by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
Photo by Tatiana Syrikova, via Pexels
Happy Father’s Day! I hope all you dads out there get in some good relaxation time. Unless, of course, you’re with your young grandkids. There is no relaxing then! (But you wouldn’t have it any other way.) And I also hope you get a message you don’t hear much these days: You matter.
On another note, there’s a famous line in the John Ford Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. When the truth of who shot down Valance is finally revealed to a newspaperman, he refuses to run it. “This is the West, sir,” he says. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
I thought about this line via the following events:
Last Wednesday was Flag Day. It’s one day out of the year for Americans to honor the Stars and Stripes.
Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver) and Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman)
It so happened that on that day I picked a random episode of Dobie Gillis for my wife and me to watch. I was too young to appreciate this TV show in its first run, but I remember my big brother watching it every week. Based on stories by Max Shulman, the show centered on a girl-crazy high school student (Dwayne Hickman) and his beatnik friend, Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver, pre-Gilligan). The show actually holds up quite well, via its quick cutting and sharp dialogue (and, if you look fast, appearances by early Tuesday Weld and Warren Beatty).
In this particular episode, it is discovered that Maynard has legit ESP. He can tell what people have in their pockets, what they are thinking, and even predict the future.
His gift is exploited by a local TV station, which brings Maynard on to demonstrate his powers in front of a panel of skeptical experts. Maynard proves his stuff. The station invites him back the next week in order to tell the world who is going to win the upcoming presidential election between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy!
Dobie tries to talk Maynard out of it. But for once in his life, Maynard is being treated with respect. The whole world is going to listen to him.
“Man, that’s like power,” says Maynard.
“Man, that’s like un-American,” says Dobie. “This is a democracy, Maynard! People have the right to vote for whoever they want. If you tell them who wins, people will stay home!”
Maynard is undeterred. On the night of the broadcast, Dobie stands outside the studio sending last, desperate thoughts to Maynard, who ends up doing the right thing. “Like, I don’t know!” he tells the host.
He’s unceremoniously tossed out of the studio. Dobie finds him and says, “Maynard, I’m proud of you! You’re one of the great Americans of all time. Paul Revere, Nathan Hale, Sergeant York, Barbara Frietchie…and my good buddy, Maynard G. Krebs.”
What struck my wife and me was how unapologetically patriotic Dobie was. How many high school students talk like that anymore? Who even knows who Nathan Hale was, let alone Barbara Frietchie?
Interesting that Dobie put that latter name on the list. Barbara Frietchie is the subject of a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. The poem used to be taught in our schools. Kids would memorize it. I remember my dad reciting it. Based loosely on historical fact, it tells the story of an aged widow looking down from the attic of her house in Frederick, Maryland, as the occupying Confederate army, led by Stonewall Jackson, marches through. She sees them waving their flags, and puts out Old Glory on a flagpole. The soldiers shoot at it, shattering the pole. But Barbara grabs it and starts waving the flag herself. She shouts down at the soldiers the famous line:
“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag,” she said.
“Barbara Frietchie” 1867 woodcut
Whittier certainly embellished the facts, but so what? He was creating legend. As with Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” the point was not realism, but idealism. Especially in context. “Barbara Frietchie” was penned during the Civil War; Whittier was a staunch abolitionist looking to inspire the North at a time when Lee and Jackson were beating the pants off it. A comment to an article on the background of the poem says it well:
The essence of “poetry” is not in detailed truths, but in the passions it appeals. Please don’t diminish yourselves by “seeking the truth/s of origin” in any poetry. Simply enjoy the story, the romance and the beauty of human actions.
In our fiction, we have that choice, too. Do we extol “the beauty of human actions” even through the most dire of circumstances? To Kill a Mockingbird comes to mind. So do my favorite thrillers.
And so does Dobie Gillis and all those family shows from the 50s and early 60s, like Leave it To Beaver. The standard criticism about those shows is along the lines of, “No families were really like that!”
