We’re still family
I avoided Modern Family for as long as I could. I’ve never had a taste for family sitcoms. Maybe it’s bad memories of people my grandparents’ age trying to get me to laugh at Archie Bunker or the awful laugh track that accompanied even good programs like The Cosby Show.
The premise of Modern Family seems flimsy. It’s set up as a European reality show filming three branches of the Pritchett family. Jay, the patriarch, is married to the beautiful (and much younger) Gloria, his second wife, who has a sexy Colombian accent. Jay’s daughter Claire is married to the impossibly doofus-like Phil Dunphy, whose efforts to be cool embarrass the viewer as well as his three children (“I know all the text message abbreviations: LOL, laugh out loud; WTF, why the face”). Jay’s gay son Mitch has adopted a Vietnamese baby with his partner, Cam. The macho Jay has to adjust to having a gay son and a Hispanic stepson, while his beautiful daughter compares herself to her even more beautiful stepmother. The show covers this territory with laser-fast dialogue, and each episode ends with everybody hugging and realizing the value of family without the whole thing dissolving entirely into schmaltz.
In an early episode, Phil and Claire’s youngest child, Luke, shoots a sibling with his new BB gun. According to a bizarre family rule, he has to be shot in return (hilariously, the wisdom of the rule is never questioned). But the Dunphy family can’t find a time to schedule this retribution. They gather around the calendar, and each member scratches off dates due to conflicts. They settle on a Monday at 3:45. The situation is preposterous, but as for the scheduling dilemma, who hasn’t been there?
