Modern Family and Modern Families: How TV Portrays Various Family Arrangements
Television has always brought my family together. When I was younger, I remember us gathering around our television and eagerly tuning into our favorite shows every week. In the comfort of our home, we watched our favorite characters and families overcome both comical and serious hardships, just as our family went through our own highs and lows of daily life. My nuclear family related to the nuclear families we saw on television, but we also found ways to connect to other familial arrangements that were portrayed on screen, albeit these types of family portrayals were not exceedingly common.
Diversity and representation in the media has changed drastically since television’s conception. The word ‘family’ means so much more now than it did when my parents were growing up. This change in connotation is related to the growing representation of non-nuclear families in film and TV. For example, the closest my parents had to a television depiction of a ‘blended family’ was probably The Brady Bunch; but my generation and those younger than me have programs like Modern Family and The Fosters to portray more blended, atypical familial arrangements. And while the nuclear family is still arguably the most typical family arrangement in the United States, there are countless other family types in America and representing them on screen helps to naturalize them and allows for viewers to connect to stories that resemble their own. Walter Podrazik, a consulting curator of the Museum of Broadcast Communications, said of family representation on TV, “[Family] is a shortcut to instant identification. It’s ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got one of those,’ or ‘I came from a family like that.’ Then it’s just a matter of how much fun you want to have with it or how dramatic you want to make it. It’s interesting that so many of the plots, whether it’s now or going back 50 years are about the family coming together” (France, 2010). And it’s true. When we see any type of family coming together on the screen, it shapes the way we feel about our own family and the families we see around us.
Social Cognitive Theory suggests that “most human behavior is learned through the observation of behavior modeled by others, including behaviors modeled by characters on television” (Davis, p. 207) This means that television is teaching us how to act and teaching us what to believe. The way in which different types of families are portrayed on TV completely shapes the way society feels about them. As learned in class, gender plays an enormous role in constructing familial/partner arrangements. The role of women in TV families has changed dramatically, just as the role of women in real life has shifted too. By exploring the way in which television depicts different types of families (like single-parent households, same-sex couples, nuclear families etc.), we can begin to understand why certain arrangements are more prevalent or accepted and we can start to comprehend societal connotations surrounding each family type. Furthermore, we can examine how their portrayals have helped shape societal discourses surrounding them. “The nature of gender representation in television content has changed over time, suggesting that television is reflecting or introducing changes in attitudes within society” (Davis, p. 210). Non-nuclear families were once shunned for not agreeing with society’s definition of a typical family, but with increased representation, society’s opinion of what a family should look like is fluid and more open.
I chose to compare several of my favorite TV families, each different and representative of a more non-typical familial arrangement with the hope of understanding how they’re being represented on screen and how they relate to changing societal norms. I watched episodes from each TV show and made commentaries on how they were representing relationships, gender and families.
Background Research
Before examining three fairly current television shows, I felt it was important to understand how family portrayals on TV have changed. According to Andrea Press, “In its golden era, television worked to create a ‘unifying address with which to capture an American majority’ and created ‘an immediate mainstream through which notions of proper behavior and a desirable lifestyle were represented’” (Press, p. 140). This means that early television depictions of the family showcased the nuclear family and not much else. Sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best centered around two heterosexual parents and their biological children.
This golden era of television coincided with the “Golden Age” Era of the United States (spanning from the 1940s to the 1970s) when the breadwinner/housewife model of marriage was most common. In these marriage types, the male in a heterosexual couple was the sole wage-earner of the household and supported their wives financially while the woman did all of the housework and child care (Lecture 24). Women were pressured with the cult of domesticity, or the notion that women could and should wholeheartedly embrace the work of making a loving home (Lecture 24). These sentiments were reflected on television as well. Early TV families featured a hardworking father and a “woman occupying the confined role and the inequality that comes with the status of dependent wife and mother” (Hood-Williams, p. 270). Furthermore, many early radio and television soap operas specifically played off the fact that housework and childcare was supposedly feminized labor, labor that is perceived as the proper and natural responsibility of women (Wade and Ferree, p. 251). The term ‘soap opera’ is derived from the fact that these programs were paid for by soap companies and were frequently full of cleaning product advertisements that women needed for housework. More so, soaps aired during the day when women were theoretically the only ones tuning in. All of these factors relate back to the traditional American version of the gender ideology, “based on a notion of separate public and private spheres, where women are generally believed to be better suited for attending to the home and raising children and men to breadwinning” (Davis, p. 205).
