TV REVIEWS : Generalizations in ‘Living on the Edge’
When trying to get a fix on the quicksilver nature of the American economy, the electronic media are fond of making sweeping statements based on personal stories. Bill Moyers did this with his 1991 documentary, “Minimum Wages,” which summed up jarring economic shifts in the stories of the Neumann and Stanley families of Milwaukee. Moyers captured a snapshot in time, when people accustomed to high-wage, high-benefit factory jobs were laid off into a new world of low wages and zero benefits.
The snapshot was affecting, and it suggested that the ‘90s were going to be rough. With “Frontline” as producers, Moyers continued tracking these families, revisiting them in 1993 and this year, and the result is tonight’s “Living on the Edge.”
It reveals a great deal about the Neumanns and the Stanleys, but one wonders how much it reveals about the country or, even, Milwaukee. For every Rust Belt city worker hit by the ruthless free market, there is a Sun Belt worker earning more than ever, though probably in a nonunion shop.
Factory flight is old news in Los Angeles, which long ago saw its heavy industry centers in South-Central and Southeast L.A. collapse and die and help usher in urban decay. Four years ago, when Moyers’ project began, a typical high-wage earner in California was watching his aerospace job vanish; now, California job prospects in high-tech and entertainment are booming.
Each corner of the country is experiencing a different economy, and the experience in “Living on the Edge” is a series of dead-end jobs, stressed families and increased violence. Tony Neumann finally gets work, but at a fraction of his former factory salary, while his wife, Terry, struggles to stay at home with the kids but stumbles from door-to-door sales to cafeteria work to armored car driver.
The Stanleys watch their African American neighborhood decline as the factories close, but they support each other on sheer optimism and entrepreneurialism. For four years, father Claude has been working as a waterproofer while mother Jackie has been toughing it out as a real estate broker. Their kids are college-bound and set up their own lawn-care business--and the Stanleys still live paycheck to paycheck.
Both families believe in God and better days ahead, and who’s to argue with them? But we shouldn’t project anything from their situations. Moyers, and the rest of the media, shouldn’t either.
* “Living on the Edge” airs at 9 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28.
