I’ve talked a lot about TV in previous articles, and it’s not a secret that television is my main coping mechanism for stress, but I also have really only talked about intense shows on here. Many of them also have elements of fantasy or violence. My most recent show is the complete opposite. It is a thirty minute sitcom that focuses on a complicated yet loving family. While I’m late to the party, Modern Family is a show that’s becoming very important to my senior year.
It all started when my sister binged the show over my winter break. I watched a couple of episodes, but never got that far in it due to the fact that I was deep in my Shadowhunters rewatch. But, during the semester, my best friend started watching Modern Family, then her parents did. Half because of peer pressure and half because of self-induced FOMO, I finally started on the journey myself.
The show has a lot of good things to appreciate. The first is the wide cast of characters. There are three separate family units that form one extended family. The first is made up of Jay, the patriarch of the family, as well as his second wife Gloria, her son Manny, and their son Joe. Jay’s daughter, Claire, is married to Phil and they have three children: Hailey, Alex, and Luke. Claire’s brother is named Mitch, his husband’s name is Cam, and they adopted a baby together named Lily. Each one of these nuclear families shows different viewpoints and it shows that, while no family is the same, no family is wrong.
Since the show went on for 11 years, only recently ending in 2020, it followed all three families throughout most of their lives. As an audience, we got to watch the kids grow up and face all the struggles that kids face. From popularity in school, to getting your period, to applying to college, it doesn’t shy away from a single experience these kids could have in life. It’s the same thing for the adults in the show. They often talk about intimacy within their relationships and the different parenting strategies. Modern Family is constantly finding new ways to look at timeless family problems and I think that helped it run for so long.
But, while the show deals with these serious topics, it was designed as a half-hour comedy. There aren’t a lot of half hour comedies that actually make me laugh, in fact, I think there are only three (Schitt’s Creek, Brooklyn 99, and now, Modern Family). Half of my laughing was because of how outrageous some of the plots were. Cam had a history as Fizbo the Clown before he joined the family. While I’ve never been a fan of clowns, this plotline never failed to make me laugh. The show also does a really good job of splitting the humor between each character. Though they all use humor in a different way, the jokes are pretty consistent.
As comfort shows go, a funny, endearing, and 11 season long comedy isn’t too shabby. It brought me a lot of joy during a semester when I am stressed about what is currently happening, and what’s to come. Even though the show is over, I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who’s looking for something to watch.