Home Economics and Number Our Days

Today I had the pleasure of viewing two more ethnographic films: Home Economics and Number Our Days.

Home Economics examined the lives of housewives in a new suburban development in California. They went from discussing personal decorating styles, to traffic, to racial tensions in the neighborhood, and to the problems of raising children and holding a marriage together in the suburbs (just to name a few). The conversations were very natural. The women were incredibly honest and unashamed. I was taken aback when one woman discussed how the community fought against a low-income housing unit to be built in the neighborhood, and then said how they were people who haven't "realized the American Dream" yet. Another observation I found intriguing was that one mother felt that children were becoming autonomous in the household. This supports the idea that the suburbs are alienating and isolating, not just from urban and cultural centers, but from the nuclear family.

Number Our Days was the documentary short Oscar winner in 1974. Barbara Meyerhoff spent time with an elderly Jewish community in Venice Beach, California to learn about the older generation of her roots. Most of these people were alone, and this community was all each other had to support themselves. What I gathered most from this illustration of aging, especially with this demographic, was their rapid displacement. First, most of them fleed Europe because of discrimination against the Jews. Second, they age in a community where the elderly are not widely accepted. Third, the tourism hiked property values, and many cannot fend for themselves past a certain age, so many are forced to give up their homes for elder care or for inadequate apartments. It saddened me to think that many were ending up so lonely and unhappy. However, this community engagement on behalf of the gentleman running the program was integral in ensuring the elderly that their heritage, and most importantly, their lives, were not forgotten in the quickly developing beach culture of Venice.