The Fugitive

3. A Thematic Analysis of The Fugitive

Chapter 3 A Thematic Analysis of The Fugitive 41 The Fugitive was popular with audiences in the 1960s because its characters and stories connected with ongoing cultural struggles over individual freedom and social justice. These struggles, which had various degrees of intensity, included African Americans, whites, Latino Americans, Native Americans, college students and disaffected intellectuals, young people, women, and the poor. Early signs of this conflict could be seen in the 1950s with the work of cultural rebels such as the Beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, rebellious actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean, and rock ’n’ roll singers like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, as well as the participation of blacks in civil rights protests in the South (Clecak 1983, 16–17).3 In his travels, Kimble meets and befriends alienated individuals and helps them overcome social, cultural, and psychological barriers to freedom and self-expression. Kimble is television ’s first true victim-hero, an innocent, hunted man who systematically has more in common with the each episode’s estranged characters than with its assorted villains or authority figures. In turn, the people Kimble meets tend to sympathize with him because they themselves are social outsiders. These 01 Pierson text.indd 41 10/27/11 12:04 PM 42 Chapter 3 people are “Americans marginalized by society, not because of what they have allegedly done but because of who they are” (Zane 2007). In order to delve into the relationship between the series and these cultural struggles, this chapter will examine the following dominant themes represented in the episodes: individualism , love and marriage, the culture of professionalism, modern science and technology, and social justice and authority . Individualism In American society, there is a tension between the capitalist economy and the political state, and the freedoms granted to individuals. During World War II and the economic growth of the early 1950s, individuals were expected to defer gratification and sacrifice for results that would come later in life. However, in the peace and affluence of the late 1950s and early 1960s, individual expectations—material, psychological, and spiritual—increased and soared to new heights (Clecak 1983, 111–12). In turn, postwar institutional bureaucracies sought to moderate these expectations by inscribing people into specific social roles. By the 1960s, several social observers were concerned about the loss of individual freedom in the face of the increased role of centralized government, large corporations, and mass media in America’s growing society. Although social critics such as David Reisman, William Whyte, and C. Wright Mills had expressed similar worries in the 1950s, the accelerated pace of science and technology brought a new urgency to the public debate concerning the pressures of social conformity on the individual. During the 1964 presidential campaign, Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) used the perceived loss of individual freedom as one of his primary campaign themes. As President Lyndon Johnson expanded the federal government’s role in civil rights and anti-poverty legislation, Goldwater believed big gov01 Pierson text.indd 42 10/27/11 12:04 PM 43 A Thematic Analysis of The Fugitive ernment was the main threat to individual freedom. In his first campaign speech, Goldwater spoke on this issue. The individual, the private man, the whole man—you!— Today, stands in danger of becoming the forgotten man of our collectivized complex times. . . . Responsibility has shifted from the family to the bureaucrat, from the neighborhood to the arbitrary and distant agency. Goals are set, roles are assigned, promises are made—all by the remote control of central government. (1965) The emerging New Left/counterculture was also disenchanted with and concerned about the loss of individualism. The Beat movement of the 1950s, in the tradition of Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, cast a modern representation of “expressive individualism.” This concept holds that each person has a unique essence of feeling and intuition that should be allowed to unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized (Bellah et al. 1985, 33–35). The Beats, through their lifestyle featuring sex, drugs, jazz, and material simplicity, repudiated middle-class culture’s incessant drive for wealth in favor of a deeper cultivation of the self. In the early 1960s, several signs of this expanding expressive individualism could be detected, from comedian Lenny Bruce to liberalized pornography laws, pop art, and New York’s Living Theatre. Kimble’s situation as a middle-class American falsely accused , convicted, and sentenced to...