Again, that misses the point. The shows were never intended to be cold reflections of reality. They were, first of all, entertainment. But they also carried positive, uplifting moral sentiments. In Beaver, for example, Ward would dispense essential wisdom to his sons. June would teach them to be polite, and how to behave in social gatherings. Wally would protect the Beav from the devilish whispers of Eddie Haskell.
In other words, these shows, as the old song puts it, accentuated the positive. Which is a good thing, in my view. Especially these days.
I’ve always liked this quote by writing teacher and novelist John Gardner, from a Paris Review interview:
I think that the difference right now between good art and bad art is that the good artists are the people who are, in one way or another, creating, out of deep and honest concern, a vision of life…that is worth pursuing. And the bad artists, of whom there are many, are whining or moaning or staring, because it’s fashionable, into the dark abyss….It seems to me that the artist ought to hunt for positive ways of surviving, of living.
What say you?
By coincidence, I’m struggling with Morality tonight, in many senses, and how the concept and its execution are different for the three main characters, so I can finish the plot structure for the final volume in my mainstream trilogy, and know what gets shown where to make the points.
The situation is a custody trial for infant twin girls, and the complication is that each of the biological parents is now married to someone else, their very conception was the result of deception, and both couples are seeking sole custody. The expectations are very heavily tilted toward the nursing mother – who would have aborted them if she had known in time. And the potential adopting mother is disabled.
I have notes going back to 2007 on making the battle come out – with the best options for the girls, because who rears children matters, a lot. Here are a few:
Family matters
Love is based on trust
Children matter – and must be protected
Beliefs are important
Beliefs lead to action
Right beliefs lead to right action
Dignity matters
Good will prevail
Life throws stuff at you
How you handle it is who you are
You can’t stay married to someone who doesn’t want you
Some people are objectively better than others
Evil exists – and can’t be excused
Love transcends age
Integrity matters
Doing the right things for the wrong reasons is morally suspect
Doing the right things for the wrong reasons is dangerous
And the kicker:
Disability, or intrinsic value of the person who is disabled, and about the empathy I want developed in readers and the world.
The worth difference between able people and the disabled is zero.
Disabled people work harder to get less.
Making all of that into good fiction is the core of the volume, to protect vulnerable children – by whom? What is being done for show and reputation managing, what for the welfare of innocents?
There are many high-profile cases like this in the celebrity world – and we don’t always get to really understand what goes on. And there is an absolute refusal to co-parent – for very good reasons.
I won’t say I’m having FUN, exactly, but I’ve known this knot was coming for a very long time, and now I have to make it matter.
A Gordian knot indeed, Alicia. But that struggle through the thicket is often what makes for compelling fiction. I get what you’re saying about it not always being fun, but the effort is worth it. Good luck!
The wisdom of Solomon is needed. If you’ve not, read some of Jodi Picoult’s novels. Her novels look at social and moral issues and do a dang even job of showing both sides.
I find hers a little too gristly for me – I don’t know how she can spend so much time with the subjects of her books. I need a lot of ‘positive’ in mine as counterbalance.
But she is immensely popular.
Excellent, JSB! We watched Dobie Gillis faithfully. Over its 4 year run, many other stars appeared on the show, including Robby the Robot, Thelonious Monk, Ryan O’Neal, Sally Kellerman, Susan Nimoy, Ellen Burstyn, Richard Deacon, Marlo Thomas, Bea Benaderet, Rose Marie, Francis X. Bushman, character actor Dabbs Greer (whose face you’d remember, if not his name), Barbara Bain, Norman Fell, Harry von Zell, Howard McNear (Floyd, the barber, on the Andy Griffith Show), Jo Anne Worley (of Laugh-in), Mel Blanc, Ron Howard, Jack Albertson, and my favorite, Sheila James Kuehl (Zelda).
