How did the director/screenwriters make the ordinary member of the film going audience feel sympathy for and empathy with the Blandings given that the Blandings were clearly members of a socially, financially and culturally privilege class?

By putting the Blandings into contexts and circumstances that were understandable to that public and which even made members of the audience share their frustrations.

Spoiler Warning: Discussion of the differences among the three presentations of the Blandings story will necessarily involve implicit and explicit spoilers

Let\’s begin by looking at where the film, book and short story start. The short story (and the book) each begin in medias res. The Blandings have already found the house which will lead to their adventure with home ownership, restoration, destruction and construction.

The sweet old farmhouse burrowed into the upward slope of the land so deeply that you could enter either its bottom or middle floor at ground level…..In front of it, rising and spreading along the whole length of the house, was the largest lilac tree that Mr. and Mrs. Blandings had ever seen. Its gnarled, rusty trunks rose intertwined to branch and taper into splays of this year\’s light young wood; they, in turn, burst into clouds of blossoms that made the whole vast thing a haze of blues and purples, billowed and wafting. When the house was new, the lilac must have been a shrub in the dooryard–and house and shrub had gone on together, side by side since then. That was a hundred and seventy years ago, last April. [1] 309; [2] 3

Thus we first meet the Blandings without having any sense as to why they are looking for a home.

The movie, on the other hand, delays our first meeting with the Blandings, and indeed the Blandings desire to buy a home, until after carefully providing the audience with the context for why the Blandings were looking for a home. Indeed the very first shot of the film is of New York and the first word spoken is Manhattan. The voice of the narrator is that of Bill Cole (who we soon find out is the Blandings\’ lawyer and Jim Blandings best friend.) For the first minute and a half of the movie we hear paeans to Manhattan (wide streets, gracious living) while seeing the opposite on the screen (people struck in traffic jams and screaming at each other, people scrambling to get onto overfilled subway cars, people crowded into comfortless diners.) The \’amusing\’ disconnect between what is said and what is seen signals the audience to \”take with a grain of salt\” pronouncements made by the characters. The footage of the miseries of life in Manhattan prepare the audience to see the city as something anyone would leave, if only they could.

Bill Cole then tells the audience about the Blandings, the atypical \’typical\’ New Yorkers that we are to sympathize and empathize with–but doing so only after showing the discomfort and indignities of urban life and by reminding us that Jim and Muriel Blandings are just like thousands of other New Yorkers. While the claim that the Blandings are like thousands of other New Yorkers may be technically true (since in a city of such size there may well be thousands of members of the upper 3% of American society) they are not typical of the average American sitting in the audience in the cinema.

These verbal directions that we should see the Blandings as sharing the same misfortunes as do members of the audience are further buttressed by the audiences first glimpse of Jim and Muriel as we see the couple struggle through the difficulties of getting up, getting dressed and getting breakfast in an apartment which seems overfilled with people, furniture and possessions and undersupplied with closets and storage areas.

We first meet the Blandings as their alarm clock rouses them from sleep. (Since all the Blandings share the same last name from this point on I will refer to each by their first name.) Jim and Muriel (each, as the Production Code preferred, in a separate twin bed) each try sleepily to take control over the alarm clock — she trying to turn it off as he tries to turn it on. Then he makes his way across a room overcrowded with beds and dresser to the closet where he struggles to find his dressing gown among the clothes jammed in so tightly they seem not to need hangars at all. Having found his dressing gown he makes his way down the hall, knocking at the bathroom door to greet one daughter, going into the girls shared bedroom (we can see the twin beds) to wake the other, picks up the broom left behind in the living room, works his way around the table that almost completely fills the dining room, takes the cover off the bird cage and finally trades the broom he is carrying for the glass of juice that the maid has ready for him.

Insert here the sound of tires screeching. The Blandings have a maid. From all indications a live-in maid. Our supposedly typical New Yorker (Mr. Blandings) not only makes more than 97% of Americans and, unlike the vast majority of his generation, has a college degree, his family also has a maid.

