ENC 1101
25 April 2017 Modern Family: Entirely Different, Entirely Relatable
The sitcom Modern Family, created by Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, debuted in
2009 on ABC as an immediate, massive hit show. It had an average of 10 million viewers every
week. The show became one of the few cross-culturally appealing television shows of the Obama
years, viewed in red states and blue states, and popular and well received in all of them. The
series is an honest, funny perspective of family life. Set in present day California, nuclear parents
Phil and Claire strive for a loving, open relationship with their three kids, but they have one
daughter who is too brilliant for her own good, one daughter who is rebellious and not
intellectual, and a son who is often a challenge. Claire's dad, Jay, and his young trophy wife,
Gloria, are raising two sons together, but people think Gloria is either Jay’s daughter, or a gold
digger. Jay's gay son, Mitchell, and his partner, Cameron, have adopted a daughter from China.
This combies three modern families into one big -- straight, gay, multicultural, traditional -happy family. (Kornhaber).
Modern Family is a massively successful hit television show, but is it representative of
what a family really is today? Why does it resonate with so many Americans in those blue and
red states? Are the families in Modern Family ones that you have in your own life, in your own
neighborhood, and maybe even in your own family? Can people relate to the Dunphys, a
Dysfunctional Nuclear Family? And is our society really accepting enough to be able to relate to
Cam and Mitchell as the 21st Century Gay Family? Are blended families as seamless as Jay and
Glorias’s? Each episode of the television show make the families relatable week after week by putting them into crazy, funny misunderstandings. These misunderstandings are all resolved in
loving, funny ways within thirty minutes or less. During these thirty minutes, we are drawn into
the Modern Family.
Society and families have changed greatly in the past decades, but none as greatly as in
the last 10 years. Gay marriage has recently been legalized in all 50 states. Adoption by same sex
parents is much more accepted. Divorce and remarriage is common, with many living within
blended families. The blended families are often cross generational. The Nuclear Family is still
prevalent, however the time and effort it takes to maintain this, can seem crazy and dysfunctional
at times. As the series and the episodes unfolded over the years, the audience started to see that
Modern Family seemed to indeed be mimicking their own lives or lives of those around them.
Cameron and Mitchell are the characters that make up the 21st Century gay family.
Mitchell is seen as the neurotic, anxious, nerdy sensible one, and Cameron is seen as the
neurotic, flamboyant, and eccentric one. This dynamic of opposites attract, often seems to make
this family function a little out of the show’s premise of neat, tidy, funny resolutions to family
problems and situations. In his NPR article “Modern Family – All Kissing Aside: Why Are
Mitchell and Cameron So Mean?”, Mark Blankenship explores the relationship of Cameron and
Mitchell and why out of all the other characters, they sometimes don’t seem to have a great
resolution to their problems. The other parts of the family usually come away with clean cut
reasons for the conflict or issues they find themselves in. They find resolution and kiss and make
up. Cameron and Mitchell don’t have a child old enough to play off of yet, as daughter Lilly is a
baby when the show debuts. Therefore one of them has to always be the source of strife within
an episode. With Gloria and Jay, and the Dunphys, there are teenagers and grown children to be
the catalyst of conflict and strife. With Cameron and Mitchell, it is always one of them. They bicker, fight, give each other the silent treatment, and have over the top and escalated reactions.
The end result is not always clean and dry, but is still loving in it’s own way. By portraying an
intact family, who have day to day issues and personality challenges, love each other and
compromise in the end, the writers are showing the viewers that Gay partners are not any
different from straight partners. The end result is more mainstream acceptance of gay families.
Another thing that helps make the 21st Century Gay family relatable to the general public, is
when the writers put them in situations that can and do happen to straight families. This makes
them relevant to people from all walks of life, in all areas of the country. Modern Family has
helped to change perceptions of what a gay couple raising an adopted Asian child in America is.
They are not so unusual after all, they are like most of us. Many families encounter situations
like accidently throwing away a favorite shirt of a spouse. Most would just confess and move on.
Mitchell hides that fact, to keep the expected drama from Cameron from happening. When
Cameron looks for the shirt, Mitchell goes to all lengths to make sure he does not find out. In
another episode they attend another gay couple’s wedding. They encounter the same
uncomfortable social situations of other couples fighting, other couples drinking too much, and
trying to act like they are having a good time. By putting the characters into these everyday
situations, some people that may have found a Gay family far reaching in their own reality, come
to see that Mitchell and Cameron’s relationship is a lot like their own, and their own straight
friends.
The writers of Modern Family strive to explore more character development with Jay and
Gloria Pritchett. Jeremy Clyman, in his Psychology Today Blog article “The Dynamics of a
Modern Family”, introduces the concept of Jay and Gloria being the stereotypical Grandpa/Old
Guy with a Gold Digger young wife. What turns out to be interesting about this character perception, is that despite the fact that the viewing audience assumes that, Gloria was actually a
hard working single mother who overcame much in her life to get to America and raise a smart,
kind son. She is definitely portrayed with being comfortable with her wealth that being married
to Jay affords her. She can also come off as being rather spoiled. However, the audience also gets
insight of the past she has come from in a crazy Colombian family, who routinely associated, and
most likely could have been, part of a Columbian drug cartel. The audience doesn’t see her as the
Gold Digger young wife they first thought she was. With the character development they see her
as a self -made woman, who really loves Jay and her family. Again, the writers smash the
stereotypes and perceptions. The perception of Jay is that of a grumpy grandpa. As the character
is developed by the writers, Jay is a grumpy grandfather at times. He is also a devoted father and
husband who puts his family as his first priority at all times. Jay is the link between his blended
family, and most of the time he does that seamlessly. He mentors his smart, but awkward teenage
stepson. He grounds his often obsessive compulsive daughter. He indulges his son in laws quirks
and the crazy situations Phil gets him into. He dishes out wise advice to his grandchildren, and
he is and involved and loving father to his young son. The perceptions of the Gold Digger young
wife and Grumpy Grandpa are changed by the character development by the writers.