Regarding negativity, I’m curious when the rot started. I first noticed it back in the 50’s, when my favorite Sci-Fi magazine began including more and more ‘downer’ stories, plots involving the MC or the country or the Earth being destroyed in a variety of oh-so-clever ways. It was so bad, I stopped subscribing.
Thanks for the extra background on Dobie Gillis. It’s so happens I remember Dabbs Greer quite well. He worked steadily in 50s and 60s television, and was a regular on The Rifleman.
Sheila Kuehl taught one year at USC Law, and I asked her about working on the show with Frank Faylen, Dobie’s flummoxed father (best known as the cab driver in It’s a Wonderful Life). She shook her head and said he was a bit lecherous.
I thought Dabbs Greer might go unrecognized. Impressive that you remember him. I used IMDb to find famous actors who appeared on Dobie Gillis, and I included Mr. Greer because I remember him from Gunsmoke. He has 321 actor credits on IMDb, 42 of them for Gunsmoke. His last feature flick was “The Green Mile,” playing the MC as an old man and also narrating throughout the film.
LOL. I used to get Dabbs Greer and Dub Taylor mixed up.
Happy Father’s Day to you, too, Sir… and to the rest of the TKZ-ers this morning… whether or not you ARE one, we all have – or had – one…
Your final quote brings to mind a somewhat interesting (and yes, eventually related), article I surfed/rabbit-holed/stumbled upon recently that bemoans the fact that so much art these days is about nothing more than “…whining or moaning or staring… into the dark abyss.”
While it begins and returns to talking about the current state of architecture and urban design, this somewhat lengthy piece in the Daily Mail, (The Modern Cult of Ugliness – https://href.li/?https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1231948/Why-sordid-art-like-Tracey-Emins-led-cult-ugliness-Britain.html ), includes a discussion of similar current trends in music and literature, and echos Gardner’s sentiments.
A quick cut-n-paste :
◾ What we look at, listen to and read affects us in the deepest part of our being. Once we start to celebrate ugliness, then we become ugly, too…. ◾
Not my usual wise-guy self this morning, I know… but I’ll close with having seen the house, in Fredrick, Maryland, where it is claimed Ms. Frietchie defended the Stars and Stripes from the Stars and Bars.
And like her legend, this house may or may not be where events actually “unfurled” (if I may), but to the folks of Fredrick, that’s not entirely the point…
You hit on the right word, George. Ugliness. That describes the zeitgeist. But we writers, and all artists, can strike back with goodness, truth, and beauty.
Ugliness for ugliness’ sake. For a fascination with ugliness.
It used to be the serial killer was the bad guy; I’ve stopped watching most of those shows because of the focus on them and their potential motivations. I want to watch the good guys interpret the clues and stop the madness, not get a lesson in how a killer gets his satisfaction.
A thought provoking article-above the Daily Mail’s usual fare.
If I want dark and negative, all I have to do is turn on the news. I don’t want to watch it in a movie or read it in a book. I simply have a low threshhold for that. But some people can tolerate a higher threshold of the dark and negative.
I was never much of a movie watcher, but this is one of the reasons that I was unimpressed with the few western films I saw over the last 10-20 years. Unlike the hopeful western TV shows I grew up watching as a kid which instilled all the best values, the films seemed to focus on the darkness of the violence and not much else. They totally missed the point of a western, in my view.
I was a child of the 70’s-80’s TV world (& a few from the late 60’s). But I quit TV by early 1992. Part of that reason was that for me there was a loss of that accentuation of the positive.
Obviously if we want conflict in our books there’s no way to avoid the negative. But I want an overall hopeful message. The protag may not get his way in everything, and he certainly won’t do what is right all the time, but in my writing, I want him to be there on the page to show the good impact of persistance and making (most of the time) right choices. I want him to be the driver of justice. That idea that good always wins never gets old.
Yeah, the term is “revisionist western.” Not impressed.