Back to the movie….Once Jim has drunk his juice he trades the empty glass for a cup of coffee he takes back down the hall and gives to his wife who is still sitting, semi-comotose, in bed. Jim searches through the dresser for his underwear and socks. Directed by Muriel to look for his socks in the closet he clumsily moves around boxes only to have a number of them fall on him and the floor. Frustrated he heads to the bathroom. His daughter screams as he opens the door and enjoins him to knock before coming in. I find myself agreeing with her. Since he saw her running down the hall in front of him to get access to the bathroom before him it would seem only reasonable for him to check to see if she had finished using it before barging in.

By this point in the film it is fairly clear that Jim feels more than a little sorry for himself. It is not clear how much members of the audience are supposed to feel empathy or sympathy with him.

The movie has already passed the 10 minute point. We have met the Blandings, been shown how difficult, crowded and frantic life is in New York and are watching the family negotiate a morning in a crowded and badly organized apartment. The discomforts of their lives are being made salient to us and soon we will forget that in education, social and financial status the Blandings are quite unlike most of the audience.

The Blandings may be looking for their dream house. They already have a life that most members of the audience can only dream of.

[1] Hodgins, Eric.\”Mr. Blandings Builds His Castle\” in Adaptations : from short story to big screen : 35 great stories that have inspired great films. New York : Three Rivers Press, ©2005.

[2] Hodgins, Eric. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. New York : Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004, ©1946.

Canadian health care story/question.

Earlier today I spent some time in a doctor\’s waiting room. I had arrived rather early (sometimes all the traffic lights do go your way) so I settled down with my ereader to while my time away. Waiting rooms are interesting places which can vary radically in the emotional dynamic from day to day. Sometimes there are anxious young parents (or at least anxious parents with young children) who feel guilty that their child may bothering other people in the room. Sometimes there are people who are clearly worried that the news the doctor is about to give them may be bad. There is usually someone who carries with them the aroma of tobacco smoke and next to whom no non-smoker wishes to sit.

Last time I was in that waiting room an elderly woman came in, clutching a plastic bag full of medications. I could hear her wheezing as she went to the receptionist and then I heard her reply that she was too confused right now to remember her own postal code. The receptionist took what information she could get and the woman sat down next to me. She was clearly disturbed and worried so I smiled and said a few words to her and soon she calmed down enough to tell me why she had come in for an \”urgent care\” visit. Her regular doctor was on maternity leave and so she had never been to this doctor before (which is why they didn\’t have all her information on file). Her seasonal asthma had flared up, her inhaler didn\’t seem to be giving her any relief and she was afraid she wouldn\’t be able to fly to visit her ailing mother if the problem wasn\’t brought under control. Soon she was telling us (me and spouse) about her mother and the hospital she was in and how much nursing had changed since she had been in training. And as her panic subsided, her breathing became easier and her respiration quieter. In a few minutes my name was called and I left her talking to spouse. My own visit was short since I was just getting the results of some lab tests and as I came back out they called her name and she smiled at me and waved as she went, in her turn, to see the doctor.

Today someone in the waiting room asked me about my ereader and in the course of the conversation I learned that she was an administrator at a heath care unit in a neighbouring community. The waiting room was unusually quiet for that time of day and she was musing about the problems of predicting patient loads. Then I got called back to see my doctor and when I came out she was no longer there.

As I drove home I began to think about the democracy of waiting rooms. Most of us will find ourselves, at one time or another, waiting anxiously in a room full of other people waiting anxiously. Waiting rooms are, for many of us, one of the few places we spend time with people from very different walks of life. What goes on in those waiting rooms tells us much about the society in which we live.