The final family within Modern Family, is the Dunphy Family. They are the 21st Century
Nuclear Family. A mom, a dad, and three biological children. Yvonne Villarreal, in her LA Times
article, “Thank Modern Family for the Revival of the Sitcom”, writes how at the end of an
episode, America almost feels as if it has gotten a big hug. The love within this part of the
modern families is a very big part of that feeling. No family is perfect, despite the fact it looks
like that on a superficial level. Often times the real American family feels huge pressure to be the
perfect Nuclear Family. That stress and pressure can be overwhelming. Families today are pulled in so many different directions. Kids are over-scheduled, parents are over worked. Parent see
other families with high performing kids in STEM programs, and wonder why their children
cannot pass middle school science. They see other moms and dads successful and climbing the
work and social ladders, while they struggle to make ends meet and keep a steady job and
income. When these every day American families watch Modern Family, and see the Dumphys
in impossible situations, and yet loving each other through them, the pressure is off, if even for
just 30 minutes. They see a super academic teenager struggling through social situations. They
see a daughter that barely graduated college, who is successfully emotionally connected with the
world around her. They see an awkward teenage boy, who is also not the brightest student in the
school to say the least, be more loyal and loving to his while family, than most teenagers really
are. At the heart of this nuclear family are Mom and Dad, Claire and Phil. They have crazed
lives, with full time jobs and kids. Even so, they make time for each other, sometimes at the
expense of sleep or other real life commitments. They try to spice up their romance with crazy
ideas and hotel hookups, which often times backfire into anything but romantic. They are the
glue that holds the Dumfys together. Through these kinds of character development, the average
American family sees their own family as just a little more average. The next time they face
some adversity in their every-day lives, or feel like they are being judged for being a less than
perfect nuclear family, they can remember that last episode of Modern Family and feel better
about themselves and the daily lives of their own Nuclear families. It makes it easy to see how
the Dumphy’s helped to revive the modern sitcom.
Are the families in Modern Family ones that you have in your own life, in your own
neighborhood, and maybe even in your own family? The writers of the show really show that to
be true. Everyone can relate to at least one of the Modern Families. Can people relate to Jay and Gloria, portrayed as a Grandpa and Gold Digger Family? Maybe not exactly, but most families
today are blended in one way or another. Blended families often come with preconceived ideas
of who and how the members will fit into the family dynamic. These preconceived ideas, and
stereotypes are very often changed or proved to be wrong, just like the roles of Gloria and Jay.
Can people relate the Dunphys, a Dysfunctional Nuclear Family? The audience loves the idea of
the dysfunctional Dunphy family, it makes everyday families feel so much better about their own
marriage and children dysfunction. They see their disorganized crazy day to day lives, and issues
with their own teenage children portrayed on the small screen by a loving family. That loving
family always comes to a silly, happy, resolution. And is our society really accepting enough to
be able to relate to Camron and Mitchell as the 21st Century Gay Family? Not only is society
accepting, Modern Family has helped to transform society’s view of Gay married couples. When
the show debuted in 2009, gay marriage was unheard of. Proposition 8 was in effect, not to
mention there had been no Supreme Court Ruling that allowed it. Now it is legal in all 50 states.
Studies and surveys in recent years have shown that Modern Family has helped to influence
support of gay marriage and to change people perceptions of same sex couples (Douglas/Clark).
Modern Family has been a massive hit sitcom for 8 years. So far it has not been renewed
for next season (Heimbrod). Actors contracts are up, and cast members feel like they deserve a
bigger part of the success, via salary or royalties. Right now Jay, Gloria, Claire, Phil, Cameron,
and Mitchell and the rest of their modern family’s lives are in the hands of the producers and the
ABC Network. What if the show is not renewed? Will another sitcom step up that has the impact
this one has? Or will the influence of sitcoms in America fade away, as the unseen/unspoken
Modern Family narrator does week after week? I am hopeful and crossing my fingers for many
more Modern Family seasons to come! Works Cited
Blankenship, Mark. “Modern Family – All Kissing Aside: Why Are Mitchell and Cameron So
Mean?” NPR, 25 May 2011.
http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2011/05/25/136643818/modern-family-all-kissing-asidewhy-are-mitchell-and-cameron-so-mean. Accessed 15 April 2017
Clyman, Jeremy. “The Dynamics of a Modern Family.” Psychology Today, 11 April 2010,
Douglas, William. “Pop Culture Helps Change Minds on Gay Rights.” Seattle Times, 1 Jan 2015
Feiler, Bruce. “What Modern Family Says About Today’s Modern Families.” New York Times, 21
Jan 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/fashion/23THISLIFE.html . Accessed 15 April
2017.
Kornhaberjun,Spencer. “The Modern Family Effect: Pop Culture’s Role the Gay-Marriage
Revolution”. The Atlantic, 26 Jun 2015.
Villarreal, Yvonne. “Thank Modern Family for the Revival of the Sitcom.” Los Angeles Times,
30 Oct 2011.

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