How "I Love Lucy" Reflects the Values of Society in the 1950s

I Love Lucy is a T.V. show of 180 episodes of 25 minutes each, in black and white, created by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll Jr. and broadcast between October 15, 1951, and May 6, 1957, on the CBS network. This humorous series features the adventures of the extravagant Lucy Ricardo, a housewife despite herself and her husband, Ricky, conductor and show director in a cabaret. With her accomplice and best friend, Ethel Mertz, Lucy will do everything to circumvent her sexist husband's prohibitions, causing hilarious disasters. Equal Rights was the 70th episode of I Love Lucy and also the 3rd episode of Season 3 of the series. The episode originally aired on CBS-TV on October 26, 1953. An aspect of popular culture in the 1950s that is depicted by I Love Lucy is an aspect of gender roles that defined relationships. In which, daily routines of women consisted of cooking and wait for their husbands while they brought home the money. I Love Lucy was defiant of the convention, as was the character Lucy, whom they took on social issues that even today would be considered bold and daring.

We can reflect on the role of women and men in the series, and more particularly in this episode. Besides, we can also see how this series constitutes the beginning of an opening of thought about marriage between people from different cultures, a situation that would have been considered unacceptable 50 years ago. So, we can wonder how the female gender was being portrayed on the new genre television throughout the 1950s.

Representation of the 1950s American Society in "I Love Lucy"

This television show reflects the way of life for American families in the '50s. The main actress of the series I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball, stated rightly in an interview: 'The believability of all our unbelievable situations is what made it funny. People could identify with my problems (…) the way I cajoled my husband. People identified with the Ricardos because we had the same problems they had. Paying the rent, getting a new dress, getting a stale fur collar on an old cloth coat, or buying a piece of furniture were all worth a story.” The role of women and men are stereotyped; this episode deals with an important subject in a very humorous way, making it accessible to people from all social backgrounds. At this time, magazines and other media most often depicted women in traditional sex roles, such as homemakers: women are represented according to the female ideal of the time, thus giving them a servile image. At the beginning of the episode, Ricky scolds Lucy and tells her that he is in charge, and she is to do as she is told. Ethel's husband makes a very sexist comment, 'What do you [women] want? You got the vote, you wear pants, you drive buses, you wrestle! You go every place you please except the steam room in the YMCA!'.

Lucy and Ethel do not think this is fair, so they demand for their husbands to treat them as equals. However, women are not prepared for total equality, and when the two husbands decide to divide the bill into four at the restaurant, they are not prepared for that and do not have any money on them. Since the ladies have no money, they have to pay for their meals by washing dishes. Just washing plates is once again a reference to the role of the woman, the duties she is supposed to do at home. And even as Lucy tries to assert herself as an equal to the man, she ultimately returns to her position as a wife, doing what society expects from her. Moreover, while washing the plates, Lucy and Ethel strangely no longer want this male/female equality so much. This shows a certain superficiality of the will to assert oneself: but we can still consider this as the first steps towards feminism. Another important issue represented in this how is the question of racism: everyone is kind of racist towards Ricky for being Cuban, even Lucy, continually making his origin a consistent topic. In nearly every episode, Ricky is referred to as a Cuban at least once, and it is usually in a remark about his faults 'I do not know how you treat your women in Cuba, but this is the United States, and I have my rights!'. His ethnicity profoundly marks him throughout the show.

However, I love Lucy also shows the beginning of a new, more open society. Lucille Ball was a pioneer for female comedians. She was a comedian when comedians were predominately male and were making jokes about how unfunny women are. She broke many stereotypes of the 1950s, an era when many thought women belonged exclusively at home, making dinner and raising children, on-screen, and off. The two main actors playing the role of Lucy and Desi were married in real life. Desi was not a Natural citizen of the U.S., although he obtained after his citizenship, and this was a concern as people still did not fully accept mixed marriages. However, as Lucy refused to play without her husband, the couple was taken as such. They thus became the first interracial family on T.V., inspiring and touching the lives of many people in the United States and around the world. The sight of her and Ethel scheming to get things they wanted and trying to prove they were better than the men were ideas exposed for the first times, especially on television. This episode in particular highlights the character of the two women who do not let themselves be carried away, although we first saw that they respected the norms of the time by cooking for their husbands (...) we can also discover a more modern aspect of their characters, a desire to become independent and free women. At the end of the episode, the wives are the ones freeing their husbands, kissing them in front of the policeman, and bringing them back home. This shows an inversion of roles and transmits an essential message while disguising through a funny situation.

Finally, I Love Lucy is a reflection of the lives of people in that era. Just because all the sexist things were the norm, does not mean they were okay, but it was an honest representation of the day. Moreover, the fact this tv show was top-rated in the U.S. made Americans' minds much more open to the ideas it presented, and many of these messages were positive. The negative aspects of the show considering gender representation and racism might have been necessary to let the positive aspects into the minds of the audience.

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