Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Modern Family as a Representation of Today's Modern Families

Modern Family is a mockumentary comedy on ABC that serves to demonstrate the diverse family relationships that exist in the 21st century. For those of you who have not seen the show, it follows three separate families that are all related to one another through the patriarch, Jay Pritchett.

The first family is the standard nuclear family: Phil (husband), Claire (wife), and their three children, Haley, Alex, and Luke. Nothing out of the ordinary there. In the second family, however, Claire's father Jay is married to Gloria, a much younger woman who came to the United States from Colombia with her son Manny. The third family featured in Modern Family is the most controversial, Jay's son Mitchell is in a homosexual relationship with a man named Cameron, and they have recently adopted a baby from Vietnam named Lily.

Mitchell and Cameron. Source.
I like Modern Family because I think of all the sitcom's that are on television it serves the best representation of "modern families". I especially like that Modern Family represents gay couples (Mitchell and Cameron) making them lovable, normal people that share the similar problems to any other couples, regardless of sexual orientation. On the other hand, I know Modern Family has faced some scrutiny over their lack of public displays of affection between the gay couple.

Overall, I think Modern Family does a great job at incorporating tolerance for homosexual relationships in a quirky and comedic fashion. I think that there is no need to push the envelope in terms of PDA between the gay couple because our society, although increasing acceptance towards differences, is not quite ready for full on romantic encounters between two men on prime time TV. I think that by taking small steps towards portrayal of homosexual relationships on TV acceptance will continue to increase for the LGBT community. I am all for Modern Family and how they have worked to challenge the conventional nuclear families of sitcom's in the past.
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownJune 5, 2012 at 4:34 PM

    I love this show! I agree with you that Modern Family is a great representation of real families today, and I think it's important for people to be exposed to this! Even if it is just on television. Through watching the show I've never noticed PDA from any of the characters, so people criticizing that aspect of the show are just being silly! I also agree that society might not be ready for full PDA between two men, but I'm sure they would still complain about too much PDA between a man and a woman as well. Prime time TV always seems to stay between two very narrow lines.

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  2. BryarlyJune 5, 2012 at 11:01 PM

    I absolutely love Modern Family and I completely agree that it does represent the diversity of a lot of different families in today's society. I do think that Modern Family uses a lot of stereotypes to portray its characters. Especially when it comes to Cam and Mitchell the homosexual couple. The fact that Cam takes on the more feminine role of home maker and that Mitchell works away from home. Cam definitely has more feminine aspects to his character then Mitchell. I am glad that they do have a homosexual couple in the show just wish it was a more realistic couple and not as stereotypical.

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