How Parents (1989) exposed the dark underbelly of the 1950s
"In the ‘50s, what you appeared to be was more important than what you were," said director Bob Balaban.
Despite the fact that it wasn’t so long ago, earlier decades are often viewed through rose-colored glasses. Nostalgia is all well and good, but to view an earlier decade like the 1950s as somehow superior is simply wrong. The reality is, each time period, even the present, has its own set of appeals and drawbacks.
As a director, Bob Balaban wasn’t interested in casting a veneer of harmony over the 1950s.
“In the ‘50s, what you appeared to be was more important than what you were,” said Balaban during an interview with the Tarrytown Daily News. “Everybody has a dark, horrible secret of some sort. But back then, as long as you didn’t talk about it or acknowledge it, as long as you acted right on the surface, you were accepted.”
Balaban kept this mindset while directing his 1989 film, Parents. “It reminded me of my childhood,” Balaban said of the script. “I loved childhood. But I was a weird child.”
Parents was a film that polarized audiences, though it didn’t bother Balaban. “After the first screening, which was for maybe a half-dozen friends, one or two of them wanted to kill me,” said the director. “They hated it so much. The other two or three said it was one of their favorite films they had ever seen. I thought it was just these four or five people. But I’ve been consistently getting an even split between wonderful and terrible reactions. So I stopped worrying about it.”
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