Okay, so I’ve been digging into this Carroll O’Connor guy lately, specifically his political views. You know, the actor who played Archie Bunker in “All in the Family.” It’s a bit of a rabbit hole, but a pretty interesting one.
I started off by just wanting to know what his personal political leanings were. It seemed like a simple enough question, right? I figured since he played such a strong character like Archie, I just wanted to know the difference. So I searched for “Carroll O’Connor’s political views” on Google. A bunch of stuff popped up, of course, but I clicked on a few articles and started reading.
First thing I learned was that Archie Bunker was a staunch Republican. I mean, the guy loved Richard Nixon and was apparently an early supporter of Ronald Reagan, which was really interesting, even predicting his victory and all. But Archie, in the show, was also pretty vocal about his dislike for peace protesters and wasn’t exactly a champion of the civil rights movement.
Diving Deeper
Then I started wondering, how much of that was Carroll O’Connor himself, and how much was it just the character? It became pretty obvious that O’Connor was nothing like Archie Bunker. It mentioned in a few places that he was actually a political liberal in real life. That’s a big difference! I mean, can you imagine? Playing a character so opposite to your own beliefs?
- From what I gathered, O’Connor wasn’t trying to distance himself from the Archie Bunker character. It sounded like he actually enjoyed being associated with the role and even liked interacting with fans who knew him from the show. Cool, right? It’s not like he was embarrassed by it or anything.
- He put a lot of effort into the role. He observed people and did his research. I mean, the dude was committed. He wanted to make Archie a real person, even if he was a bigot, a human being, according to one interview with him.
- The show itself was pretty groundbreaking. It dealt with all these heavy topics like racism, antisemitism, homosexuality, women’s rights, Vietnam War… you name it. For a sitcom in the 70s, that’s kind of a big deal, you know? And it sounds like O’Connor was all for tackling these issues on TV.
It’s just really fascinating to see the contrast between the actor and the character. You’ve got this super conservative, kind of prejudiced guy on screen, and then the actor portraying him is this liberal dude who’s all about social justice. It just goes to show you how talented O’Connor was, to be able to pull that off so convincingly. He really made Archie Bunker believable, even though he didn’t agree with him at all. Anyway, it was a fun little research project. Makes you appreciate the show even more, knowing all that went on behind the scenes.