For example: I was in a doctor\’s waiting room in the US when a man came in who wanted to see the doctor. They would not schedule an appointment for the man, not because the doctor was not accepting new patients (he was) but because the man had no insurance. What he had, instead, was cash. He was willing to pay upfront to see the doctor. His request was denied. Until he could prove he had insurance he would have to go emergency at the nearest public hospital. He pled \”but it isn\’t an emergency. It will take all day if they see me at all. I just want the doctor to….\” I heard no more for the receptionist wasn\’t interested in what the man wanted or needed done. He had no insurance.

For example: I was in a room in emergency at a hospital in the US. My doctor had sent me there for a series to tests to rule out the worst case explanation of the wheezing/tickling in my lungs. I had been wired up and tested for one thing, blood had been drawn to test for something else, I had just had a CAT scan and now I was waiting to see the doctor. Through my door I could see a bedraggled elderly couple–her sitting on a stool and him the floor. She was crying and I gave them some tissues and learned that they had been waiting for 8 hours sitting on a stool and the floor. They were poor, from out of state and had no insurance. I sat in my private room (I had excellent health insurance through work) and waited in comfort for reports on my tests. They sat in the hall and finally someone came by and did something that looked and sounded painful to the suppurating lesion on her arm. Then my doctor came in, told me that there was nothing wrong, all the tests were negative and I was free to go. I checked out, paying a copay that was probably more money than that bedraggled couple had to their name.

Like most Canadians I have complaints about the short comings of our health care system–but the most important thing is that for the most part Canadians are all in the same boat. Canadians who are comfortably well off receive, for the most part, the same care as Canadians who are not. If there is a shortage of doctors wealth won\’t buy your way into a doctor\’s practice. If there is a shortage of rooms at the hospital wealth won\’t buy you a bed a poorer person can\’t lie on. When my American friends say, in condemnation, \”you can\’t buy your way to the front of the line\” I nod my head in agreement and approval. Because when you can\’t buy your way to the front of the line you are highly motivated to make sure that that line is never very long.

I made a quick stop at the grocery store today. We were both in the mood for potato-leek stew so I wanted to get more leeks before our next regular shopping trip. Whenever I am at the store I check to see if there is a store special on anything we regularly use and which stores well. Today the brand of olive oil we use (and since we are vegans we use olive oil quite a bit) was on sale — 23% off. So of course I brought a few bottles of olive oil home along with the leeks.

As I was putting the olive oil away (we always put the most recently purchased items at the back the shelf and move the oldest to the front) I realized that everything in that particular cupboard had been bought on sale. We can afford to take advantage of store specials because we have a freezer large enough to hold a substantial amount of food and a bank account that allows us flexibility in our budgeting.

Those who are poor, those who barely scrape by from week to week, and those who are living on food stamps cannot take advantage of the same specials as do we. So those who least need to stretch their food budget are most able to do so.

Yet another invisible tax on being poor.

Trigger Warning: Quotations of language/imagery that is racially offensive

While I was scanning the pages of American newspapers published 100 years ago one headline caught my eye:

RACE WAR IN SOUTH IMMINENT: National Guard Rushed to Oklahoma Town One–Negro Is Lynched and Two Others Are Shot–Negroes Mustering Fight Force [Medford Mail Tribune (Medford, Oregon) Oct. 23, 1911, page 5]

The article below gave few details of the events that led to the \”troublesome negro\” being lynched. Coweta, Oklahoma was, according to the first paragraph, under virtual martial law as the National Guard had been called out due to \”threatened manslaughter on the part of the negro element.\”

My first thought was that the editor/publisher of that particular newspaper was overreacting to a vague report of unrest in Oklahoma. I decided to keep my eyes open for more news on the same story as I looked through the other newspapers. It turned out that in most cases, it would have taken more effort to miss the story than to find it.

