TV Families and Real Families Essay

According to Stephanie Coontz in “What We Really Miss About The 1950’s”, the 1950’s were symbolic in terms of the nuclear American family. The “typical” nuclear American family structure consisted of an unemployed stay-at-home mom, working dad, a child or two, and a suburban home. In her article, she refers to the 1950’s as being the optimal time period for family’s where the ideology in television shows such as “Father Knows Best” and “Leave It To Beaver” was not just a depiction of how life was supposed to be lived, but an accurate portrayal of how life actually was back then. Today, the once commonly known family structure has been modified and tweaked and the standard image of a modern day family is no

The definition of the "typical" American family has changed considerably over time. Ever since the age of television dawned on American culture, situation comedies have tried to portray the typical American family in an attempt to reach as many viewers as possible. In the 1950's, there was "Leave It to Beaver" which represented a generic view of the American family during its time. There was a father whose responsibility was to financially support the family and be a role model for his children. There was a mother whose job was that of a typical housewife, taking care of the home and caring for the children. And there were the children who had no responsibilities, except to respect their parents and listen to their advice when

Many expert sociologists have alluded to a weakening of the family structure of the years. In an effort to determine if their findings are true, the factors that influence the deterioration have to be examined. Such factors as unemployment, welfare, and the entertainment industry play a major role in the weakening families. “For if the family is becoming less viable economically, our communities and our financial future are in jeopardy.” (Ellwood, 1993) Lastly, from the 1960’s until now, the global community has witnessed the most drastic changes.

As I mentioned in my first media assignment Reality television shows are unconventional, but have been become the most popular shows on the television in our society. Nowadays the media wants reflects how families really are in society. There are different kinds of families with different diversity. From a very young age, the media influence us and put an image or a perception in our mind of a family. Over the years, the idealized version of a family has changed.as we have noticed family dynamics have changed over time from strictly patriarchal to more of egalitarian.Millions of people in our society now days believe that more Tv programs bring out more violent. Some people believe that it could be because of poor parenting or the way media is showing poor parenting on television to new generations. I think that’s undeniable. I think the show called “The Brady Bunch” was a great example of good parenting. I choose to analyze the show called “the Brady Bunch” this is a situational comedy show which began in the late 1960s . this is a man name mike brandy and his wife carol. Both of them are widowed and have children from their previous marriage. This show is about a family and how they all live together. This show takes a look at the socio-cultural perspective in a marriage and two parents raising children in one household. For a show which was shown on television the long time ago is very surprising because it brings the issues

Depictions of families in the 1950s were extreme in a myriad of ways. The notion of a “nuclear family,” in which a husband, wife and their children were considered the smallest unit of our society, became incredibly popular. Husbands and wives each seemed to have particular roles and duties from which they couldn’t stray. The husband, of course, was a working man responsible for bringing money to the household. His wife worked on something else: their household itself. She cleaned, cooked, and decorated. She bought groceries and clothing for everybody. She watched their children, fed them, and took care of them. In the 1950s, advertising advocated these roles and these roles alone: straying from them was rather unthinkable. The “nuclear

American television today has drastically changed from the first appearance of the television in the 1920s. Currently, television is nothing but sitcoms poking jokes at the disabled, the LGBT community adapting to the American family standard, and even late night television poking fun at our 2016 Presidential candidates.1950s television depicted America’s heterosexual, patriarchal society in which an “ideal and acceptable” family consisted of a generous working class father, an accommodating and good-natured mother, and a few respectful children. Whereas 1950s American television required the audience to accept television families without question, American networks today understand that times are changing and just like mass communication, adapting to the millennial generation of technology is a must for television families to appeal to the growing masses. But when did television families first start to step away from the cultural ideals of its time? From the 1920s through the 1960s television upheld the Father Knows Best standard of television with shows such as ‘Father Knows Best” and “I Love Lucy.” Well, fast forward 30 years, and in came the Bundy’s. The Bundy’s were television’s first dysfunctional, on screen family to undermine the idea that an ideal family must function perfectly all the time. Married with Children reminded us that it was ok to not conform to society’s cultural norms. “…people want to watch a family that

The ideal image of ‘nuclear family’ used to be described as a male husband, a female wife and their kids; however, in few decades, the term family has become diverse without any blood-related relationships. Because of this recent change of family values, it is easy to find that present television shows also reflect the new concept of family and influence the recognition of the viewers at the same time. Among many TV programs such as ‘Simpsons’, ‘F is for family’ and ‘How I met your mother’, ‘Modern Family’ is a representative show dealing with modern family types and values. It is a domestic TV sitcom of ABC, featuring the lives of three different types of fictional families. Apart from the humorous stories, it becomes very popular because of suggesting that friendly characters are easy to relate to real life. It shows innovative aspects of family structures including a gay couple with an adopted baby and an interracial marriage between a divorced old man with a much younger woman. In addition, its form is a fake documentary about when family members agree to participate in interviews for a documentary, but they don’t actually realize how much they are revealing their lives themselves. Also, the main theme of the show is "But that 's the thing about family: no matter how badly you behave, hopefully they 'll forgive" (Modern Family Synopsis, 2011). The show has a favourable notice in media field because it handles social issues through its characters showing racial,

