Word: beaves
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American culture has come full circle. In the 1950s, kids everywhere could relate to The Beav, chuckling at his silly exploits with Wally and Eddie Haskell. Now, there's a Beav for the 90s, who tortures poodles...
Some twentysomethings, Beavis Generationers mutter under their breath, listen to--and enjoy--their parents' music. The Beav of the 90s would never give Mommy or Daddy the satisfaction...
...most recent explanation plays into our worst cultural stereotypes about white men of a certain age: that Packwood grew up in the '50s when boys would be boys and that "he just didn't get it." Using this excuse ("the Beav made me do it" future lechers could say to judges) is a clever move on Packwood's part. The only thing our society likes more than a recovering alcoholic is a recovering sexist...
Beaver however, was different from the extended televison family of Rustys, Juniors, Buds and Kittens: he seemed real. The world of Beaver, notes Mathers, "was seen through the eyes of a child." To the Beav, adults were an alien and slightly comical species whose rituals could be observed and mimicked. Other television children were passive; problems happened to them. Beaver actively courted trouble. He brought home live snakes, fell into a steaming billboard soup bowl, and cut his own hair so that he resembled a precursor of punkdom. Beaver was not streetwise, he was backyard-wise. He was good...
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