The Arizona Republican put the same story above the fold on the front page:

SENDS CALL FOR TROOPS: National Guard Will be Needed in Ending Race War Which Broke Out Last Night in Black Belt of Oklahoma: NEGRO WHO RAN AMUCK WAS KILLED: Trouble Occurred at Coweta in Heart of District Which is Populated Largely by Blacks From Far South [October 23, 1911, page 1]

[NOTE: In 1911 it was the fashion of many papers to have nesting banks of headlines which told as much of the story as many of the public would ever read.]
The particular details of the case are repeated, in more or less the same words, across many of the newspapers. An African-American shoved a white women off the sidewalk. The white man who had been walking with the woman, along with another white man then assaulted the African-American (Ed Ruse.) The next day Ruse returned to the town armed with a knife and looking for the man who had helped in the assault. According to the town officials (all white as far as one can tell) Ruse shot the Marshall when he was ordered to hand over his knife and then another African-American man, Ed Suddeth, rushed out of a nearby house and shot and killed the Marshall. From this point on the story becomes a confusing one of Suddeth being captured by a mob, hung, rescued before he was dead (for fear that his lynching would lead to a race riot) and then later shot at least fifty times.

There is no way of verifying exactly who started things and who did what to whom in what order. What is clear from the various accounts as that the officials (and much of the white populace) of the area viewed all African-Americans as monolithic group that were liable to rise up at any moment, violently assault any white people they came upon and destroy the town they lived in.

Geographical distance did not seem to lessen the fear that the African-Americans of Oklahoma were poised to begin an armed assault on the white population of the state. The Times Dispatch of Richmond, VA, was another newspaper that ran the story on the front page above the fold

BLACKS THREATEN TOWN Of COWETA: White Men Are Patrolling Streets and Guarding Homes.

The Call of San Francisco managed to suggest by its headline (front page, above the fold):

Fearing Attack Lynchers Cut Rope and Hide Captive in Vacant Building

that stopping an extra-judicial killing was a symptom of breakdown of social order.

What I realize as I read one newspaper after another is that any individual act of violence/resistance by an African-American was seen as a potential assault on the social order and that any group of African-Americans males larger than 1 was a mob that threatened the safety of white Americans. All African-Americans were suspected of working towards an armed rebellion and the overthrow of the existing government.

The question I ask myself as I read these articles is \”why were the white authorities so sure that all African-Americans would rebel violently if given a chance.\” The answer is, of course, \”because they were well aware of how African-Americans had been treated in the past and were still be treated — and would themselves if treated the same way rebel violently against those who oppressed them.

The best evidence we have of how badly African-Americana had been treated was how much white Americans feared their vengeance.

Charities, like many other things in the modern world, go in and out of fashion. One week/month/year celebrities are lending their faces and names to one cause and a few years later the same celebrities are associating themselves with another. Some diseases are easy to dramatize. The story of the person looking for marrow donor or the matching kidney almost writes itself.

And then there are the causes and charities that quietly trudge along, never in the spotlight and yet for all that alleviating just as much misery as those that are better known.

This morning I couldn\’t find my glasses. I need my glasses to perform the routine tasks of life. I put them on before I get out of bed in the morning and I take them off only after I turn off the lights at night. Today I took them off to wash my face and when I reached out my hand for them they weren\’t were I expected them to be. I looked frantically at the things on the counter but I couldn\’t find them. Yes, I have a backup pair (which I keep in a spot I can reach even if I can see nothing) but the moment of terror remains with me. Without my glasses I would not be able to cook (I couldn\’t measure ingredients and nor could I safely use a knife.) I wouldn\’t be able to read (magnifying things won\’t solve the problem since I am severely astigmatic.) I couldn\’t drive. I couldn\’t knit unless someone else cast on the stitches and I couldn\’t crochet save by feel alone.

We who are privileged forget how life-changing the simple technology of \”glasses\” can be. There are hundreds of thousands of people who could live better, more comfortable, more remunerative lives with the aid of something we take so for granted that we know longer think of it as a medical technology.

