Five Hundred Years of Friendship   /     Families of Choice

Description

Dr Thomas Dixon brings his major history of friendship up to the 1970s, when gender politics began to change friendships once again, and considers how popular culture both reflected and influenced this change. Episode 14: Families of Choice. Professor Barbara Taylor shares with Thomas Dixon her personal memories of how the second-wave feminist movement of the 1970s altered women's friendships in the way that Mary Wolstonecraft had discussed right back in the eighteenth century. Thomas Dixon also explores the growing freedom of gay men and lesbian women to establish their own "families of choice". And - somewhat excitedly - he debates with the cultural critic Matthew Sweet how television reflected friendships between men. While Thomas confesses to an erstwhile love of the phenomenally successful American sit-com, Friends, Matthew Sweet makes an expansive claim for British television's The Likely Lads, comparing the depth of Terry and Bob's friendship to that of Tennyson and Hallam. Meanwhile, slightly extending a quotation of the 17th Century poet, George Herbert, Thomas declares: "David had his Jonathan, Christ his John, Eric had his little Ern, Ant his Dec." Producer; Beaty Rubens.

Subtitle
How 1970s gender politics changed friendship and how popular culture reflected this change
Duration
831
Publishing date
2014-04-10 00:00
Link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04009c6
Contributors
  BBC Radio 4
author  
Enclosures
http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/http/vpid/p02qf1bp.mp3
audio/mpeg