Television: Modern Family

On February 2, 2011 I watched the show Modern Family on ABC at 9 p.m. This was the first time that I watched the show. It is a comedy about three different families and follows their ups and downs. Modern Family is a sitcom and stars Edward O'Neil and Julie Bowen. The show is on ABC which is known for airing family friendly shows that appeal to people of all ages.


This show is all about one big family that is focused on three different households.  At the top you have Jay and Gloria and Gloria’s son Manny.  Jay has two kids, a daughter Claire and a son Mitchell.  The second household focuses on Mitchell and his life partner Cameron and they had an adopted daughter from Vietnam named Lily.  The last house focus on focuses on a typical American family named the Dunphy’s.  Claire is married to Phil and they had two daughters named Haley and Alex and one son named Luke.  

The ads during the commercials were in pretty much three groups.  The first group was cars, the second was food and the third was everyday products.   There were ads for Cadillac, Volvo and Mazda.  The food ads were all the normal places to eat, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, BK, Domino’s and Taco Time.  The everyday products ranged from Advil to laundry detergent to Ziploc bags.  There was also a few random ad’s like one for JC Penny’s and a iPad.

Video courtesy of WeeklyTop10

There are many different attitudes in this show. The episode that I watched showed that the main attitude of the show is the value of family and challenges that they face. As I was watching it I felt like it did a good job of showing how every family is different and handles things differently. The show is filmed on location in Los Angeles and it is edited to look like a documentary. This show is very different from other shows because it includes a gay couple in the show, Cam and Mitch. This actually caused some controversy when the show first aired. In the episode that I watched it appeared that the show does embrace several types including gay men being feminine, father-in-laws being hard on their son-in-laws, and the famous ball and chain that wives have on their husbands. 

The ads to me make a lot of sense to be running on this show.  The show is targeted toward the normal middle class family and these commercials work well in that.  All the food ads were showing a great deal like four items for only $5 or the Wendy’s dollar menu. The other ads were for normal products that the middle class family would need and can relate too.
 

Modern Family appears to appeal to all different types of audiences. This could be one reason why prior to the start of the show they referred to it as TV's #1 comedy. I can see it appealing to the young, the old, families, white, Hispanic, and even the gay community. The one demographic I don't see it trying to reach as much is the African-American community because there are no African-American characters on the show. This is also reflected in the commercials which were mainly car commercials (like Lexus), and other ABC shows, primarily the comedies on ABC. If I was from another country and watched this show I would get the idea that American families were very discombobulated, but also quite humorous at the same time, and that they always work out their differences.

I feel that the show did a very good job of trying to get different perspectives of families to play a part in the show. By this I mean they have a gay family, and family dominated by the wife, and a family who found each other through divorce, like many families in the U.S. these days. Modern Family does a great job of incorporating humor into the everyday life of a family and showing the lighter side of families struggles at times. Though we may want to believe that this is an accurate view of most families, this is not the case and therefore I feel that it is more of a parody of real life rather than an actual portrayal. Metacritic's critics rave about the show for many of the same reasons that I just mentioned. One critic actually said that it was "far and away the best prime-time sitcom". 

I have never watched this show before tonight but I was very impressed by it. I know several friends who watch this show regularly and have suggested it to me on numerous occasions but I usually brush it off and never watch it. To be completely honest I just might become an every-week watcher now. Overall I was able to take a lot away from watching this show, including things like the importance of family and also (this is not a bad thing) about how Hollywood knows that families are struggling right now in America and can use this show to basically say, "Not every family is perfect, but every family is funny."  I learned that no matter what life gives you to work with, you will always have family there to pick you up.


I have to say that I agree with the points that Brian and Mindy said about the show.  The way this show is made, helps it flow well.  The producers really understand who watches the show and makes it more real in some cases and people can relate to it.  Overall it is a very funny show that does a good job of knowing who watches it.