Full House In American Culture

By leaping into the societal messages of the popular 1980s show, Full House, one is able to learn a great deal about what the cultural direction of society was like at that time. Full House was a kind of, makeshift sitcom because it expanded on the typical formula of the age-old conventional “nuclear” family and made room for the idea of a non-traditional family that revealed it’s unconventional nature. As viewership grew, so did the acceptance of such a family structure in American culture.

Full House first aired on September 27, 1987 and highlighted on a man named Danny Tanner, who after losing his wife in a car accident by a drunk driver, was left with three girls to raise, single. Initially, he enlisted the help of his comic friend (Joey) and his wife’s brother and musician (Jesse) to help him. As temporary arrangements became long term, the scope of this show ended up revolving around the ultimate “new era” family of a three-dad household. ‘
Though the nuclear family was a stretch

in this show, the family in Full House mirrored families in other sitcoms of preceding years, in the sense that, in the end, they loved each other and all was okay, but as media and society views have progressed, so have ways in which the usual family carries themselves, which isn’t also happy-go-lucky.
Prior to Full House, three (single) men raising three kids had never been seen in media. As shows and plots have evolved, comes a show like Modern Family that features partners raising an adopted child. Modern Family embodies the ornately diverse meaning of family now held by modern Americans. Modern Family gives us divorcees, a blended family, gay couples, and a bi-racial influence. There is also a nod to the traditional husband and wife combo, but the wife (Claire) is seen as much more robust than her counterpart (Phil), which plays on to the gender and characteristic roles that have progressed in society.

In between the hype of Full House and Modern Family, society has been seen as being more open and each show has definitely been a representation of its time.

Though not immune to criticism, Modern Family and Full House still claim glimpses of societal pressure when showing aspects of the “American family.”
Whether it’s through its overly upbeat and positive conflict resolving themes or inclusivity of customary morals and values, each show has seen its fair share of critique in terms of it’s realism to society.

Drawing from scholarly academic research about what goes into the formula of creating these kinds of family-based sitcoms, production work, relevancy of each show’s topic and storyline in the era they’re aired, I will present the ultimate heart of my argument of seeing if there truly is a pattern or formula to family sitcoms and if there are parallels between the characters of both Full House and Modern Family that makes the shows as similar yet different to one

another.