Shame on That '70's Show

Grwoing up in the 1970's, I learned to appreciate hat everyone should do what they feel they should do. It was the "free to Be You and Me" decade, where if a boy wants a doll, a girl wants to play baseball, and a man feels like crying, there's nothing wrong with that.

Tonight I stumbled upon an episode of "That '70's Show" in which one character was outed as a roller disco freak nicknamed "Rainbow." His dad was the conservative Korean War veteran who was constantly ashamed of his son for his unmanly behaviors, so it was expected that he wouldn't like it. But when his friends found out, they also were embarrassed, and held an "intervention" (to use an anachronistic term).

They brought the boy's dad to the roller disco rink, where they caught him in the act of dancing and having a ball in his shiny red shorts. His father told him a story about a boy from his youth who had wanted to be a ballet dancer, and years later was with the NYC Ballet. When he returned to the old neighborhood a bunch of the fellows "beat the crap out of him." After that, the roller disco boy dropped his skates and elbow pads in the trash and said "outside I m nobody, but there I was a star!"

Shame on "That '70's Show." this boy is constantly kidded for being a Star Wars fan, being particularly unathletic, and a million other things. True, the tall beautiful redhead is his girlfriend, but in the world of the show, nobody truly appreciates his passions. Once he strapped on this skates, he was confident, smooth, sure of himself, and having a ball. He found meaning and joy in his life. To take that from him was just wrong, and totally against what the 1970's were about!