Tombstone, OTOH…
In his later years, Bob Denver had a big boat on Lake Norman, NC. No, it wasn’t called The Minnow, Two. The locals were unimpressed. He was an arrogant grump.
Dobie Gillis was a staple in our house. In fact, Bob Denver lived up the street from us. And decades and decades later, when I lived in Orlando, I was shopping at my local Publix and I heard a woman asking the butcher for a Tri-Tip. That’s not a cut they do there, but it was the voice that got me. June Cleaver! I had to go over and explain it to her. That’s when they were filming the new Leave it to Beaver series. We’d often see Tony Dow bicycling down the road to the studio. Anyway, I asked my chef brother about a Tri-Tip, and he told me what the exact butcher cut was. I wrote to her c/o the studio and told her what she should request from the butcher, and she wrote the nicest letter back. This was pre email days, so it was hand written and required an envelope and stamp.
In my junior high school English classes, we had to memorize and recite poetry. Those who had Miss Barrett had to do the entire Paul Revere’s Ride. We in Miss Cook’s class had to recite part of it (sorry, can’t remember exactly how much), but then we had a bunch of other poems to memorize. And I know of Barbara Fritchie, but for some reason, I think it was in a James Thurber book. I salvaged two of them after my mom died, but they’re downstairs and it’s too early for me to go check.
I used to see the late Tony Dow at a local Starbucks. We chatted a couple of times, as early on I was his understudy in a community theater play directed by Hugh Beaumont.
As for Barbara Billingsley, what a stroke of genius it was to cast her as the passenger who can speak jive in Airplane!
Happy Father’s Day, Jim.
What say I? “creating, out of deep and honest concern, a vision of life…that is worth pursuing.” That’s what I am attempting to do with my Mad River Magic series for teens. Not exactly what they are otherwise being marinated in.
May your time with family be long, and your time here on the blog be short.
Thanks, Steve. You chose a good word there- marinate. That’s what it feels like so much of the time. Good on you for striking back.
My answer is a resounding yes! Accentuating the positive is what I want in my fiction, Jim. I want to see the heroism, courage, good works, care for others that does happen in real life, and that fiction can highlight and emphasize. It’s one reason I enjoy cozy mysteries.
Last night we rewatched the 1990 film “Memphis Belle,” about the famous B-17 bomber and its crew that successfully flew 25 missions as part of the Eighth Air Force’s bombing campaign against the Third Reich. The film is highly fictionalized, but gripping and shows, despite everything, how these young men came together for each other not only to survive, but to carry out their mission in extremely trying circumstances.
Right on, Dale.
“Highly fictionalized” doesn’t bother me in the slightest. A movie stands or falls on its own. You can debate about realism in the classroom.
Loved this post, James. Heartwarming. Uplifting. Helpful.
Thank you so much.
My pleasure, DD.
Yes, yes, yes, Jim! I couldn’t agree more. Leave it to Beaver was a staple in our house. Writing something meaningful is also rewarding. Why not try to better the world? Especially these days.
Right on, Sue!
Happy Father’s Day!
Happy Father’s Day!
The time travel I’m working on deals with this
A naive Revolutionary War era girl runs off to the future with a redcoat cad. She thinks they’ll get married. He has no intention of doing so. He loves the future’s lack of morals and hooks up with a green-haired tattooed barmaid. She misses the good boyfriend she ditched and the father who at least saw the cad for what he was and tried to protect her.
Love the premise, Cynthia!
Happy Father’s Day, Jim and all the TKZ dads!
I agree with you and Gardner: “It seems to me that the artist ought to hunt for positive ways of surviving, of living.” There is more than enough darkness in today’s world. To reflect light, however we understand it, seems to me to be the right thing to do.
I’m working on a middle-grade book, and I’m trying to embellish what I hope is a humorous story with some seeds of truth that might take root in a child’s life. Seeds like how important it is to tell the truth, to play fair, and to respect others. The story revolves around a “treasure map” so it’s also an opportunity to explore the meaning of riches.
