My mom is over visiting from Denver and this morning her cell phone keeps ringing notifications to say that something or another has happened on it, probably a social media alert. It is consistent, and unending. It chimes off a little chime that reminded me of the Jetsons theme music. It is sort of a doorbell that chimes “Meet George Jetson!” Okay, I am a product of childcare in front of a TV screen.
That lead me to the theme as I remember it, and of course, also being a product of the age, sat in my kitchen in 2014, I wondered if the order in which the characters were introduced in the intro of the cartoon was because of sexism, character importance in the cartoon, or gender roles in the 1960’s and the natural order in which school age children might be expected to be dropped off by the father of a one car family. Interesting how in 1962 they thought that Y2K families would still be one car! I suppose if I took an online pole I might get votes in every category. The arguments could be made in any direction, although the more educated elite would probably favor sexism and or gender roles, and the less educated folks might suggest another category, which is “hey, they needed to put them in some order, and it was just a theme song, so who cares?”
My eyes drifted off south for a moment as I thought about it. The southern ridgeline of mountains from here catches the morning sun beautifully, and while they are deceptively small, they lead to the Wasatch Front down in Utah, with the Wellsville Mountains looming high to the right, and a fully lit frontal view of them. Between here and there is Logan, a moderate sized city which hides just behind some trees near my house, The year 2,000 has turned out almost nothing like the people of 1962 must have hoped it would. In some ways we are still battling their attitudes and ideas. But, looking at those mountains, I am sure glad the view is not congested by the sight of flying cars!
That’s my simple thought for this morning!