Blog 796 – 10.16.2017

The Big Valley

The television landscape since the late nineteen sixties has known several strong matriarchs. Three that come to mind are Barbara Stanwick in The Big Valley, Joan Collins in Dynasty, and Ronald Reagan’s first wife with the cute little pug nose, Jane Wyman in Falcon Crest. My daddy thought Jane Wyman was one of the prettiest women ever and so did Ronald Reagan, at least once upon a time before he divorced her and later married Nancy.

I saw this sign on a ranch near Avoca, Wisconsin and had to snap a picture and knew that I would write a piece about Big Valley. It alone of the three shows named above was a western and one of the last successful television western series of a certain genre till the recent AMC show, The Son. Big Valley was Bonanza with a twist, a couple of beautiful twists, Barbara Stanwick, herself a knock out in her day – played the matriarch Victoria Barkley, and the beautiful young Linda Evans as Audra Barkley, her daughter. Linda later vied with Joan Collins over John Forsyth, Dynasty patriarch. Bonanza’s Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe were in Big Valley called Heath (Lee Majors), Nick (Peter Brock) and Jarrod Barkley (Richard Long.) Victoria Barkley was every bit as strong and tough as Ben Cartwright any day of the week and her children knew better than to try her as would learn the weekly bad guys who came to the Big Valley.

Sexual symbolism abounded, I mean besides the three handsome brothers, beautiful and vivacious sister, and still quite lovely mom. As the Ponderosa stood for western maleness the Big Valley stood for the equally strong western feminine. It was a time when we came closest to passing The Equal Rights Amendment and even had cigarette companies marketing several brands just for women. I find it quite interesting that for all our modern ideas in Western society that men still want to believe that they are stronger, better, and smarter than women when little, if indeed anything, could be further from the truth.

One of those nineteen seventies cigarettes marketed directly to women had a long running sales campaign the theme of which was, “You have come a long way, Baby.” I, fewer men, but a lot of girls, and women think not nearly far enough and wonder where they might be today had not weak minded men worked so hard to hold them back. There will be no peace in the valley till women and girls, minorities, LBGT, and everyone of us is allowed and encouraged to meet our highest potential and not held back by a handful of rich and powerful old white guys who are scared of losing control. Put that in you pipe and smoke it, Sherlock – get a clue.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

For women’s and everyone’s liberation, even old white guys from tired old ideas,

David White