Have a great week.
Kay, I love the idea that you’re writing middle grade to “plant seeds.” So crucial these days that good seeds get sown. I have a middle grade idea along those lines myself.
Agree, agree, agree!
I’m discovering that when I bring up those “old” shows and movies, more often than not, someone with a disparaging word says something like, “But it’s not realistic. That’s not how people really behave.”
My answer is who cares? Those actors went home after the scenes were shot and lived real lives, maybe yelled at their kids or kicked the dog. The point is, that for a little while in front of the cameras, they got to live a life (and through them, us) that was a bit better, the hero won, the bad guy lost. Humanity is programmed to want that ending.
When we get filled to the brim with modern ugly and nasty, we watch Tombstone, Braveheart, The Last of the Mohicans, The Great Escape, a Perry Mason episode, or any one of the other movies we have that contains the message that good is good and bad is bad, no smearing of gray anywhere. No ambiguity.
That’s the way I choose stories to read and write, too.
Rant over. Happy Fathers Day to you!
Well said, Deb. It’s nice that those old shows are readily available through streaming services now, and are mostly free. Of course, it takes more than a little effort to drag a young person off TikTok and get them to sit long enough to watch an hour-long episode of a Perry Mason or Gunsmoke. But worth the effort.
On Moral Fiction by John Gardner is an excellent book for writers.
This post hits me harder this weekend because I’m going through one of my constant struggles as a writer: how to use my art for good. I love noir, and have often argued it’s a retelling of The Fall in Genesis, but sometimes I wonder if I’m wallowing too much in the mud.
I get what you’re saying about wallowing, Philip. But I think there is a way to do noir without splashing too much mud. We don’t have to be explicit. Much of what I love about old-school noir is implicit.. I try to think of my books as novels that could have been published in the 1940s.
At its creative and historical core, popular genre fiction is a Medieval morality play of good versus evil with the good winning. A good moral attached was also pretty standard in early popular genre. Readers want the fun and danger of evil but want good to win. It’s very comforting in a world where good rarely wins. Writers who fail to over the win may be edgy, but they rarely win the heart of the reader.
Key word there, Marilynn–comforting. The best thrillers are that…at the end, of course.
Thanks, Jim. Needed this just now. Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there, and I echo the sentiment tenfold. You matter. You more than matter, you’re crucial. You’re heroes, to me.
Amen, Justine!
Happy Father’s Day, Jim and TKZ dads!
Agree, agree, agree.
👍😁
Thanks for another thought-provoking blog, Jim. I was another Dobie Gillis TV and I read the Max Shulman story it was based on.
Happy Father’s Day.
Thanks, Elaine. I’m blessed not to be flummoxed like Dobie’s father!
Amen and amen! I watch little TV but grew up watching shows like Dobie Gillis and Leave It To Beaver and Ozzie and Harriett and I love Lucy. And Carol Burnett. Those were the good old days of TV! Oh! And Life of Riley and Hazel…
Ha.. I recently watched an episode of Ozzie and Harriet and was pleased at how funny it was. Especially when Ricky was little.
The title for this post happens to be one of my favorite songs by Johnny Mercer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3jdbFOidds
It’s more important than ever to consider Gardner’s words in light of the darkening shadow AI is casting over our art. I’m not at a point in my scrivening where I can create purely beautiful things but I reckon if I can write truth that’s a start.
John Dufresne’s craft book is titled “The Lie That Tells The Truth” and that sums it up nicely for me.
There is Johnny Mercer’s admonition to consider as well.
Accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In Between
I agree. Robert.
The world cannot have social media with all of its ills, a gun in every or (10 !!) USA home, drug infested cities, thousands and thousands of homeless people, who are ignored and uncared for en masse by US Politicians, and countless other social ills, including the heinous mess called SOCIAL SECURITY, and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER on tv! at the same time.
🤔