Tag: violence

A Fistful of Reasons, Part II: The Trouble with Bullies

And the obsession with this episode continues…I am not exaggerating when I say that I could write a book about Fistful of Reasons. Here are just a few things that I love about this episode and why it so compelling for my own work:

  • The focus on reason and its limits
  • The conflict between the “troublemaker” (Buddy Hinton) and the troubled (Peter and Cindy)
  • The performances of (failed) masculinity by Mike, Peter, Buddy, Alice, Cindy and the performances of (failed) femininity by Carol, Alice, Mrs. Hinton
  • The failed possibilities for alliance building between Buddy and Peter

I hope to get to all of these topics in future blogs. But before I do that, I want to write about an issue that seems particularly important in light of the recent accounts of anti-gay bullying suicides: the trouble with bullies. This spring, several kids committed suicide after being taunted, verbally abused, and physically threatened. As many have argued–like Box Turtle Bulletin and Advocate–the cause of these suicides was not just harassment but anti-gay harassment that could have been prevented if the schools that these students had attended had better anti-bullying programs in place (see this for more).

These tragic cases point to the physical, emotional and psychic consequences of bullying and raise the troubling questions: Who is to blame for these suicides and who should be held responsible? What sorts of actions can we take to ensure that these tragedies stop occurring? How have our traditional strategies for dealing with bullies failed to protect our children?

In “A Fistful of Reasons,” the issue of bullying is taken up as Cindy, Peter and their parents (comically) struggle with how to solve the problem of Buddy Hinton and his bullying behavior. Buddy taunts Cindy for lisping (a gay signifier?) and threatens Peter with taunts and physical violence (calling Peter’s masculinity into question?). Here are the different ways that they try to address the problem:

  1. To stop Buddy from teasing Cindy about her lisp, Mike and Carol try to train her to talk properly. They give her a tongue twister book so she can “get over her lisp” and talk just like everybody else. Almost the whole family (Mike, Carol, Alice, Greg, Peter and Bobby) help her with the exercises in the book. At first this method doesn’t work but by the end of the episode Cindy’s lisp has magically disappeared.
  2. To stop Buddy from threatening and taunting Peter, Peter’s brothers Greg and Bobby attempt to shame Peter into fighting Buddy: “If you don’t fight him, everyone’s gonna call you a coward.” (or a sissy or a fag?)
  3. To stop Buddy from teasing Cindy and calling her a baby, Mike and Carol encourage Peter to stand up to Buddy (like a man) not by fighting him but by using “calm, cool, reason.” They reinforce this lesson (especially after it fails for Peter) by attempting to use reason themselves with Buddy’s parents.
  4. After these other methods have failed, Mike gives Peter permission to “defend himself” against Buddy. When Peter admits that he doesn’t know how to fight, Marcia and Alice give him some boxing lessons.
  5. As I discussed in another entry, Peter finally solves the problem by punching Buddy and causing him to lisp. All of the kids laugh at him and he loses his power to bully others.

Continue reading A Fistful of Reasons, Part II: The Trouble with Bullies

A Fistful of Reasons, Part I: The Title

Why did they call this Brady Bunch episode a fistful of reasons? I imagine the writer (Tam Spiva) or the producer (Sherwood Schwartz) thought it was clever. And it is, but not in the way that they probably meant it to be–as a play on words. Calling this episode a fistful of reasons is an insightful way of signifying how reason and violence are often inextricably tied.

In my first entry on this episode I wrote about how the conflict between Peter Brady and Buddy Hinton demonstrated the failure of reason to successfully mediate conflict. Throughout the episode, Peter, Mike, and Carol all attempt to appeal to reason as the way to resolve conflict and to deal with Buddy the bully. Consider Mike Brady’s fatherly advice to Peter about how to handle the Buddy situation:

Fighting isn’t the answer to anything. If it were why the biggest and the strongest would always be right. That doesn’t make any sense does it? Did you try reasoning with Buddy Hinton? Explaining to him why he shouldn’t tease Cindy? Reasoning. Calm, cool reasoning. That’s a lot better than violence. And it’s the only sensible way to settle differences.

Peter, Mike and Carol all try to reason their way out of the conflict: Peter tries to reason with Buddy. Mike tries to reason with Buddy’s dad. And Carol tries to reason with Buddy’s mom. In each case, reason is no match for violence. Peter gets a black eye. Mike gets “escorted” off of Mr. Hinton’s property. Carol barely restrains herself from mixing it up with Mrs. Hinton.
Continue reading A Fistful of Reasons, Part I: The Title