Endora was right.

[Guy Gardener]

On first view a long time ago Darren seemed like an Alphamale, and example of the species all should be proud of, and his expectations that his alpowerful magical immortal wife should shut up and work to a fraction of her potential just so he looks good to the public eye.

but I'm watching the first season right now, and Samantha acceding to slumming it with a mortal life seems a lot more patronizing than anything Endora said outright about her son-in-law, which just makes Darren and his beliefs and pomposity seem the more outrageously ludicrous that he is demanding his point of view as anything but a cave man grunting and beating his chest about his right to hunt antelopes and paint in caves alongside a regular woman of the 21st century he has dragged back to his cave.

Was Bewitched supposed to be a metaphor for biracial marriage? Probably not, and doubly so for gay marriage.

Imagine that your daughter told you that she was going to marry a monkey? Which is a comparable comparison if you consider the desperation dividing Samantha and Darren on the evolutionary ladder since he can't even fly or travel through time like most relatively banal people.

Endora is a speciest.

But try to imagine if your grandchildren were half Orangutang and sympathize with her point of view?

 

[the G-man]

Actually, it's simpler than that:

Darrin was a sexist, if not overtly abusive, jerk. He demanded his wife not use her natural abilities (kind of like telling a gifted pianist to not play music or a gifted artist to never pick up a pencil).

To make matters worse, he expected Samantha to wait on him (and his clients) hand and foot, again, without using abilities that were as natural to her as reading and walking are to us (he might as well as told her to cook dinner while blind-folded and hobbled).

When her family members showed up, he belittled and insulted them, and all but demanded Samantha isolate herself from them.

Then, when they had kids, he insisted that the children be kept as ignorant of their family heritage as possible.

And that's not even touching on his alcoholism (the man had a three martini lunch nearly every day and came home for a double martini; he was also often seen getting drunk at the local watering hole).

Endora's reaction was, given all that, pretty tame. What mother wouldn't be pissed off to see her beautiful, kind, intelligent daughter married to an spousal abuser? If anything, Darrin's lucky she didn't magically "burning bed" his drunken ass.

 

[Christopher]

Was Bewitched supposed to be a metaphor for biracial marriage? Probably not, and doubly so for gay marriage.

There was an allegory intended for marriage between different races, cultures, or economic classes, and for gender issues as well. The goal was to use fantasy to comment metaphorically on a variety of things -- at least in the first season under Danny Arnold.

http://www.harpiesbizarre.com/vintage-witch2watch.htm

When Arnold left, any effort at being meaningful was abandoned in favor of slapstick and gimmicks.

As for gay marriage, that wasn't even on the table in the '60s. That's more of a modern issue.

And yeah, Darrin was kinda supposed to be a sexist pig, apparently.
http://zvbxrpl.blogspot.com/2006/03/is-for-aardvark.html

And at the midpoint of the episode, Samantha is disappointed to find that her mother was right: after being exposed to just a taste of power, Darrin is starting to accept and even encourage the idea that she should use her powers to have anything she wants. The dialogue exchange is very well-written and played -- well-written because it pretty much analyzes Darrin's sexism years before pop-culture analysts started to do it, and well-played because Elizabeth Montgomery conveys Samantha's disappointment: she doesn't want full permission to use her powers, because she married a mortal to get away from a way of living where everything comes too easily:

But of course Endora was little better. The idea was to create tensions on both sides and explore questions about relationships, gender and class roles, and so forth.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Sam should have turned that dolt into a frog.

Appropos of nothing, do you guys know grown women named "Tabitha"? I run across them every so often. I wonder how they feel about being named after a TV character. Their age group is a dead giveaway. There sure ain't no Tabithas being born today.

 

[IndyJones]

Was Bewitched supposed to be a metaphor for biracial marriage? Probably not, and doubly so for gay marriage.

Well the marriage certainly became a lot gayer once Dick Sargent joined the cast.

 

[Christopher]

Appropos of nothing, do you guys know grown women named "Tabitha"? I run across them every so often. I wonder how they feel about being named after a TV character. Their age group is a dead giveaway. There sure ain't no Tabithas being born today.

Hmm. I had a high-school classmate by that name. She would've been the right age for it. (And she was really hot, with fabulous green eyes, but alas, I hardly knew her.)

In grade school, I had a classmate named Nichelle Nicholes or Nicholls or something. At the time, I thought it was a coincidence that she had the same name as Uhura's portrayer, but in retrospect, I'm sure it wasn't. I'm not sure I knew back then that Star Trek was a couple of years older than I was.

 

[T'Girl]

Tabitha isn't to bad, one of my uncles works with a woman named Gidget (she very nice).

 

[Guy Gardener]

So Darren wasn't just a human being, he was an awful human being?

