Today’s lesson from the past comes from 1950. Harry Truman was in the White House, UN peacekeepers were in Korea, and Gloria Swanson was killing William Holden on Sunset Boulevard. Meanwhile, the American family was apparently built upon a foundation of repression, conformity, and good table manners.
Or, at least, that’s the impression that one gets from watching A Date With Your Family.
A Date With Your Family is a 10 minutes education film that was apparently meant to encourage families to eat more and talk less. Not only does this film explain the importance of the family dinner but it also makes several other relevent points. For example:
1) “Pleasant, unemotional discussion helps digestion.”
2) “With your own family, you can relax. Be yourself. Just make sure it’s your best self.”
3) “These boys greet their Dad as though they were genuinely glad to see him, as though they really missed him”
This film also explains the importance of looking “pleasant” for your husband when he gets home from a hard day at the office, of not spending too much time on the phone, and of not talking about anything that might upset the family’s patriarchal unit.
Personally, my favorite moment is when “Daughter” won’t stop talking at the dinner table and the rest of her family gives her the exact same look that my older sisters always used to give me.
I’m amazed any of us ever digested anything!
I’ve never been a fan of eating at the table as it is. I mean, eating is a pretty simple activity, so it seems rather pompous to dress it up like some big ritual. I’m fully aware that a lot of people in the world don’t get the chance to eat, so I’m just grateful that I do eat, full stop.
The bit where the narrator says “What the matter? Doesn’t that sound special to you?” sounds like a thinly-veiled threat.
“Daughter”, “Mother”, “Brother”, “Father”…don’t these people have given names? Maybe “Junior” is the kid’s name, but I doubt it.
I wonder what “Father” is saying when he says “grace”: “Dear Lord, we are thankful for the meal that we are about to receive, and ask you to bless those less fortunate…except for those godless commies in Russia and China, which reminds me, I have to look over those contracts for the Department of Defense.”
“Don’t discuss unpleasant topics”…so I guess it wasn’t good time for Brother to tell Junior from where his steak came.
What’s all this talk about people being able to “relax” and “be themselves”–the father is wearing a suit to the table! I never recall Cliff Huxtable or Jack Arnold doing that. Seriously, dinner conversations are more fun when you loosen up a little and wear a festive knitted sweater, or start arguing with your hippy daughter’s new boyfriend about the war in Vietnam. This film also encourages people to pretend a lot. The boys greet the father “as though they are genuinely glad to see him”. So is it being suggested that the boys aren’t really glad to see him? There’s so much wrong with this “dinner date”. I haven’t even started on the women. I think this film is what must have been shown to inductees into the Men’s Association in “The Stepford Wives”.