Critical investigation; Task #3

An American Family

 An American Family is a type of cinema verite documentary which was filmed in 1971. It was one of the first reality TV shows that was to ever be broadcasted on television. It showed 12 episodes of 300 hours of raw footage of a real life family of 7 family members going about their daily routines. In the 60’s and 70’s era nuclear families were well endorsed within the media. This documentary style cinema verite which means ‘truthful cinema’ inspired much modern reality TV series that appear on MTV such as ‘The Real world’ or ‘keeping up with the kardarshians’.

Compared to British reality TV show Only way is Essex it has its similarities about the two and also has its major differences. In the 70’s the only way a reality TV show such as An American family could be shown on television was if was broadcasted on educational TV or PBS and if it could inform, educate and entertain it audience at the same time. Whereas Only way is Essex is broadcasted on ITV for all viewers to access and made for only entertainment purposes.

Society in the 70’s has changed over the number of years, for example some the males in Only way is Essex are seen to not be afraid to be in touch with their heterosexual sides by allowing the members of the public to know that they are gay and allowing the camera to follow up on their sexuality and dating life. Whereas the males that are in An American family are seen to be hard working masculine men but in one of the episodes a massive controversy had began when the son Lance Loud had come out of the closet and everyone had found out that he was gay became shocking news as it was a really big thing back then, members of the gay community then started to see him as a large gay icon as they had someone to look up to because coming out of the closest was seen as an uncommon thing while some members of the public took this really harshly and started to send Lance homophobic abuse. This is the opposite compared to Only way is Essex as the males in this reality TV show are open with their sexuality, wear makeup and do not care what the memeber of public think.
The structured role of the females over the years have changed and also stayed similar in today’s society in many diverse ways. An American family opening shows the social norms and family values at the start of every show by showing the father location being at work and in his work clothing the father role within the home is seen as the head of house and in charge. The representations of women in the 70’s are that the mother is seen as being preoccupied with preparing family meals and cleaning the home, also looks natural and not fussed about material things but at the same time seen as a sexual desire in the era to the male gaze. An American family does not promote in any way women being over sexualised but are shown as good women who stand by their families. Compared to only way is Essex the representation is different as the women are constantly seen as trophy women that are all single who are all about being semi naked and finding romance. It seems over the years that the representation of being a housewife who stays at home to look after their families has disappeared as female representation are more degraded year by year .