Many optometrists and opthalmologists belong to groups that will accept old/used glasses. Groups of doctors go to areas of the world where people get no eye care or where most people can\’t afford glasses and provide the required necessary tests for free. They then match people up with the used eyeglasses closest to the prescription required. Yes, of course it would be better if everyone in the world had access to best of modern eye medicine but realistically that is not going to happen anytime soon. Just remember, the next time your replace your glasses to find a doctor/organization that can pass them on to someone whose life will be made, quite literally, clearer and brighter by an act of charity that cost you nothing.

One hundred years ago one of the stories on the front pages many of the newspapers in the United States told of the arrest of Rev. C. V. T. Richeson for the murder of Avis Linnell. Miss Linnell, whose body was found in the bathroom of the YWCA rooming house where she lived, was first thought to have died of natural causes and then, after the contents of her stomach were examined, was presumed to have committed suicide. Why, I wondered, would the police think that an attractive, talented and not noticeably depressed young woman would have committed suicide?

Miss Linnell. who was nineteen years old, and a student at the Conservatory of Music, was found dead in the bathroom of the Young Women\’s Christian Association home here. At first the police believed she had committed suicide, but later developments indicated that she had unknowingly taken cyanide of potassium sent her by some other person, in the belief that it would remedy her embarrassing physical condition. [The Times Dispatch (Richmond, VA) Oct. 21 1911, page 1]

At first the police believed that she had committed suicide but later developments indicated that she had unknowingly taken cyanide of potassium, which had been sent to her by some other person, and that she used it In the belief that it would remedy a certain embarrassing physical condition. [New York Tribune Oct 21, 1911, page 1.]

[Headline]AWFUL CHARGE AGAINST PASTOR NOW IN CELL
[SubHead]Cambridge Clergyman Accused of Murder of a Young Girl to Concel an Earlier Sin [The Bisbee Daily Review (Bisbee, Arizona) Oct 21, 1911, page 1]

Richeson is charged with furnishing a nineteen year-old girl, to whom he is said lo have been engaged to be married, and who in the course of six months would have become a mother, with cyanide of potassium and the inference is that he told her that by taking the deadly drug she bring about a desired change in her physical condition, when In reality he furnished the cyanide and deceived the girl as to the nature of its effect for the express purpose of causing her death so that no entanglement might exist which could prevent his marriage to Violet Edmonds of Brookllne, whose father is a rich man. [The Sun (New York) Oct 21, 1911, page 1.]

Clearly what is at issue is not the concepts it is the words. It is crystal clear from the various accounts that Miss Linnell was pregnant and Richeson (the presumed father) was suspected of giving her the potassium of cyanide and telling her it was an abortifacient.

At the same time words (and concepts) that we would now find deeply shocking can be found on the same pages where the word \”pregnant\” could not be written.

The halfbreed was found in the brush near the scene of the crime early today and brought to the Oroville jail. There is talk of lynching.[The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Washington) Oct 21, 1911, page 1]

From reading that article it is clear that if an \”Indian\” was accused of murdering a white woman by other white people — then no one considered it necessary to go through the formality of having an actual trial. A lynching would do just as well.

Just as \”everyone knew\” that things such as premarital sex went on \”everyone knew\” that non-white and white Americans got treated differently by the American legal system. One hundred years they spoke circumspectly about sex and opening about legal inequalities. Today we speak openly about sex and circumspectly about legal inequalities.

But just as people were having sex then even if they weren\’t talking about it–bigotry and legal inequalities exist today even when we aren\’t willing to speak openly and honestly about them.

Trigger Warning: Quotations of language/imagery that is racially offensive

One hundred years ago today the University Missourian (Columbia, Missouri) ran the following article on the front page:
Head: Cinders Cause Suit
SubHead: Negro Woman Asks $300 Because Wabash Trains Soil Washing.

Emmeline Williams is not only identified in the subhead as a \”Negro Woman\” in the very first line of the article we are told that she is \”a negress.\” In the second paragraph of the same article she is referred to as \”Emmeline\” without an honorific and with no last name.

