Every so often, a man comes along and challenges my anti-ban-men position. And Tom Good, he is that man. The homesteader husband on 1975-1978 Britcom “The Good Life” is terrible, but especially so because, as already established in an earlier installment of this newsletter, the show comes from a place of thinking he’s wonderful. Tom’s done with being an office drone, and nobly decides to cut off his and his wife’s source of income. They don’t go somewhere bucolic, but rather stay in their suburban London house, but now they have no money and wife Barbara has to do a bunch of archaic chores. This is meant to be heroic and antimaterialist and not what it winds up being, which is something teetering just on the edge of abuse. Shows, even comedies, should be able to depict awful people, and to do so without neat lessons spelling out their awfulness. But what happens on “The Good Life” is, the awfulness is presented as righteousness. Allow me to explain:
Today’s focus is the episode, “The Last Posh Frock.” Barbara notices that everyone treats her like a guy, because she’s always in filthy overalls, and doing things like trying to repair her neighbors’ car. She gets mistaken for a boy in front of a pub, and that’s the last straw. Back at home, she puts on, as per the title, her remaining nice dress. She hopes Tom will notice. He does not. She then rips the dress while going upstairs to, as per his instructions (HE IS TERRIBLE) change into something more chore-ready. He suggests she mend it, when that’s plainly not something that would work for the dress or damage in question.
Tom eventually, with prodding from neighbors, understands that Barbara is upset about something. He explains to her that this is their way of life now. No more keeping up with the Joneses. But his explanation’s a bit iffy because it’s half an ode to her being lovely as she is, and half (OK, more than half) about how he doesn’t even look at her as being a woman, she’s just “Barbara,” so what would be the point of her getting dolled up?
It all comes to a head when an old friend of Barbara’s arrives from Canada. As is true of all women in Canada, this woman is a tall, stunning fashion model who shows up for their casual dinner party in a slinky, sleeveless evening gown. Tom proceeds to spend the evening not just drooling over her friend, but complimenting her on her clothes, and asking her how it is modeling for different designers. In the inevitable fallout from this, Tom explains to Barbara there’d be no point in her having a dress like that, because she’s short. (She is. She looks like Laura Petrie but short. Really the definition of a plain-looking woman /sarcasm.)
Jerry, Tom and Barbara’s neighbor, who’s both decent and someone with a mega-crush on Barbara (WHO SHOULD LEAVE TOM, BUT NOT FOR JERRY, JUST TO LEAVE HIM, RUN FOR THE HILLS!), spells out for Tom that Barbara’s sad about never getting to look pretty, on account of having ruined her last good dress. How does Tom react? That gets its own paragraph.
Tom manages, in the course of mere moments, to accuse Jerry of being gay, of wanting to be a woman, and of being a feminist. These are all, as far as Tom is concerned, the biggest insults you could hurl. Tom! Good guy (get it, get it?) Tom, so noble. I know it was the 1970s, but I know from the 1970s (from television) and even if sensitivities then were not precisely what they are now, this was not normal. He’s a trad husband minus any sort of trad community, religious or otherwise. The point is to keep Barbara isolated and obeying him for lack of other options.
Anyway, the show is gentle on Tom, its hero. He realizes his error and savior that he is, surprises Barbara with a new dress. (SHE DIDN’T GET TO PICK HER OWN DRESS!) Luckily, it fits. (We know both because we see her in it, and because we see Jerry ogling her in it.) And he’s supposed to be this saint because in order to buy the dress, he sold some of his own crap, stuff he was, as has been made abundantly clear, not at all attached to.
I want to give the show, its creators, its actors, etc. credit for the spot-on depiction of a certain sort of man, a man whose conviction of himself as a good person allows him to be the very worst. But as well-honed as the portrait is, there’s something about the show’s sitcommish (I know, I know) insistence upon presenting him as loveable that is infuriating. I don’t want “The Good Life” removed from Britbox! But Tom? You’re cancelled.