Is Your Family On Television?
Monday, July 21, 2008 Filed in: Media
Who is your favorite family member? Would you swap
members of your family for television characters?
I submit that many television viewers know their television family members better than they know their own parents or children or siblings. In fact, they may even prefer television characters to relatives.
Who among the average American television viewer did not know intimately the idiosyncrasies and personality traits of Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer in Seinfeld? People talked about their antics at the office more so than bragging about their own family.
Viewing the history of television reveals the family ideals and extremes, from Ward and June Cleaver (pearls, heels, dress, stockings and cooking dinner) in Leave it to Beaver, to a modern single woman making it on her own in The Mary Tyler Moore Show to the zany hilarity and extremes of childhood in Malcom in the Middle.
These are the family members cherished and loved by modern American television viewers-- perhaps cherished even more than some wayward family members in our own gene pool.
Swapping beloved television characters for family members is not limited to adults. Can you say, "Simpsons?" Is there any wonder why children think so little of their parents these days? Their roll models are the characters of such long-running and popular television shows as The Simpsons and King of the Hill.
The history of television is replete with family examples and characters welcomed into living rooms week after week to spend more quality time than is devoted to teenagers in the same household. Seriously. Think re-runs.
While many of us may have devoted 10 years and 30-minutes a week to shows such as Seinfeld, Cheers, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Home Improvement, the younger generation absorbed the same influence five nights a week, 52 weeks a year in re-runs on TBS or USA or whatever.
Did your children learn to spell at school or by watching Vanna touch letters in Wheel of Fortune?
Our sons have a highly developed sense of logic, justice, and an innate ability to filter fact from fiction. This came about because of a unique combination of genes and watching Perry Mason reruns every night after dinner for four years. When they ask questions you'd think they took lessons from Raymond Burr.
Television character influence people. How we speak, dress, act, and interact, and not always to our betterment.
I submit that many television viewers know their television family members better than they know their own parents or children or siblings. In fact, they may even prefer television characters to relatives.
Who among the average American television viewer did not know intimately the idiosyncrasies and personality traits of Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer in Seinfeld? People talked about their antics at the office more so than bragging about their own family.
Viewing the history of television reveals the family ideals and extremes, from Ward and June Cleaver (pearls, heels, dress, stockings and cooking dinner) in Leave it to Beaver, to a modern single woman making it on her own in The Mary Tyler Moore Show to the zany hilarity and extremes of childhood in Malcom in the Middle.
These are the family members cherished and loved by modern American television viewers-- perhaps cherished even more than some wayward family members in our own gene pool.
Swapping beloved television characters for family members is not limited to adults. Can you say, "Simpsons?" Is there any wonder why children think so little of their parents these days? Their roll models are the characters of such long-running and popular television shows as The Simpsons and King of the Hill.
The history of television is replete with family examples and characters welcomed into living rooms week after week to spend more quality time than is devoted to teenagers in the same household. Seriously. Think re-runs.
While many of us may have devoted 10 years and 30-minutes a week to shows such as Seinfeld, Cheers, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Home Improvement, the younger generation absorbed the same influence five nights a week, 52 weeks a year in re-runs on TBS or USA or whatever.
Did your children learn to spell at school or by watching Vanna touch letters in Wheel of Fortune?
Our sons have a highly developed sense of logic, justice, and an innate ability to filter fact from fiction. This came about because of a unique combination of genes and watching Perry Mason reruns every night after dinner for four years. When they ask questions you'd think they took lessons from Raymond Burr.
Television character influence people. How we speak, dress, act, and interact, and not always to our betterment.