The 1950’s family model consists of a suburban white collar man, his stay at home wife and two children. It can also be described as an embodiment of “traditional” gender and family roles that portray a simpler, comforting lifestyle, a notion that is widely disputed during this day and age. This idea of living has been fueled by a heavy influence through media and an unwavering inclination to live the “American Dream”. This “ideal” lifestyle is ultimately damaging to families of differing cultures and classes because it develops an unrealistic expectation and definition of true family values which can differ among households. What many also neglect to consider is that the nuclear family’s appeal may be mislead entirely. It’s extremely flawed sense of uniformity and simplicity can argue that the appeal of a nuclear family may be more desired based on the period of time rather than the family

ABC’s Modern Family is a documentary-style comedy series that surrounds the lives of a diverse family. The family is made up of parents Phil and Claire who have two daughters and a son. Claire’s dad, Jay and his Latina wife, Gloria raise two sons of their own but people often believe Jay is Gloria’s father because of the age difference. Jay has a gay son, Mitchell, who lives with his partner Cameron and their adopted Asian daughter. Three different but related families make a unique show and are supposed to represent the families of today. The creators of this series are Steven Levitan and Chistopher Lloyd (IMDb, 2016). Modern Family is intended to be appropriate for all audiences and is geared towards families in the sense that the show tends to stay away from sex jokes or crude humor (Quora, 2016).

The ABC news documentary “2010's American Family Defined”, talks about the definition of today’s modern family. This information is based on a research that explains how people have changed their ideology of what makes a family. It points out that the traditional family consists of a father, a mother with children’s have changed into a modern family that consist of what a person considers a family should be. The modern family can be a blended family, same sex family, single parent, and so on.

Over time the structure of family has evolved. Since the introduction of television many sitcoms have shown the development of the early days to the modern. Sitcoms such as ‘Leave it to Beaver’, ‘Growing Pains’ and ‘Modern Family’ highlight evolving families over the last 60 years. Overtime the image of family has changed and is still changing to this day. In the 1950s sitcom ‘Leave it to Beaver’ the family was represented as ‘The Perfect Family’.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, before the revolution occurred in gender roles, were frequent complaints about the precipitation of young people to marry at an early age, the segregation of women in residential neighborhoods suburb of the city, over dependence of children from their parents, treatment too lenient towards the young, and the amount of empty marriages of affection. The family is one of the first social contexts of human development (Coontz, 2000). Today family therapy is challenged to meet the social expectation to be a reference in the context of beliefs devoid of credibility that are generally valid (Josephson, 2008). It was argued that these features of the nuclear family contributed to the growing problem of crime, premarital sex and school dropout among youth. When the revolution in gender roles finally emerged, it was argued that overly emotional character of the nuclear family contributed to the dissatisfaction of young people in the late 1960s and seventies. These criticisms of the family are curious to the contemporaries, but for academics and social critics of the time were very real. Regardless of the validity of the complaints, the hegemony of the nuclear family was seen as an advantage and at the same time it was associated with many of the problems of growing up in American

The idyllic American family has changed drastically over the years. What once was a traditional father-mother-child household has turned to a single-parent-child dynamic. As far back as time goes we can see the nuclear family, where the father is the provider and protector of the family and the mother cares for the home and children. Throughout past decades the nuclear family has waned considerably as we watch government step in to protect and provide by means of local police or National Guard and programs like WIC or welfare, and women are enabled to find their independence. Statistically, the nuclear family is almost non-existent, in an article by Blanchard-Fields, Hertzog, Stein, and Pak it states, “The traditional family model—the husband as breadwinner and the wife as homemaker—makes up only 7% of the families in U.S. society.”

We have decided to conduct this study with the focus on three sitcoms from the 1980s which are Fresh Prince, The Bill Cosby Show, and Full house. In addition, focusing on three sitcoms for comparison in todays time, 2000s which are Full House, George Lopez and Family Matters. Each of these research samples display a variety of roles played, race, gender and change in family perception. There will be significant differences in the family structures as a function of time and race/culture of sitcoms aired in the 1980’s versus in the 2000’s. More specifically, it is expected that there will be a significant differences in the portrayals of family size, social class, locations, origin, and gender roles.

In this last chapter, the author briefly summarizes the four definitions of family and how the family has changed over time. Although every family has different definitions of family, I believe most individuals agree that the interactional approach is more accurate. The interactional approach depicts that families have a sense of collective identity that emerges through shared activity and interaction. For instance, caring and helping each other in difficult times or simply just having dinner together every night. Furthermore, a significant change in families was the late transition to adulthood. Today, young adults are more dependent on their parents than they were in the 20th century because the expansion of higher education and the competitive