Stereotypes have had a outstanding function in American comedies. peculiarly sitcoms. practically since their debut. ABC’s newest hit comedy Modern Family is no different. The dramatis personae is diverse in every manner. and the authors use that to diversify the characters and acquire off with utilizing obvious stereotypes placed upon gender and gender. The show is presented in a mockumentary manner and focal points on three households who are related through matrimony. Phil and his married woman Claire represent the atomic household ; Jay and his new married woman Gloria represent the inter-generation household ; and eventually Mitchell and Cam represent the homosexual household construction.
Modern Family smartly uses gender. racial. and sexual stereotypes to do the audience bond with and place with the characters on-screen. and by uniting these stereotypes with the mockumentary manner Modern Family is able to give off a feeling of pragmatism that makes the characters even more relatable. Modern Family gives off a feeling or pragmatism non found in many situation comedies. and that is due in a big portion because it is presented in a mockumentary manner. A mockumentary is a type of movie or telecasting show in which fictional events are presented in the signifier of a docudrama.
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By utilizing this manner the show is able to give off an aura of pragmatism non found in normal situation comedies. It makes its characters and their interactions that much more credible and relatable despite the sometimes brainsick state of affairss the characters find themselves in. Another valuable add-on the mockumentary manner allows Modern Family to take advantage of is interviews. Character interviews are worked into the state of affairss to give a peculiar character’s sentiments and ideas out in the unfastened. yet the other characters they may or may non be speaking about bash non cognize what is being said about them.
This allows the audience to acquire inside the heads of the characters where in normal situation comedies the characters have to province what they are believing in conversations with other characters. Not merely does this aid do state of affairss funnier. as the audience knows what is traveling on in the characters mind as the state of affairs is playing out. but it besides helps present that sense of pragmatism. allowing characters say things to the camera they would ne’er state to another character on the show. The Dunphy household is the first household we see in the pilot. and within proceedingss we can cognize everything about their character.
Phil is the stereotyped lovable. immature. fathead of a adult male. and Claire is the responsible. mature adult female of the family. This can be seen through the first scene in which we see Claire and Phil in which they are fixing their kids for school. Claire is the 1 who is really making the work to acquire the childs to school on clip. while Phil is excessively busy on his phone to be of any aid. Subsequently. their boy Luke by chance shoots his sister Alex with his new BB gun. and Phil does non desire to transport out the agreed upon penalty ( hiting Luke with the gun. Claire forces Phil to move responsibly and to non merely be the ‘cool dad’ that he perceives himself to be.
Both these scenarios plays off the stereotype that the adult females of the house is the 1 who really does the work and gets things done while the hubby is largely at that place to implement the regulations and to penalize the kids when they break the regulations. Weather this stereotype is accurate or non isn’t an issue. because most atomic households can associate to experiencing this manner every now and so. In this manner Modern Family successfully uses the stereotype of the atomic household to associate the Dunphy household to the audience.
While Phil and Claire represent the common stereotype of the atomic household. Jay and Gloria Pritchett represent the much less common inter-generation household construction. We find Jay and Gloria at a association football game for Gloria’s boy from a old matrimony. Manny. Gloria. being the stereotyped hot-blooded Columbian adult females. is intoning and raving for Manny while Jay reads a newspaper in his gatefold chair. Soon Gloria is interchanging heated words with another ma. and Jay has to defuse the state of affairs.
Jay is depicted as being a stereotyped old adult male. which can be seen peculiarly good in the scene where he has problem acquiring out of his chair when a much younger adult male is hitting on Gloria. Jay can besides been seen utilizing a stereotypically older outlook later in the episode when he tells his homosexual boy. Mitchell. that he shouldn’t adopt. and that if he has to it should be a Canis familiaris. The inter-generational household is less common than the atomic household construction. so Jay and Gloria are more stereotyped so that the audience can associate to them since most don’t know much about this sort of household.
Another sort of household many people are non likely to hold a batch of cognition about is the last twosome we see. the homosexual twosome of Michelle and Cameron. who are on a plane header place after following a Vietnamese babe. Cameron. who goes by Cam. is what many would see the stereotyped homosexual adult male. He acts really feminine and shies off from struggle. except when his loved 1s are involved. Cam is besides really theatrical as can be seen subsequently on in the episode when Cam and Mitchell are denoting to the remainder of the household that they have adopted.
Cam walks out keeping the babe up in the air while the song ‘Circle of Life’ dramas. parodying the opening scene of Lion King. His spouse. Mitchell. acts much more masculine and is more aggressive as can be seen when he decides to give the riders of the plane ‘the speech’ about non judging homophiles after a misconstrued remark. Most people are improbable to hold the same sum of unmasking to homosexual households as they are to the atomic household construction. so they what they know about them is shaped about wholly by the media.
Much like with Jay and Gloria. Cam and Mitchell are both stereotypes so that the audiences will be able to associate to them. Each major character in Modern Family represents a different stereotype. These characters are stereotypes so we can associate to them right off the dorsum. Of class all of these characters have their ain oddities and personality traits that make them merriment to watch and unique to the show. but normally these traits are extremes taken from the stereotypes they are portraying.
Modern Family takes these stereotyped characters and does something alone with them by seting them in the same extended household. How frequently does one happen a homosexual household construction. an inter-generation household construction. and a atomic household construction within the same extended household on an American telecasting show? With the combined usage of relatable stereotypes and a fleeting manner. Modern Family is able to make an reliable sense of pragmatism non seen really frequently in modern situation comedies.
