• 5too@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I feel like you can track this some in early TV shows. Way back when, you had shows like I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver, featuring loving, largely functional families. Once this became an expected trope, shows like The Honeymooners and The Flintstones subverted that expectation, but became such a hit that they became the formula to emulate - so it became common to joke about marital strife.

    Sometimes you’d get a show like The Addams Family, that would again subvert this new expectation; but they didn’t start becoming the norm until much more recently.