An Issue I Have with "Sweatshirt Monsters"

[Jack1000]

That's the one where Beaver and his friends buy the Monster Sweatshirts, take an oath to wear them to school, all their parents find out and forbid them to wear the sweatshirts. Beaver sneaks out of the house, wearing the sweatshirt underneath his school clothes, hides his clothes outside, comes to school wearing the sweatshirt. Beaver is embarrassed when he sees that neither Whitey, Richard, or Allen are wearing their sweatshirts. Beaver is the only one that gets caught, sent home, and Ward gives him the third degree.

I didn't see anything really bad about wearing the sweatshirts to school. I might be looking at it as a sign of the different times. But Beaver's shirt was just a martian with 3 eyeballs. Today kids were anything and everything to school and no one says anything. I guess back in the late 50's-60's society would be a lot more strict with what kids wore to school. Times have sure changed!

Do you think that Ward overreacted when he got Beaver home from Mrs. Rayburn's office and they are talking in the den? I think so!

Jack

[HaskellGirl]

I think it was an overreaction too, but it seems like the show liked to promote unity instead of individualness. And also, back then, I think you were supposed to be prim and proper when you went to school.

[tdr]

The answer IMO is both yes and no. Certainly schools at that time were much stricter about what students wore and the extent to which they did things to get attention. By the mid-70's (approx.) most of society succombed to the realization there are far too many more critical things to be concerned about than silly shirts. Even in LITB, in "Wally's Haircomb," the principal told June that "as long as a student is clean, we can't be too concerned about how he combs his hair."

So it's not such a major thing that Beaver should be sent home and his parents called, even though many schools then would have thought so. But there is also the matter of Beaver's never-ending gullibility where he lets the 'other guys' talk him into doing what he doesn't really want to do [remember he was only one who questioned that they should wear their monster shirts to school], and then he carries out their plans and is thus the only one who gets in trouble. Beaver needed to be "yelled at" about this.

Nevertheless, Ward's reasoning is clearly open for debate. "What's wrong is wrong-- no matter how many people do it!" he said. It's ironic, in a way, that he was lecturing Beaver so sternly about trying to conform to his friends, when Ward's point was that he was not conformig to another standard besides that of his friends.

[BrandonS]

I was born in 1953 and I remember that there wasn't much questioning of authority until about 1967 or so. A good citizen simply obeyed the rules. In fact, if you did question authority or "the establishment" vocally, everyone would have avoided you as some kind of nut. That's my recollection of those days.

[Barnabas1]

Well, ttytt, for back then? No. For now? Yes.