It was television....circa 1953....television that my parents watched. The Honeymooners was 'day vs night' different from say.....Modern Family. Actually it was more....theater put on film.....than what we know today as television.
All of my family....mother's and father's sides....worked for Westinghouse. It is more than possible that both of my grandfathers were working at the Westinghouse plant in East Pittsburgh the evening on November 2, 1920 when the world heard its first commercial radio broadcast....the presidential returns of the Harding/ Cox race....from a shed on the roof of the building. (That was Warren G. Harding and running mate Calvin Coolidge over James M. Cox and Franklin Delano Roosevelt!)
Westinghouse Studio One was one of the popular regular television shows of the day....and in September of that year of 1953....my parents....with me crawling around on the floor at about 2 1/2 years old....may have sat down to watch a presentation of George Orwell's....1984....that starred Green Acres's Oliver Wendell Douglas as Winston Smith....and Bonanza's Ben Cartwright as O'Brien....and Fiddler On The Roof's Tevye's wife Golde....as Julia....and television's I Spy's Kelly Robinson as the telescreen's male announcer. In today's world of pretend and fantasy it might be easier to refer to the character's name's rather than their real names....Eddie Albert and Lorne Greene and Norma Crane and Robert Culp?
Movies were made of Orwell's classic book...one in 1956 and another actually in 1984....but I'm adding below that Westinghouse Studio One adaptation....for one because it is shorter....only 50 minutes....but it includes the key elements of the film....the division of the world....after the war....into three geopolitical areas....which seems to be where we may be going....and that the people were under camera observation just about all of the time....and no one was permitted to actually think on their own....for the power to be at the time....Big Brother....was in total charge of the media and would tell them what they can read and what they must think. Indeed Winston Smith's job at the Ministry of Truth.....was to take the reports of the news....and change them into what Big Brother wanted them to report....and also to take past history....and align than with what Big Brother wanted it to say! That sounds a lot what is happening today does it not?
We all had to read 1984 in high school back in the 60s....I imagine that the book is still read in schools today. Another key element in the novel....and represented in the movies and the television adaptation....was that the people....multiple times every day....upon being alerted by the announcer on the telescreen....would gather for two minutes.....it was actually called.....the 'two minute hate'....while Big Brother's ideological and political opponent's face would appear on the screen....speaking what the people were told were lies....or fake news....and they would for two minutes....yell and scream hatred towards the man on the screen. That also is not all that dissimilar to cable news today.
Neither Orwell or Brave New World's....(1932)....author....Aldous Huxley were Christians.....but they could discern the times better than most of evangelicalism today. The post title here was the motto seen everywhere.
"If the Son therefore shall make you free....ye shall be free indeed." John 8:36 KJV