And Samantha setting the bar low for human being, didn't notice that she was setting the bar lower than she should have... But then considering she only often had Larry Tate as a yardstick to compare human virtue against a moral void.

(Nixon nixxed gay biracial marriage a couple weeks ago in Doctor Who.)

 

[Nerys Myk]

Tabitha isn't to bad, one of my uncles works with a woman named Gidget (she very nice).

I feel sorry for girls named Ariel. The one at work is called "mermaid" by some.

 

[scotpens]

. . . Well the marriage certainly became a lot gayer once Dick Sargent joined the cast.

And the show definitely got gayer whenever Paul Lynde showed up!

Frankly, I think over-analyzing a 1960s fantasy sitcom from today’s perspective, through the prism of today’s sensibilities, is a bit of a jerk-off.

 

[Greg Cox]

Tabitha isn't to bad, one of my uncles works with a woman named Gidget (she very nice).

I feel sorry for girls named Ariel. The one at work is called "mermaid" by some.

Just wait until every other girl is named "Bella."

 

[Guy Gardener]

. . . Well the marriage certainly became a lot gayer once Dick Sargent joined the cast.

And the show definitely got gayer whenever Paul Lynde showed up!

Frankly, I think over-analysing a 1960s fantasy sitcom from today’s perspective, through the prism of today’s sensibilities, is a bit of a jerk-off.

But I'm watching season one right now. I rolled through the first 5 episodes of season one this morning and then made a post...

Besides the original thought, the first thought always gets a little lost, was that Endora was right, not that Darrin was wrong. I've known Darrin was wrong for quite some time but that never really translated into Endora was right before in my head... Probably because they don't rerun TV (Except the Simpsons and Friends.) where I live, and it's been 20 years since I swooned over Elizabeth Montgomery with any conviction.

My Aunt obsessed with Beverly Hills 90210 named her first child Dylan, but very few people make that connection.

 

[IndyJones]

Tabitha isn't to bad, one of my uncles works with a woman named Gidget (she very nice).

I feel sorry for girls named Ariel. The one at work is called "mermaid" by some.

Just wait until every other girl is named "Bella."

That was the most popular name for girls last year. Ugh.

At least the kids have a few options (Isabella, Anabelle, Izzy, Bella).

 

[Guy Gardener]

Episode 10ish, when Sam ports to Paris and they have a big fight.

"YOUR MOTHER WAS RIGHT!!!! How could I imagine that I could pluck an eagle from the sky, chain her to the ground and expect her to strut around with a smile on her beak!?!"

...

It's like the TV is talking back to me, answering my questions.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

After carefully weighting the implications of how a sexist culture confining and oppressing gifted individuals played out in 60's TV sub-culture my illuminating contribution to this thread will consist of the following:

Elizabeth Montgomery was pretty hot, especially in the mini-dresses and the dark wig.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Oh Serena! I forgot about Serena!

"When she was bad".

Did that one marry as well?

 

[Christopher]

Frankly, I think over-analyzing a 1960s fantasy sitcom from today’s perspective, through the prism of today’s sensibilities, is a bit of a jerk-off.

It's true that trying to project modern concerns for gay rights onto the show is anachronistic, but as the links I provided above demonstrate, it was definitely the intent of the series' original showrunner to use the fantasy as a way of commenting allegorically on the social issues of the day. Back then, allegories about bigotry were about race, culture, sex, and class; and most of those battles were won, so today the allegories tend to be about sexual orientation (although I've seen some '70s shows about anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant racism that are still sadly relevant today).

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Sam should have turned that dolt into a frog.

Appropos of nothing, do you guys know grown women named "Tabitha"? I run across them every so often. I wonder how they feel about being named after a TV character. Their age group is a dead giveaway. There sure ain't no Tabithas being born today.

I have a cousin named "Tabatha." She's 18, so "grown" in one sense, I guess. Hardly an adult, though.

 

[Durek]

Sam should have turned that dolt into a frog.

Appropos of nothing, do you guys know grown women named "Tabitha"? I run across them every so often. I wonder how they feel about being named after a TV character. Their age group is a dead giveaway. There sure ain't no Tabithas being born today.

Yes I do know a grown woman named Tabitha. She was born the same year I was (1971).

 

[Durek]

Frankly, I think over-analyzing a 1960s fantasy sitcom from today’s perspective, through the prism of today’s sensibilities, is a bit of a jerk-off.

It's true that trying to project modern concerns for gay rights onto the show is anachronistic, but as the links I provided above demonstrate, it was definitely the intent of the series' original showrunner to use the fantasy as a way of commenting allegorically on the social issues of the day. Back then, allegories about bigotry were about race, culture, sex, and class; and most of those battles were won, so today the allegories tend to be about sexual orientation (although I've seen some '70s shows about anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant racism that are still sadly relevant today).

Well, most of the battles look like they have been won, but the war has not been won.