While the format of Electric Dreams is now thoroughly familiar – a modern-day family is placed in a facsimile of some past historical era, and their reactions to it recorded for the camera, this BBC reality show (screening early on Sunday evenings on Channel Ten for the next two weeks) is somewhat unusual in its choice of historical eras to recreate. Rather than settler households, or the travails of Victorian-era aristocracy, this show recreates the recent past and concentrates on the progression of domestic technology. Each episode concentrates on a decade, with the first episode (screening last night) setting the participating family up in a “1970s house”. Each day, the “clock” was advanced one year, and new gadgets were delivered to the house, roughly corresponding to the median British household of the year.
At one level, this show, both for the (adult) participants and for much of the audience, is an exercise in geeky nostalgia, with the theme tune from Pot Black, Pong, and a beautifully-restored but still awful to drive Ford Cortina making appearances. But, to give the producers credit, they’ve very much tried to place the technology in its social context as much as possible. There’s a power outage, caused by “a miners’ strike”. Contrary to popular belief, the children actually spend less time interacting with their parents in the “1970s”, particularly as their mother battles the lack of kitchen facilities. And it rapidly becomes clear just how limited home entertainment options were in this relatively recent era – particularly in a drab English winter.
But, entertaining as the show was – and as a child of the 1980s I can’t wait to see the next episode – the format has inherent limitations. The impacts of domestic technology – the gadgets and gizmos we personally interact with – are very real. But invisible technology makes a great deal of difference too; not least of which because it made us materially better-off over that period (in Britain and Australia, if not the United States). The effect of incomes can’t really be dealt with particularly well here – by the end of the show’s timeline, the middle-class family depicted would have reduced their cooking efforts even more; not through any particular piece of technology, but because they could afford to eat out a lot more often.
But it is what it is, and, amongst other questions, it will be interesting to see if the participants identify any particular technology as having the most impact over the eras depicted on the show. The mobile phone, perhaps?
I haven’t seen the Electric Dreams and possibly won’t for various reasons.
The familiarity with gadgets and mores of the era will not be available to most people and would perhaps make them appear less competent in an era than if they were of the era.
I’m not explaining it well at all.
I’d like to see a show that let me demonstrate skills that are no longer useful.
I can pull a lamb from it’s mother to save their lives, I can fatten up a two tooth, I can kill and dress a two tooth, I can hang it in a tree to cure, I can cook it well too.
I can splice two ropes together. I can sharpen an axe and a saw properly. I can set a rabbit trap properly. I can crank start an engine without hurting my thumb.I can roll start a manual drive car. I can rub two sticks together to start a fire. I know how to double declutch. I can set up a roneo machine. I can repair a floppy disk. All useless skills
Our dishwasher just gave up the ghost and we have reverted to washing up dishes the old fashioned way. I reckon its quicker and also less hassle as we now leave stuff on the drying rack and take clean dishes off the rack so less packing away.
Ah, double declutching! I drove a manual car the other day and gave it a burl because I was having a hard time finding the gears. But that was just because it’d been years since I had to change gears!
I did a post a while back about the primitive 70s tape recorders and the fun we had with them as children. As reasonably middle-class family I felt we lived very comfortably, although these days driving long distances as a family of 4 in a toyota corolla and Morris Minor would be considered too cramped, but for us it was normal (Paper bag! Middle o’road!) As for people whose houses I visited who were better-off, I simply couldn’t imagine anything more looxurious.
FXH, fair point. My grandmother was pretty handy with a twin-tub washing machine, one of the old domestic appliances that caused the TV family such grief.
I have to say that the thought of long-distance car travel with kids, if and when I ever have to contemplate it, is much improved with the knowledge that I can take along
kiddie heroinPixar DVDs to keep them busy.And importantly for those long distance car drives in summer – air conditioning!
I want someone to haul out an old Vanguard ona cold morning and try turning the crank handle to start it …
I felt so pleased in 1964 when I managed it at the grandfolks place in West Ryde.
Gee everything looked small in Britain. I’m sure our 70s cars and definitely our houses in Australia were MUCH bigger at the time (Kingswoods the norm, and only quaint Brit types drove Vauxhalls) – and I suspect dishwashers much more common here. Most of our neighbours had dishwashers (dishwashers have been around since the 1920s in Australia … )
I’m surprised to realise how much more American we were than British in terms of consumer mores.
Gee everything looked small in Britain. I’m sure our 70s cars and definitely our houses in Australia were MUCH bigger at the time (Kingswoods the norm, and only quaint Brit types drove Vauxhalls) – and I suspect dishwashers much more common here. Most of our neighbours had dishwashers (dishwashers have been around since the 1920s in Australia … )
I’m surprised to realise how much more American we were than British in terms of consumer mores.
Sorry, forgot to add great post! Can’t wait to see your next post!
Rob, I do an eight hour drive up and down the NSW north coast 2 or 3 times a year with my 4yo and and 7yo. I can tell you, it would be hell with DVD players.
In general, domestic technology has little impact on the time Australians spend performing household work. In any case, that’s the suggestion offered by a British Journal of Sociology article by some researchers who shall remain nameless, based on an analysis of the Australian 1997 Time Use Survey. (Using outsourced domestic services – for example, making use of cleaning, mowing, or childcare services – is another matter though.)
Your neighbourhood must have been a fairly privileged one. In 1997, only about 34 per cent of Australian households had a dishwasher.
Er, that should have been without DVD players