"Academics are famous for reading all sorts of strange ideas into texts. But in the case of “Gilligan’s Island,” Cantor is not simply projecting images onto an inkblot. Creator Sherwood Schwartz notes in his own book about the series, “Inside Gilligan Island,” that “I know about the social content of my show, and the seven characters were carefully chosen after a great deal of thought.”
Schwartz named the Castaways’ ship, the S.S. Minnow, as a jab at then FCC chairman Newton Minow, who’d famously characterized television as “a vast wasteland.” He recalls CBS chief William Paley’s horror – “I thought it was supposed to be a comedy!” – at Schwartz’s description of “Gilligan’s Island” as a social microcosm.Schwartz’s response is a classic of let’s-save-the-pitch quick-thinking: “It’s a funny microcosm!”Viewed through the prism of America’s enemies, it’s easy to see how the “Gilligan’s Island” gang represents everything Muslim fanatics and their sympathizers hate. As Cantor describes it, “The Skipper embodies American military might, the Professor represents American science and technological know-how, and the Millionaire reflects the power of American business…the presence of The Movie Star among the castaways even hints at the source of America’s cultural domination of the world – Hollywood.”
All of which is a reminder that television, movies, and all of our pop culture reflect the people who produce it, and the audience that it’s aimed towards, particularly in retrospect. They’re historical documents in that sense, allowing later cultures to get a sense of what we were like and how we lived. No matter how alien it can all seem in retrospect".............READ MORE
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