Archie, meet Larry: framing race in two acclaimed television comedy series

Through a critical viewing of All in the Family and Curb Your Enthusiasm, significant shifts in popular conceptions of racialized others can be identified. All in the Family, represented by the character Archie Bunker, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, represented by Larry David, are deconstructed and contrasted to represent distinct eras in the portrayal of race relationships. All in the Family takes a sanctimonious and judgmental stance toward prejudice that embodies a simplistic conception of race humanized through the defects of Archie Bunker. Curb Your Enthusiasm, in contrast, offers a complex conception of racialized relationships, humanized by the character of Larry David. Comparisons of the two portrayals suggest that (1) conceptions of race have shifted from fixed, definitional and “individualized” contents toward situational, fluid, and ironic ones, (2) this shift parallels transformations in society, and (3) sarcastic and framed narratives of the consequences of interracial relationships and race prejudice have displaced optimistic and challenging portrayals. For their respective eras, each program reflects conceptions of race in popular consciousness.