When I was a kid growing up in West Texas, TV wasn’t just background noise—it was the main event. It taught me how to dream, how to laugh, how to roll my eyes, and—maybe most importantly—how to spot the underlying dysfunction in every “perfect” family sitcom. It was a babysitter, a teacher, a mirror, and occasionally a slap in the face. Because no matter how different the times or the trends, television has always reflected the world we live in—messy, magical, and mortifying as it is.
And if you pay attention, you’ll notice: every era of TV tells you exactly what people were afraid of, obsessed with, or trying to escape.
The Golden Age of Escape (1950s–60s)
In the era of poodle skirts, McCarthyism, and atomic anxiety, television was the nation’s collective Xanax. Shows like Leave It to Beaver and The Donna Reed Show painted a picture of suburban bliss that was about as real as a Jell-O mold with suspended hot dogs. These weren’t just family comedies—they were cultural prescriptions. Be happy. Be normal. Be white, middle-class, and married with children.
What these shows didn’t show were the civil rights protests, the trauma of war, or the women quietly plotting their escape from pastel kitchen prisons. Instead, TV gave people a world without chaos, where the worst thing that could happen was Eddie Haskell showing up.
But even then, the cracks were there—if you looked closely enough.
The Sitcom Gets Woke (1970s)
Then came the 1970s, and suddenly TV grew a backbone. All in the Family told you straight-up that your racist uncle wasn’t “just old-fashioned”—he was part of the problem. Maude had an abortion episode in 1972, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show let a single woman be ambitious without being punished for it.
These weren’t just entertainment. They were Trojan horses of progress, sneaking big, messy ideas into living rooms across the country. They reflected a society in transition: post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, and pre-Reagan malaise. TV wasn’t afraid to get ugly, which made it beautiful.
The Excess of the Eighties
By the time shoulder pads and synthesizers rolled in, TV leaned hard into glam and escapism again. Shows like Dynasty, Dallas, and Knight Rider gave us villains with great hair, talking cars, and oil tycoons slapping each other across mirrored dining tables. Reagan-era optimism met capitalist fantasy, and suddenly wealth wasn’t something to question—it was something to aspire to.
Still, The Cosby Show quietly redefined what a Black American family looked like on TV (though in hindsight, Bill Cosby’s off-screen reality casts a long, gross shadow). But that show’s success mattered. It told a country deeply segregated by economics and policy that Black excellence existed—and not just as a sidekick.
The Nineties: Snark and Sincerity
The 90s were my personal golden age of TV. We had ER and NYPD Blue for gritty drama, Friends and Seinfeld for comedy, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer for campy feminist allegory dressed in leather pants and eyeliner.
This was when TV started acknowledging that trauma, pain, and identity weren’t just afterschool special material. They were part of the main plot. And as someone growing up queer and biracial in a place that didn’t exactly hand out tolerance like Halloween candy, that mattered.
Watching Will & Grace and Ellen kiss a woman on TV for the first time? That was seismic. Representation didn’t fix everything, but it reminded me I wasn’t crazy for existing.
The Gritty Golden Age (2000s–2010s)
Post-9/11, TV got darker. More morally complex. More willing to say, “Actually, maybe the hero is a villain, and maybe that’s the point.”
Shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men didn’t just entertain—they dissected masculinity, addiction, ambition, and the American dream with surgical precision. The West Wing gave us the government we wished we had, while The Wire reminded us exactly why we didn’t.
This was also when genre TV got smart. Lost made mysteries sexy again. Grey’s Anatomy gave medical drama a heart (and a soundtrack that still slaps). Pose dared to center trans and queer lives—Black and brown, resilient and divine—like they were worthy of primetime. Because they always were.
The Streaming Surge and Fragmentation Era (2020s)
Now we’re in the age of content overload. I mean, how many prestige dramas about grief, time travel, or murder podcasts can one person emotionally handle?
Shows like The Bear, Succession, and Fleabag reflect an exhausted, disillusioned world grappling with late capitalism, generational trauma, and the quiet horror of trying to find meaning in a burnt-out society.
But this era also gave us shows that understand comfort: Ted Lasso told us kindness was cool. Hacks made aging female comedians the stars. Bridgerton reimagined Regency romance with diverse casting and steamy orchestras. It’s chaotic, but beautifully so. TV now gives us everything because it knows we need everything—laughter, hope, discomfort, and distraction—all in equal measure.
Why It Matters
TV isn’t just a mirror—it’s a blueprint. It tells us who matters, what’s normal, what’s aspirational. It tells a young queer kid whether or not they have a future. It tells a single mom if she’s heroic or a punchline. It tells a generation whether power looks like a corrupt antihero or a therapist with a soccer whistle.
And as someone who has lived through abandonment, trauma, abuse, reinvention, recovery, love, and joy—TV was often a companion when I had none. It was where I first saw possibilities beyond my zip code. It was the friend who didn’t talk back but always understood.
Final Thoughts
TV through the ages doesn’t just entertain. It archives. It remembers. It argues. It shifts. It demands we pay attention, even when it’s dressed up in glitter or soaked in blood. And when you watch closely, you’ll realize: we’ve always been writing our history in episodes.
Whether it’s Lucy stuffing chocolates into her bra, Carrie Bradshaw pondering life over cosmopolitans, or Rue in Euphoria breaking the fourth wall to narrate her unraveling—TV tells the truth in a way that’s often too bold, too weird, or too raw for real life.
But that’s why we need it.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to rewatch The Americans and pretend I’m not crying during espionage scenes again.