There is someone out there who really hates me for watching this. But he is not alone, I also hate myself for watching it. But why do I watch it then? I would use the metaphor of the car crash but that one is a little bit overused, so let me put it like that: it’s like watching the birth of a very ugly baby.
The most frustrating thing about Modern Family is, that it could have been so good. SO good. Just think about it: a TV-series depicting families as they are today, as we know them? Through in a few funny characters, avoid the trap of gritty realism and there you go, something we can all enjoy and more importantly, something that tells us things about our lives. We can laugh and go “Hmmmmmm” at the same time because we are actually laughing at ourselves.
But it seems that the creators had something else in mind. They tought it would be a good idea to tie a new ribbon around the same old box. [Plenty of metaphors today] Yes of course, at the heart of the series, there is a patchwork family. Fine. But that doesn’t mean it is all modern all of a sudden. Sometimes you really believe that this is something the pope might enjoy watching while relaxing with a few handsome priests on a rainy saturday night. He would probably raise an eyebrow at the remarried couple and the two men who have adopted a baby, but that’s just because he’s contractually obliged to do so. He doesn’t really mind. (He told me so in one of his many text messages.)
For a show that prides itself to be very modern and in-touch, there are quite a few elements in it, that are really old. Like the fact that apparently nobody has to work a lot but everybody is rolling in cash. Or that all gay men an TV like musicals and they don’t ever kiss, they are just more the hugging-types. Or that Colombian women have sexy accents and make jokes about backwards and pitiful Colombia all the time. Or that if your daughter is beautiful, she can’t be intelligent and vice versa. Or that there has to be a patriarch in the center of every family. Or that housewife who cooks and cleans, manages her three children and her childish husband all at once.
I could go on but thankfully, I won’t.
Still there are some things in the series, that are a little redeeming [can something be a little redeeming though?]. There is Alex, the brilliantly sarcastic girl/teenager, there is the anxious and socially awkward Mitchell and yes, some jokes are genuinely funny. I’m still not sure if that is enough for me to continue watching.
You could easily rename the series “The All-American-Family” and sell it as a satire. All the elements are there: cliché characters (Cameron, the oh-so-flamboyant-gay-who-is-just-like-a-mother-for-his-baby-type is unbearable most of the time), commercialism (a whole episode that is basically a commercial for the iPad… really?), misogyny (the before mentioned über-mother Claire, Gloria, the pathologically sexy latina), you name it. If this is “modern”, then I don’t know if I want to live in this modern world. [So this must mean that I am postmodern then. Yeah, that seems to be right. I’ve even got a blog!] And yet I’ve still watched 4 episodes in a row yesterday. Maybe I just enjoy it more than I feel comfortable admitting. Or maybe would do anything to procrastinate. Even writing blog-posts on TV-series.
barbarisk 