The article, which is a roundup of the various cases currently before the court, next moves on to the story of \”William Miller, a negro\” who is later referred to as \”Tude, as he is known in Columbia.\”

No one on the page is identified as \”white\” and no one not identified as \”negro\” is referred to only by their first name or not given an honorific on their first mention.

These are, no doubt, \”little\” things but it says much of what life was like for African-Americans that no matter what they did their \”racial identity\” was given as automatically as honorifics were given to whites and that the small dignities of life were accorded to white men and women but not African Americans.

Right now, in the United States, there are still places where people are being told that they have to ride at the back of the bus.
See:
City Human Rights Commission To Examine Sex-Segregated Bus Line

A driver observed and interviewed by The New York World did not intervene when a woman accompanying this reporter was forced to move to the back of the bus. The New York Post subsequently sent its own reporter, who was told by the driver, as well as passengers, that the front of the bus was reserved for men.

Women ride in back on sex-segregated Brooklyn bus line

The B110 bus travels between Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn. It is open to the public, and has a route number and tall blue bus stop signs like any other city bus. But the B110 operates according to its own distinct rules. The bus line is run by a private company and serves the Hasidic communities of the two neighborhoods. To avoid physical contact between members of opposite sexes that is prohibited by Hasidic tradition, men sit in the front of the bus and women sit in the back.

‘Back of bus’ furor

Rosa Parks must be spinning in her grave!

A Brooklyn bus contracted by the city to operate a Williamsburg-to-Borough Park route — catering to Orthodox Jews but open to the public — is under investigation for allegedly forcing women to sit in the back of the bus, authorities said yesterday.

At Front of Brooklyn Bus, a Clash of Religious and Women’s Rights

Even though a private operator runs the bus, it was awarded the route through a public and competitive bidding process. Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the Transportation Department, said the bus was supposed to be “available for public use” and could not discriminate.

[snip]

On Wednesday afternoon, the custom of women’s sitting at the back of the bus was evident, both in practice and in writing.

Guidelines, posted in the front and the back, said that “when boarding a crowded bus with standing passengers in the front, women should board the back door after paying the driver in the front” and that “when the bus is crowded, passengers should stand in their designated areas.”

If you read the articles (and the comments attached to them) the lack of outrage is noticeable. Why, I wonder, does forcing someone to sit at the back of the bus not spark massive anger and immediate reactions from government institutions? I suggest that the reasons are twofold: what group is the discrimination being carried out by and who is being discriminated against.

First, In certain areas of American politics today it is important to demonstrate that you are for Judeo-Christian ethics/beliefs and that you are a \”friend of Israel.\” Ironically your friendship for Israel may be based on your belief that Israel needs to be around to be destroyed at the right time, but until then you are a friend of Israel. Specifically (for a secular Israel will not result in the rebuilding of the temple) this involves supporting the those groups within Israel that are least supportive of western values/women\’s rights. This political \”third rail\” is not equally electric in all communities in the United States but it plays a crucial role in New York politics.

Second, Women rights are always negotiable. They are something that will have to wait. Brutal and unequal treatment of women can be included as one of many charges against another country or leader but that is never enough to spur western countries to action. If men are not being jailed then the jailing of women will not bring down upon you the wrath of the United States. If men are not being mistreated then the mistreatment of women will not bring down upon you the wrath of the United States. Women rights are the last rights that will be insisted on, the last rights to be granted and the first rights to be lost.

One hundred years ago yesterday (October 19, 1911) the Mayor of New York decided to not veto legislation that mandated that the New York City school system pay all women teachers the same wages as male teachers. The first several times such legislation was passed it was vetoed. As the mayor announced his intentions he reassured his constituents that paying women more would actually lead to more male teachers getting jobs.

Women\’s rights don\’t seem to have traveled as far as we had hoped over the last 100 years.

