I used to watch "Leave It to Beaver" reruns when I was younger, not with any great loyalty (I saved that for "Perry Mason") but it was one of the more entertaining things to be found on 1980s broadcast TV, tuning around the dial for any distraction. I had a somewhat older sibling, so did Beaver! It was representation, kinda. Then I got older and shoved "Leave It to Beaver" into the same cloud of dismal and painful fog that swallowed up most of my childhood memories.
Recently I discovered that one could watch some "Leave It to Beaver" on the Internet Archive, so I've revisited the show occasionally. I'm sure there's a heap of reactionary "traditionalist" types who think of this show as a shining ideal of what family life should be like: an immaculate suburban household, a Stepford Wife in the kitchen, a smarmy authoritarian dad whose chief weapon is passive aggression. What's struck me most about revisiting "Leave It to Beaver", though, is how often the Beaver's eccentric actions are motivated purely by fear. Again and again he confesses that he's scared of his father. Here's a typical interlude from "The State vs. Beaver", in which Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver gets cited by the cops for driving a motorized soapbox racer on city streets, and tries to deal with the situation without bringing his father into it:
Ward Cleaver (exasperated): "But Beaver! Why? The thing I can't understand is—it's bad enough that you took the car out into the street when I told you not to, but why, when you got in trouble, didn't you come to me?"
Beaver (after a few beats): "I guess I was a-scared to, dad."
Ward (taken aback, stuttering momentarily before talking): "What were you scared of?? What'd you think I'd do if you told me?"
Wally: "Well that's the trouble, dad. We never can tell."
And, well...this is roughly how I learned to behave, because I was scared of my angry shouty parents: I tried to deal with things myself, in my inept way, without getting them involved. I feared some sort of explosion if there was trouble. Wally seems to be implying the same thing. And yet "Leave It to Beaver" never depicts the father, Ward Cleaver, in a genuinely foul temper. He's carefully modulated to within a narrow range: mostly his voice is gentle, mild-mannered, with a sarcastic edge that's probably meant to escape the notice of the children. He's not allowed to get very angry on screen. And the text of the show says: don't be afraid of bringing your troubles to your parents, kid.
And yet the kids are still always afraid. I wonder why that is.
~Χαρά