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Television Sitcoms: Traditional Families And The Modern Family

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Television has given us the opportunity to view our lives through a character. Television networks are always coming up with new sitcoms that we could relate ourselves, and our families to while continuing to watch for entertainment. Since it premiered in 2009 Modern Family has been hit sitcom winning many Emmy awards. Modern family is a comedy sitcom that took a modern approach of what families look like in the 21st century. Television networks know how important it is for sitcom creators portrayed the family, because television sitcoms are a reflection on many different ways society shapes families and it determines what constitutes a family. In American modern culture the definition of family doesn’t necessary mean that family has to be …show more content…

Tradition families are when a father is the financial provider of the family, the mother is the stayed at home mom, and normally having one or more children in the family. For example, in the early 1970s shows like leave it to beaver focused on what the so called American dream was, which at that time was having a traditional family. Leave it to beaver is a perfect example on how television networks have viewed what a traditional family was like. The family was the only breadwinner of the family, the mother was the stay at home mom who’s only responsibilities where her …show more content…

From the outside, the family structure might look like any ordinary family who has a typical gender role assignment; Phil Dunphy is the father who financially provides for his family by working as a real estate agent. Claire Dunphy is the stay at home mom who takes care of her three kids, the family schedules, and the household duties. Throughout the seasons Claire’s character develops into a strong workingwomen while still trying managing her responsibilities as a mother. In the text “Real Populists of the U.S.A.” from the book Signs of the life in the USA the author explains, “Television are programs that focus on fundamentally working-class occupations and viewers are being shown what a life is like for ordinary working-class people” (Video Dreams 265). In reality most family come from two working parents, with modern family making one of the family have two parents who provide the income for the family, it makes it easier for families to relate to the show. Gauri Ganesh a writer from FEM, UCLA’s feminist newsmagazine agrees that the writers making Claire a working mother is great for the show, she quotes “the writer shaped her into a modern, well-rounded mother by showing her as a woman with interests besides her family”. The sitcom does a great job showing the Dunphy family who once where a

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ABC’s sitcom, Modern Family, was first aired on September 23, 2009 and the series is currently on their 9th season. This sitcom has been nominated or has won many awards: Emmy Awards, People’s Choice Awards, Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, etc. One of the reasons that show is popular is because it is easy for the audience to follow along and relate to. Modern Family uses a different take on the normal conservative family.

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I. Introduction Parenthood, a drama television series, attends to the adversity of an extended and imperfect family. The Bravermans are a blended California family who face a series of both fortunate and unfortunate events but together find a way to get by (Katims, 2010). Television consumers have been introduced to many fictional families overtime and continue to fall in love with family related television shows. Historically, the media has transformed and continues to adapt to the changes in present day family types. “Writers often take seeds from real life experiences and plant then in their scripts,” consumers both consciously or subconsciously attend to cues on television and want to apply what they see to their lives.

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Television situational comedies have the ability to represent different values or concerns of their audience, these values often change every decade or so to reflect and highlight the changes that the audience is experiencing within society, at the time of production. Between the years of 1950 and 2010, the representation of gender roles and family structure has been addressed and featured in various sitcoms, such as “Father Knows Best” and “Modern Family”, through the use of narrative conventions, symbolic, audio and technical codes. These representations have transformed over time to reflect the changes in social, political, and historical contexts. The 1950’s sitcom “Father Knows Best” traditionally represents the values of gender roles and family structure in a 1950’society, with the father, held high as the breadwinner of the family and the mother as the sole homemaker.

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There is the stay at home mom who cooks, cleans, and looks after the children. The family is comprised of six children of various ages and character. Within the household there is also some extended family. Today, families have much more variety than they did roughly 90 years ago.

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The Simpsons Hundreds of families have been portrayed over the years through different television programs. Each television family has different roles, statuses, and personas for every member. From cartoons to sitcoms, families have been plastered in front of viewers for decades. My personal favorite show, “The Simpsons”, happens to be the longest running television show in the U.S. For more then twenty-five years “The Simpsons” has been depicted as a dysfunctional family, however each member of the family takes on roles that are more consistent of a traditional family. Aside from the wild and whacky themes that come along with the show “The Simpsons” follows the blueprint of a traditional American family of five.