Most of these early programs also only featured white, “fully-American” families. However, trailblazing shows fought to show more diverse characters to American television viewers. The Goldbergs (1949) was a situation comedy about a Jewish family that touched on actual problems that Jewish families faced in society. I Love Lucy (1951) was one of the first depictions of an interracial couple on TV. Later, The Andy Griffith Show (1960) showed a family headed by a single widowed parent. Roots (1977) and The Cosby Show (1984) represented African-American families in a positive light, in a media climate that historically represented African-Americans as overly violent or lazy. Dynasty (1984) featured one of the first openly gay couples on television.
As these shows fought for their spots on the screen, TV and society began to change and acknowledge the existence of other types of families and characters. Now, the entertainment industry “recognizes the importance of various racial, sexual and ethnic minorities. In its new role, television in part reflects our increasing cultural recognition of the true diversity of gender roles and family forms that constitute our culture” (Press, p. 140). And while there are still portrayals of the typical, traditionalist marriages/nuclear families on television, many shows contain a considerable amount of diversity and variation. This brings me to the television shows I chose to analyze.
The Fosters follows the lives of an interracial lesbian couple, Stef and Lena, who are raising four adopted children and one biological child. One Day at a Time follows the life of single-mother Penelope Alvarez as she raises her two children with the help of her own mother who lives in her home. Modern Family showcases three families that are all interconnected and related. The first family is that of Jay Pritchett and his much younger wife Gloria as they raise her son from another marriage and later, their own biological child. The show follows Jay’s two children, Claire and Mitchell, and their families as well. Claire is part of a nuclear family with her husband Phil and their three kids. Mitchell is gay, and he and his partner Cameron have an adopted child together. The Fosters, One Day at a Time and Modern Family all render atypical familial arrangements.
Discussion
The Fosters depicts a same-sex, interracial marriage and a family forged mostly from the U.S. foster care and adoption systems. When asked for their inspiration for the show, creator Bradley Bredeweg explained that there was a lack of representation of women raising families on TV. “We realized that there was a kind of a vacuum when it came to stories about women raising families. Many of our own friends are moms raising biological kids. Some of them have fostered and adopted. Suddenly, we realized that we had a story here that hadn’t been told on television before” (Valenza, 2014). Bredeweg and his cowriter chose to not only represent an atypical familial arrangement but also represent a non-stereotypical same-sex relationship.
Stef and Lena aren’t a typical same-sex couple and the way in which they raise their children and choose to divide their labor are reflective of this. Both Stef and Lena have full-time jobs and they chose to employ an egalitarian division of labor, or a relationship in which both partners do their fair share of the breadwinning, housekeeping and childbearing (Wade and Ferree, p. 254). This isn’t necessarily reflective of how many non-TV same-sex couples choose to split the labor. In fact, approximately 75% of same-sex couples choose to employ a neo-traditional division of labor and tend to gender household labor, also known as ‘heterogendering’ (Lecture 25). Interestingly enough, problems actually arise for Stef and Lena when Lena becomes pregnant and the couple must shift towards a more neo-traditionalist division of labor. Lena resents Stef for how much of the mental load and second shift has suddenly shifted to her, and the couple most overcome this obstacle together. Stef and Lena’s family is also comprised of mostly children who have been adopted. While one son is Stef’s child from a marriage to a man, the rest of the kids have been adopted. Several of the kids are biological half or full siblings of one another and they are not all the same race. The dysfunctional, blended family has their fair share of difficulties but Lena’s famous line “DNA doesn’t make a family; love does” is beautifully reflective of how atypical familial arrangements are just as natural and acceptable as that of nuclear families. Their family’s portrayal on screen has allowed for increased acceptance of this notion.
In comparison, the same-sex relationship that Cameron and Mitchell have in Modern Family is much different. Mitchell is the sole breadwinner of their family and Cameron is a content homemaker. They follow a neo-traditionalist labor division, where the woman is able to work if she desires but only if it doesn’t interfere with the “real” duty to take care of her husband and children (Wade and Ferree, p. 254). Even though Cameron and Mitchell are both men, Cameron is portrayed as the much more feminine partner in their relationship. He works a few short-lived jobs throughout the show, but he’s primarily the homemaker and Mitchell the breadwinner. Opposite Lena and Stef’s issues, Cameron and Mitchell are shown to have problems when Mitchell worries that their adoptive daughter loves Cameron more because he is able to spend more time with her. They ‘switch roles’ for several episodes before realizing that their arrangement works well the way it is and their daughter, Lily, loves both of her fathers in equally wonderful ways.
