I loved watching The Honeymooners when I was a child. Sitting in front of our black and white console television in my family’s living room, Alice and Ralph, Ed and Trixie, had my mother, father, sister, and I rolling around in laughter.
At that time, it was one of a handful of family shows that my family sat down to watch each evening. And when I became an adult, thanks to my husband being a Honeymooners fan, I continued and utterly enjoyed watching it. The Honeymooners marathons on New Years Eve and New Years Day especially was a wonderful way to enter a new year, full of not only expectations for what it would hold for our future, but also with nostalgia and joy.
Lately, though, while watching The Honeymooners, I began to pay more attention to the way Ralph Kramden talked to Alice. Ralph began to sound to me like an emotionally abusive husband. Maybe I was more tuned to his words and actions because of all the news reports I had been hearing about domestic violence and the incidents I had personally dealt with in regards to co-workers and close family members. Too many women seemed to be dying at the hands of men and I knew most of them started out as being victims of emotional abuse. The statistics about domestic violence are frightening: According to the American Institute of Domestic Violence, 5.3 million women are abused each year, and 1,232 women are killed each year by an intimate partner.
I began to view Ralph Kramden as loud and obnoxious, and I cringed when he told Alice, “Bang, zoom! One of these days… one of these days… Pow! Right in the kisser!” Or, when he stated he was going to send Alice “to the moon” or “give her a good one.” What could we assume that he meant? A punch, a black eye, a broken arm? No, he was not the poster boy for the face of domestic violence, and he never made good on his threats, but he definitely wasn't winning points with me either.
Yes, Alice was able to verbally spar with Ralph and hit below the belt with her own wry commentary about his weight or hair-brained schemes, but I found myself wishing at times she would say, “Enough is enough!” and walk into the Brooklyn sunlight like a fifties Gloria Steinem, free at last. Of course she would ask Trixie to come along, and they’d leave Ralph behind, still in his Gotham Bus Depot uniform, nursing his wounds with his best friend Ed Norton. Maybe then Ed would find him a good marriage counselor to go to and, after extensive anger management therapy, he’d win Alice back - never to be verbally abusive again.
But, on a serious note, I wonder what effect The Honeymooners, and seeing Ralph’s short fuse in each episode, has on little girls and boys who see their parents rolling over in laughter at Ralph’s threats to his wife? Will they grow up feeling that this is somehow acceptable? I know it’s fictional, but fiction often mirrors real life - and children often have a difficult time differentiating between the two.
As women, so many of us can relate to stories like Thelma and Louise or Diary of a Mad Black Woman because if we haven’t been in those abusive situations, we know someone who has or still is in one. Ralph was definitely no Ricky Ricardo. He could have taken a few lessons from him, though, when it came to dealing with a woman. Ricky never threatened Lucy in the tone or manner that Ralph did, even though his patience was constantly tested by the dim-witted things Lucy did. Watching I Love Lucy never left me with the same bitter aftertaste I felt when I was watching The Honeymooners.
Maybe it seems as if I’m making too much of this much-loved sitcom, or that I’m overly sensitive – yet somehow, I don’t think so. These days we want to monitor videos and certain programs and censor certain words because we are up in arms over the impact it has on our children. But, are we taking that same approach when it comes to some of the shows from the fifties and sixties that were deemed family shows? Are we considering the impact they have on us, our families, and our relationships with others?
Does our comical acceptance of them in our households each evening make us think that it was okay to talk to a significant other this way as long as we say we are sorry afterwards? Does hearing Ralph apologize after one of his verbal tirades, saying to Alice, “Baby, you're the greatest,” followed by a hug and kiss, allow us to sleep peacefully at night, knowing that – at least until the next episode - all is well, when in real life we know that is not the case? Children in verbally abusive situations never sleep peacefully, because they know that at any moment after the calm, chaos can quickly erupt. They always seem to be in an abyss of darkness.
Most of what I saw on The Honeymooners I have to admit was very entertaining. It was only a fraction of the content that touched a raw nerve inside of me that made me want to turn the channel. For me, a fraction on the side of wrong, especially when it comes to accepting any kind of verbal or physical abuse towards women, is a fraction too much. I guess that’s why I spend a good part of my life writing about or telling women, “Baby, you truly are the greatest,” and letting them know that means they are worthy of the greatest treatment of their mind, body, and soul.
About the Author
Jeanine DeHoney is a freelance writer and a former early childhood teacher. She has had her writing published in Essence, Upscale, Today's Black Woman, Radiance, and Bahiyah Woman Magazine. She has also had her work published in the book Chicken Soup For The African American's Woman's Soul. Jeanine attributes her passion for writing to her late mother Evelyn who used to buy her notebooks to fill with her thoughts from the time she was a little girl....
My main focus in art is color, design and composition. I have a true passion for color as the art subject itself - how colors fit together, how they communicate with each other within the design, how certain colors combined with one another evoke a certain feeling - this is paramount in my work. I am a social worker, artist and poet living in Austin, TX. Read More...
Jeanine DeHoney is a freelance writer and a former early childhood teacher. She has had her writing published in Essence, Upscale, Today's Black Woman, Radiance, and Bahiyah Woman Magazine. She has also had her work published in the book Chicken Soup For The African American's Woman's Soul. Jeanine attributes her passion for writing to her late mother Evelyn who used to buy her notebooks to fill with her thoughts from the time she was a little girl....
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