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The past decade has not seen any notable family sitcoms that has surpassed such leaps of social justice as some had in the 1950’s or 1970’s. While that may be disappointing to some, this is also a great feat for all television audiences. So many issues that were once considered, “taboos,” now, can be the premise of the sitcom altogether. Even the little things like interracial couples, married partners in the same bed, and even mentioning a pregnant woman is considered normal. Yes, the family sitcom is still no direct comparison to the modern family arrangement, but it is as close as were going to get for

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Challenging Stereotypes: How “Modern” Is Modern Family? The show won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in each of its first five years and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series four times. If you have never heard about “Modern Family," you have never seen comedy. Modern Family is an American television show that portrays the ‘Modernism’ in families nowadays in America.

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List of traditions of your culture and how it related to your family The culture I identify is African American. The African American culture have several traditions that my family and I practice. The traditions of the African American culture that are practices among my family are maintaining family relationships, practicing Christianity, maintain hospitality, gaining education, and cooking.

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 Modern family and its various features Myth of happy family : TV shows including families which are highly rich, happy and have no major problems. The Simpsons satirizes on such contemporary shows. The Simpsons shows a very normal family with many problems and emphasis its importance as the characters deeply cares about each other, showing that even a family like The Simpsons is desirable. Overbearing parents : Another episode of The Simpsons satirizes parents who push their children to succeed in athletics at the expense of good sportsmanship.

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Through sociological thinking, troubles, problems faced by an individual, and issues, problems that transcend individuals to society at large, can be attributed to a historical and societal cause. Each societal circumstance or institution that has impacted my life, has its own influence from societal beliefs of that time period. The modern family is one example of such institutions that can be attributed to a greater societal norm or belief. Family is considered by many, to be the most important aspect of their life. My mother swears by her family, while my father has excommunicated his side.

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For example, in the traditional white american Dunphy family, there is Phil, his wife Claire, and their three children Alex, Haley and Luke. Phil is shown as the breadwinner of the household while Claire stays at home and cares for her house and children. This portrayal enhances the gender role that society and television has deemed upon women for centuries. This fabricated role is that women are inferior to men. However, there are instances when this gender role is reversed and Phil has to conform to Claire's wishes.

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In many societies and depending on their cultures, men and women are seen equally and may share the same roles in the household or even a stay at home father and the mother being the breadwinner. In modern family, Phil and Claire share the responsibilities with both working and both looking after the kids. The gay couple, Mitchell and Cameron who has an adopted daughter, together they learn what roles they should take on but not being gender specific when raising their daughter and the dynamics in the household. In many families today, dual earning families increased and not just the male who goes to work but females as well and follow their dreams like furthering their careers. “In the 21st century within households two pay-checks have become essential for most families to maintain even a modest standard of living in order to provide” (Walsh, 2012:11).

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“The Changing American Family” by Natalie Angier states, “Fictive families are springing up among young people, old people, disabled people, homeless people, and may well define one of the ultimate evolutions of the family concept, maximizing, as they do, the opportunities for fulfillment of specific social and economic needs outside the constraints of biological relatedness.” The ever changing social dynamics and circumstances of this life have opened the definition of family to encompass individuals who can fill those deep-seated needs

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The family can be defined as ‘any combination of two or more persons who are bound together by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption and who, together, accept responsibility for the care and maintenance of group members through procreation or adoption, the socialisation of children and social control of members’ (UN, cited in McDonald 2003:80). However, the ‘family’ is

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720 Words | 3 Pages

Despite the creator’s of Modern Family effort to portray a progressive view of American families, the show still accentuates outdated female stereotypes and gender roles; reinforcing gender characteristics, patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity. In contrast to its title, Modern Family promotes traditional gender roles and stereotypes of women, which result in the portrayal of an inaccurate image of the female, and weakens the stance of women in today’s U.S. society. Gender stereotypes are prevalent throughout the Modern Family; the women are all portrayed as wives and mothers, promoting a continued male dominant family ideology. Claire and Gloria are throughout the show acting on our society’s “assumptions about women’s ‘appropriate’ roles” (Dow 19).

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