The Monkees: A Happily but Safely Diverse
Portrait for a New America
The television series The Monkees ran in originals and reruns during a time
of profound changes in American culture and society, from 1966 to 1973, when
the series was picked up for syndication. On the surface, the four guys were no
more or less than the “American Beatles,” targeted, perhaps, to a younger
audience, but a closer look reveals that the series both heralds the promise and
sketches limitations of the newest ideas about American diversity. One message
was that four guys who looked so different could get along and prosper together.
Even better, these were four guys whose individual musical tastes, explored in
later seasons, represented different cultural influences—yet succeeded in
playing Monkee music together. The greater and sadder message, however, was
that there were limits to diversity. Middle-class white Americans watching The
Monkees were reassured that, while African, Asian, and Latino music could
influence mainstream American music in a positive way, African, Asian, and
Latino citizens need not be honored as part of the broader American landscape.
Ultimately, the show represented a diversity that was non-threatening to the
millions of Americans who watched it every Monday night.
The decade leading up to 1966 saw vast changes in the American cultural
landscape. Among them, the most important was the beginning of the modem
civil rights movement. In the deep South, African-Americans fought for an end
to segregation. Bull Connor’s dogs attacked civil rights marchers, and state
troopers attacked those who were marching from Selma to Montgomery. But in
other parts of the country, there was just as much resistance to change. In the
west, for example, Asians and African-Americans worked to secure Seattle’s
open housing law, enacted in 1963, yet it was rescinded a year later by voters’
referendum; however, tides were turning. All over the country, politicians and
private citizens who wanted to keep the status quo were pushing against a rising
tide of protest and a collective insistence that all American citizens be allowed
to pursue the American dream. By 1966, the Voting Rights Act had passed; the
National Farm Workers Union (United Farm Workers) had organized in
California; the National Organization for Women had been created in
Washington DC; in some areas of the country, African-Americans, Asians, and
whites were working together; some schools, public and private, had quietly
integrated without incident; and interaction among people of different races was
becoming more common.
However, the television world of 1966 in which The Monkees debuted was
nearly monochromatic, literally and figuratively. There was one major AfricanAmerican star who wasn’t a singer or dancer: Bill Cosby, whose turn on I Spy
(1965) represented the first time a black actor had been chosen for a dramatic
lead. Diahann Carroll’s groundbreaking role in Julia would follow in 1968, the