All in the Family and Arrested Development

My favorite family-based TV situation comedy is by far, Arrested Development. This show follows the Bluth family as they try to survive legal issues and the demise of the family business. Hilarious and well-written scenarios occur, as the family has to deal with the fall out of the collapsing business and the arrest of the head of the family.

         

Mitchell Hurwitz, the creator of Arrested Development, made a show that was purely for entertainment. He never addressed any social issues or never tried to bring to light any sort of injustice. To find anything of substance is simply overanalyzing the work. If anything, Arrested Development was a parody of a show like All in the Family because it poked fun of social issues by creating hilarious and absurd “social issues” of their own. For example, Tobias Funke’s ridiculous “never nude” condition or his daughter’s fake disease rightfully named B.S. Norman Lear on the other hand had an intended reading for his show in which he was purposely trying to address social issues. While Arrested Development spent three seasons of poking fun of Tobias’ implied homosexuality, All in the Family makes jokes about the subject via Archie Bunker, but quite blatantly asks the audience to take a serious look at the idea of sexuality.

        

The similarities and differences in these two shows are really just signs of the times. The ability to poke fun of issues of race, disability, and sexuality show that as a nation we have grown past the unacceptable ideology stage, through the “it’s a sensitive issue” stage, and have just surpassed the “this is an important issue that needs to be brought to attention” stage and now we can laugh about it. Of course there are still issues that deal with things such as race and sexuality, however on a larger scale these social issues are less issues and becoming more of social norms. When we look at the fact we have a black president and that homosexuality is portrayed in the media all the time in a neutral or even positive light, we must admit that we have seen progress. For these are all things that would have never been allowed to come to fruition as little as 40 years ago.