The World, New York New York, October 19 1911.

Headline: 14,000 WOMEN TEACHERS TO GET SAME PAY AS MEN

The newspaper reported that the legislature had passed the bill which mandated equal pay several times before and each time it had been vetoed. This time, according to the major

After careful consideration I see that I should accept this bill for the city. It gives the women teachers in our common schools equal pay with the men teachers in all the grades

and, as the mayor points out, this may actually redound to the benefit of men

Instead of lessening the number of men teachers it will increase it. The economical reason for appointing women teachers because they are paid less is removed.

Now, whatever the reasons the mayor had for not vetoing the bill it is interesting that he felt he had to (or wanted to) make the comment/reassurance that the bill would result in more men being hired. And it is important that in this day of fighting for equal pay for work of equal value that people be reminded just how recently in the United States one could openly and baldly pay a women less than a man just because she was a woman and he was a man. Laws had to be passed to prevent that from happening. And it would go on happening (and more laws would be required to be passed) for decades to come.

Why, one might ask, should we care about the troubles of the most fortunate? Why should we not mock, or even celebrate the things that try them?

Writers and artists have been dealing with that particular problem for as long as there have been writers and artists.

Timothy Daulton, in a comment to an earlier post, mentioned watching Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. In addition to the points Timothy made about the movie\’s relevance to circumstances today the movie also stands as a brilliant example of how the screenwriter/director/actors can deflect and channel possible oppositional responses to a narrative and (generally) successfully direct the audiences emotional responses in the desired directions.

Mr. Blandings began its life as an article in Fortune magazine in 1946 and was then published, in longer form, as a book. The movie is both faithful to and departs greatly from the original article. And the way in which it does both is instructive as to how an audience can be seduced and distracted into a dominant or acceptable negotiated reading of the text.

In the case of the movie this seduction/distraction might be argued to take place long before the movie begins with the selection of director, screenwriter and cast but I will defer the discussion of those choices until a later day and begin with first moments of the short story, the book and the movie.

Mr. Blandings, the short story, was published in 1946 and Mr. Blanding the movie was released in 1948. The United States was at the moment of publication and release in the midst of what was generally accepted to be a housing crisis. Housing starts had declined precipitously during the Great Depression and during the Second World War manpower and materials that might otherwise gone to building homes went instead into the war effort. With the end of the war hundreds of thousands of men returned to civilian life eager to get married, find a home and start a family but there were not available the hundreds of thousands of homes and apartments required for them to do so. So they lived with family or shared homes with other young couples in similar circumstances. So it is understandable that the \”money people\” in Hollywood would think that a movie about the troubles that beset a couple trying to build a house would evoke fellow-feeling among members of the audience. But the Blandings in the story, the book and the movie were very unlike most of the millions who desperately needed a home of their own.

If you check the US Census the median household income in the United States was $3200. Just over 3% of American households had an income of over $10000 a year. In the short story the reader learns that the final cost of the land and house was over $50,000 — a figure well beyond the reach of most of the people who would go to see the film. The Blandings are not rich but they are very wealthy compared to the majority of Americans. A the beginning of the film the audience is told that Blandings is he\’s as typical a New Yorker as anyone you\’ll ever meet. And then we are immediately given information that proves that Blandings is anything but a \”typical\” New Yorker. College graduate, ad business, lovely wife, two fine kids, makes about fifteen thousand a year. Yes, Americans who lived in large urban communities make somewhat more than Americans who live in smaller communities with the 1948 median income of $3200 for those living in cities of more than a million. So Blandings was not making a typical New York income. Nor was the typical New Yorker a college graduate. Indeed, directly after we are told that Jim Blandings is a typical New Yorker we are given ample evidence that he is not.

So, how did the movie-makers ensure that audience members would, for the most part, side with the Blandings even while taking delight in their travails? Over a number of posts I\’ll examine the skillful way in which they pulled of this feat.