Review of Modern Family written the style of Tim Dowling
Modern Family
Modern Family has a successful way of touching upon a number of society’s main stereotypes, that are notorious for being sensitive subjects, and turing them into funny and lovable characters stories that audiences can’t get enough of. They creatively intertwine these stereotypes just enough to the point, where it is comical, and never controversial.
One of the three main families in the show is the Pritchett Family, consisting of Jay, Gloria, Manny and new baby Joe. Jay is an older, wealthy man, whose kids are fully grown with families of their own, who marries Gloria, a beautiful Latina who immigrated to America from Colombia. Her young son Manny, who she had from her first marriage, is very intelligent and perhaps a little too mature for his age. From the pilot, the couple addresses what most observers are probably thinking: Gloria married Jay for his money. In fact as the season, and the series, progressed, it becomes that is question/issue is addresses frequently - by themselves as well as other minor characters - which ultimately ends up being the punch line of the jokes between the couple.
Son of Jay Pritchett is Mitchell Pritchett, who just adopted a baby Vietnamese girl, Lily, with his life-partner, Cameron Tucker. Cam’s big, overly dramatic personality allows for Mitchell to be the more serious one of the relationship as they face the challenge of being two new fathers figuring out how to raise their daughter. With Cam being the drama queen of the relationship, he always wants things to go exactly the way he plans it, which, of course, includes being the perfect father to Lily. We commonly see Cam’s overdramatizing when the couple becomes unsure of how to parent and/or discipline something new that Lily is doing, or deal with a difficult situation they’ve encountered. Nonetheless, Mitchell is the one to try to keep a level head and bring Cam’s freakout level back down to normal. he and Mitchell ultimately figure out a way to work together to solve the problem they are facing.
The final family on the show are the Dunphy’s. Claire, daughter of Jay and sister of Mitchell, is married to Phil and have three children, Haley, Alex and Luke. Claire is a stay-at-home mom who is always on top of what her kids are supposed to be doing. Phil, a local real estate agent, tries very hard, some would even say too much, at trying to be a “cool dad” to his kids by being their friend. Haley, the oldest, is a very typical teenage girl. She’s always dresses to impress, with her makeup done; she’s always texting her friends and boyfriend, tweeting and doing pretty much anything else but her schoolwork. She can definitely be considered the “dumb blonde” (even though she’s a brunette) of the family, especially when compared to her younger sister Alex. Alex is the genius of the Dunphy’s. She always receives top grades, and in the rare chance she doesn’t, it is quite traumatic for her. Alex is the one constantly making clever jokes about the rest of her family that take everyone else a little longer to catch on (if they do at all). The last member of the Dunphy’s is Luke. Being the youngest child and only son, he can be argued to be Phil’s favorite. Luke’s level of intelligence is more on Haley’s level, whereas he is usually not the first one to pick up on things going on. However, Luke does have his rare moments where he surprises everyone and does or says something this is thoroughly impressive.
As used up and stereotypical all of these roles sound written out, the cast does a great job at spicing up these played-out character plots by redefining the basis of what makes them funny. The description of the roles themselves seem like they’re rather “been-there, done-that”, but the writers of Modern Family have proven to be quite successful at making the story-lines and plot far from what is expected of them.
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