{"id":7226,"date":"2016-09-29T12:07:39","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T16:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=7226"},"modified":"2022-07-27T10:09:42","modified_gmt":"2022-07-27T14:09:42","slug":"tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/09\/tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided.html","title":{"rendered":"TV legend Norman Lear probes housing discrimination on debut of Epix doc series &#8220;America Divided&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"America Divided: Norman Lear - A House Divided I EPIX\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vSTa4wS51bs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1475140711976_75681\" class=\"yiv2858371633MsoListParagraphCxSpLast\"><strong><em>America Divided<\/em> debuts on Epix Friday (9\/30).<\/strong> With the 2016 presidential election looming,\u00a0 docu-series from legendary TV producers legend <b>Norman Lear<\/b> (<em>All in the Family<\/em>)<b>, Shonda Rhimes <\/b>(<em>Grey&#8217;s Anatomy, Scandal<\/em>) and hip-hop star<b> Common<\/b>, probes inequality in education, housing, healthcare, labor, criminal justice and the political system &#8211; all woven into an eight-story, four-and-half hour series. High-profile correspondents include Lear (on housing inequality), Common (on criminal justice), actress , actress <b>Rosario Dawson<\/b> (on the Flint, Michigan water crisis, <em>Superstore<\/em> star <strong>America Ferrara<\/strong> (on minority ballot access and healthcare for women), actor\/comedian\u00a0<b>Zach Galifianakis<\/b> (on the country\u2019s deepening political divide), actress producer\u00a0<b>Amy Poehler<\/b> (on the complex challenges faced by America&#8217;s domestic workers), a<span id=\"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1475140711976_75677\">ctor <b>Peter Sarsgaard<\/b> (on America&#8217;s addiction and unemployment crises) and <em>Grey&#8217;s Anatomy<\/em> star <b>Jesse Williams<\/b> (on inequality in education).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"yiv2858371633MsoListParagraphCxSpLast\">I spoke with Norman Lear about this the program, politics and television. Here&#8217;s some of what he had to say:<\/p>\n<p><strong>On <em>America Divided<\/em><\/strong>: &#8220;(It&#8217;s about) New York City housing and the difficulty\u00a0 low-income solid working people are having &#8212; especially black people, Hispanics, etc. I was pleased to do it. It&#8217;s certainly something I&#8217;m interested in and which I&#8217;ve never done before (working as a TV correspondent).<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve spent time with some black families &#8212; largely black &#8212; in Crown Heights. These are people with long leases. It turns my stomach when I think about it. They had long leases who have paid rents which have been (exorbitantly) raised numerous times&#8230;People are being forced out by landlords who are using fake wall repairs or floor repairs. They stir up dust and create an unhealthy atmosphere so people can&#8217;t, for health reasons, live there. I spent times with numerous (people) in that exact situation, a couple of them quite ill because they&#8217;d been through years of this and had no place else to live.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>On Campaign 2016:<\/strong> He laments especially the tattered state of the GOP which has given us Donald Trump as its standard-bearer.\u00a0 Today&#8217;s Republicans, he notes, don&#8217;t even talk about Dwight David Eisenhower who, he says,\u00a0 had the wisdom to warn about such things as the military-industrial complex.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the American voter:<\/strong> He says &#8220;Someone whose name I can&#8217;t remember now once said that no-one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people. I think that&#8217;s\u00a0 bullshit&#8230;We&#8217;re wise at heart. The American people are good people. I think they see through Donald Trump.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What would Archie Bunker think of Donald Trump?:<\/strong> &#8220;I think he would have trouble defending Donald Trump.&#8221; Archie, he notes, did evolve over the years. Edith, he says, would definitely oppose Trump.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the state of today&#8217;s television: <\/strong>Lear says we are in a Golden Age of TV entertainment. He particularly likes the Emmy-winning transgender\u00a0 sitcom <em>Transparent<\/em> and NBC&#8217;s socially-relevant <em>The Carmichael Show<\/em>.\u00a0 Regarding the latter, he appreciated it when I suggested that the show recalls his classic sitcoms of the 1970&#8217;s and 1980&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What&#8217;s he doing now? <\/strong>For a man of 94 years, Trump is remarkably active. Besides his work on <em>America Divided<\/em>, he&#8217;s currently involved with Netflix&#8217;s revival of his long-running single-mother sitcom <em>One Day at a Time <\/em>(this time with an Hispanic cast). The show is set to premiere with 13 episodes on January 6th. Another upcoming project is a sitcom about life (and death) in a retirement village.<\/p>\n<p><strong>His philosophy for remaining vital at age 94:<\/strong> He says it, basically comes down to letting go of worry over the past. What&#8217;s done is done.<\/p>\n<p><em>John W. Kennedy is a writer\/development consultant specializing in teleplays, screenplays and novelizations<\/em>. He can be reached at <a href=\"mailto:john@jwkmedia.com\">john@jwkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Encourage one another and build each other up \u2013 <\/em><strong>1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. America Divided debuts on Epix Friday (9\/30). With the 2016 presidential election looming,\u00a0 docu-series from legendary TV producers legend Norman Lear (All in the Family), Shonda Rhimes (Grey&#8217;s Anatomy, Scandal) and hip-hop star Common, probes inequality in education, housing, healthcare, labor, criminal justice and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9117,9115,9116,4707,4706],"class_list":["post-7226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-epix-doc-series-america-divided","tag-hip-hop-star-common","tag-norman-lear","tag-scandal","tag-shonda-rhimes-greys-anatomy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>TV legend Norman Lear probes housing discrimination on debut of Epix doc series &quot;America Divided&quot;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/09\/tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TV legend Norman Lear probes housing discrimination on debut of Epix doc series &quot;America Divided&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. America Divided debuts on Epix Friday (9\/30). With the 2016 presidential election looming,\u00a0 docu-series from legendary TV producers legend Norman Lear (All in the Family), Shonda Rhimes (Grey&#8217;s Anatomy, Scandal) and hip-hop star Common, probes inequality in education, housing, healthcare, labor, criminal justice and&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/09\/tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-29T16:07:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-07-27T14:09:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. 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With the 2016 presidential election looming,\u00a0 docu-series from legendary TV producers legend Norman Lear (All in the Family), Shonda Rhimes (Grey&#8217;s Anatomy, Scandal) and hip-hop star Common, probes inequality in education, housing, healthcare, labor, criminal justice and&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/09\/tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided.html","og_site_name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","article_published_time":"2016-09-29T16:07:39+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-07-27T14:09:42+00:00","author":"John W. Kennedy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/09\/tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/09\/tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided.html","name":"TV legend Norman Lear probes housing discrimination on debut of Epix doc series \"America Divided\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-09-29T16:07:39+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-27T14:09:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/09\/tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/09\/tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/09\/tv-legend-norman-lear-probes-housing-discrimination-debut-epix-doc-series-america-divided.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TV legend Norman Lear probes housing discrimination on debut of Epix doc series &#8220;America Divided&#8221;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/","name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - John W. Kennedy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23344,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226\/revisions\/23344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}