The Evolution of the American Family Portrayed on Television
The ten images I chose for this essay all relate to the “American Family”Family,” except these families are seen on television. This most likely means this is the model for most American families at thatthe particular time the show aired. As the images go on, the families start progressing and changing you can see how this affected the portrayal of the basic TV family. Also theseThese families will also often deal with problems or certain situations that are starting to arise in that time period.
The first picture is from the TV show “Little houseHouse on the Prairie.”, itIt shows a family with one white father, a white mother, and three white daughters. This is a very basic family model. I put this image first because it has no representation forof different races or sexual orientationorientations. Back in the day, you would hardly ever find homosexual characters or characters of a different race havehaving a main role in a television show.
The second picture, is from the show “The Brady Bunch”Bunch.” This was a very common family archetype,; one mother, one father, and six children. In this family, everyone is white, however what you can’t tell is that this is the second marriage for both of them. The woman is the mother of the three girls and the man is the father for the three boys. Pay attention to detail of all the girls being the perfect shade of light blonde, and all the boys having dark brown hair. Back then, this would show the “ideal” family.