Perhaps at this point we should move on to the representation of single-parent families and divorced/separated characters on television. Before Penelope Alvarez was separated from her estranged husband Victor on One Day at a Time, the couple promised they would share most of the second shift, work that greets parents when they come home from work (Wade and Ferree, p. 248). But after they both re-enlist in the army, they need the help of Penelope’s parents to raise their new child. Fast-forward to the present and Penelope is separated from Victor, divorce pending, and is working full-time to support her family. Her mother, Lydia, lives with them and helps with Penelope’s two children as she works long hours as a nurse. A lot of the first season revolves around Penelope finding ways to make things work. She frequently laments to her mother that she “wasn’t supposed to have to do this [raising her family] alone” and that it’s difficult without Victor. Lydia does almost all of the childcare and housework. One of the very first episodes features Lydia ‘running away’ because she feels like the work she does to support the family is undervalued. This is a clear example of how unpaid labor is less valued than paid labor even though both are very important to making a family run smoothly. Unlike other shows, One Day at a Time represents this divide in way that is rather unique, with a grandmother, her daughter and grandchildren instead of a married couple. When Victor returns at the end of the season and his daughter Elena tells him that she is lesbian, he rejects her and walks out of her Quinceañera. Elena’s extended family rallies around her in support and love. One Day at a Time reinforces that families can definitely succeed without a male presence or father, a notion that was nearly unheard of on early television. It’s also important to note that One Day at a Time was based off a television show from the 70s of the same name that featured an all-white family in the same single-parent situation and very little intersectionality. The reboot offers valuable representation for Cuban-American families.
Paula Dail and Wendy Way conducted research in the late 80s and examined the representation of single-parent households and were surprised to find “a large number of single parent, male headed households being presented, since this is clearly atypical of society in general” (Dail and Way, p. 497). This is especially surprising when you consider that many television representations of male single-parents/divorcees involve them getting remarried. This is true for Modern Family, since Jay Pritchett got a divorce from his wife of 35 years and married a young Colombian woman named Gloria. Their age difference and the fact that they are an interracial couple are two things not frequently found on television, but their relationship offers important representation for couples that fall into either or both of those categories.
Jay initially appears to be emotionally callous and very standoffish with his step-son Manny, perhaps because Jay is from an older generation that placed the most value on biological children. However, it’s revealed that Jay regrets working too much and not being present with Claire and Mitchell, and he hopes to be a great step-father to Manny. Jay and Phil, the father of Claire’s nuclear family, both engage in forms of involved fatherhood, or the ideology that the ideal father today is nurturing, develops close emotional relationships with children, and shares the joys and work of caregiving with mothers (Lecture 24). This fact makes even Modern Family’s portrayal of the nuclear family a unique one that reflects the growing prevalence of involved fathers in modern society. Phil also defies many stereotypical gender roles because he’s overly emotional, frequently receiving Jay’s disapproval and gender-policing, but he doesn’t let this affect him.
Conclusion
All of these television shows depict families going through real hardships and overcoming true obstacles. Where much of the TV shows of the past represented nuclear families as “happy people with happy problems” (Press, p. 141), family members of the modern age paint a much truer picture of reality. No family is perfect, and no family member is without their own problems or dilemmas. Stef and Lena must deal with discrimination because they’re lesbian and interracial; Penelope faces sexism in her workplace for being a single mother; Jay and Gloria deal with age discrimination. Representation of these significant themes and of atypical family types allows for increased acceptance and belief that there isn’t just one type of ‘normal family’. TV sometimes follows society’s changing values, but TV can also cause society’s values to change by representing characters and themes that haven’t been shown before.
Shannon Davis says of increased representation on television, “By allowing the repetitive messages of television into the home, it is reasonable to believe that it can become a part of the individual’s assumptions, values, and beliefs” (Davis, p. 207). By letting these characters into our television sets and our hearts, the discourse surrounding family and gender is changing for the better.
References
Dail, Paula and Way, Wendy (1985). “What Do Parents Observe about Parenting from Prime Time” Television from the Family Relations, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Oct., 1985), pp. 491-499
Davis, Shannon (2013). “GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE INFLUENCE OF TELEVISION ON GENDER IDEOLOGY? TV HOURS AND ATTITUDES TOWARD EMPLOYED MOTHERS: from the International Review of Modern Sociology, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Autumn 2013), pp. 205- 223
France, L. R. (2010, September 01). The evolution of the TV family. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/01/families.on.tv/index.html
Hood-Williams, John (1986). “Soaps and the Sociology of the Family” from the Teaching Sociology, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 270-272
Press, Andrea (2009). “Gender and Family in Televisions Golden Age and Beyond” from The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 625, The End of Television? Its Impact on the World (So Far) (Sep., 2009), pp. 139-150
Valenza, R. (2016, February 02). Ever Wonder How A Show About Lesbian Moms Made It On ABC Family? Here’s How… Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/10/bradley-bredeweg-the-fosters_n_4569014.html
Wade, L., & Ferree, M. M. (2015). Gender: Ideas, interactions, institutions. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
SOPHIA PORTELLI 