Blended Families In The 1970's

Americans love their television, and television loves the American family. Since the 1970’s, the depiction of the American family on television has gone through many changes. In the 70s, the Brady Bunch showed an all-white nuclear family. Today, Modern Family, shows a family of blended races, ages, and sexualities. For thirty years, the sitcom family has reflected the changing society of its time and there is no exception of this for the families in The Brady Bunch and Modern Family. The lifestyle, social aspects, and economics situations of the Bradys and the Pritchett-Dunphys are similar in their attempts to portray the lives of families of their time, but differ drastically in the types of families they represent. The characters in Modern

The main social issue the Brady Bunch really tackled was the idea of blended families after a divorce. While the show may have focused on Carol and Mike Brady bringing their six children together, it was inspired by a statistic in The Los Angeles Times that 30% of marriages in the US at the time had a child from a previous marriage (Merritt). Mike Brady “was one of TV’s first stepfathers, and his blended family of six kids was a far cry from mom, dad, 2.5 kids and a dog” (Goudreau). Modern Family also tackles the issue of divorces and blended families but with its own twist. The family’s patriarch, Jay Pritchett, remarries despite the fact that his children from his first marriage are grown. Except instead of the family blending together seamlessly as the Bradys do, they struggle with the fact that Jay’s new wife is the same age as his own children and his new step son is the age of his grandchildren. Modern Family also showcases many other modern day issues, such as biracial couples, as Jay’s second wife is Colombian, and homosexual couples in Jay’s son, Mitchell, and his husband Cameron. Modern Family reflects many of the social movements of the current day. As feminism builds, TV moms have began “overshadowing TV dads, who [play] the part of the well-meaning idiot” (Goudreau). With the way TV explores social trends in society, “there's a family for just about everyone on TV today”