calm when talking to others. During their circle time, Hyde even brings up a variant of "Could [God] make a rock so heavy that even He couldn't lift it?" (took me some effort to type that down.) I will say I always hate questions like that, as well as "how many angels could stand on a pin head?" They are stupid questions that, for all I know, are designed to shut someone up and ensnare them from their faith while they sort the question out. Besides, the variant used is very perverted. The same scene also has him quoting Nietzsche while claiming Time Magazine said so. Leo claims to have met God on a bus, who gave him a pretzel and told him the meaning of life, but since Leo is a senile, doped up hippy, it's treated as delusion. And, of course, Kitty has a dream where she and her family are damned because they didn't go to church together (which doesn't have Biblical basis) while the Pinciottis go into Heaven via a bribe to the angels (once again, no Biblical basis). Finally, in "Drive In", we meet Fez's foster parents, portrayed as religious people who believe they could hear a message from the Devil in rock music (a claim that was common at the time).
I could go on with the way the show treats religion, especially Christianity, but it would make this blog too long. Will conclude that if you have a problem with the secular view of the world in this show, then this is not the show for you. In the next part, we'll get more into the themes and issues brought up in That 70s Show.
* see "Food For Thought: Republic vs Democracy."
1. Bell, Amanda June. "Misogynistic 90s TV moments that'll make you cringe." The List. https://www.thelist.com. 2018. (assessed online in 2018.)
2. "Holy Crap" (1999) retrieved imbd, 2018.
