Familial Modernism
My thoughts, revealed
I have been discomfited by our times. Yep, our times came for my ass and decided to discomfit it in a manner most foul. And so I did what people do when they’re being discomfited by their times: I searched for an amazing opiate of the masses. Religion was a no-go, as I instantly saw through its inherent contradictions. (If God is so good, how come He allows me to be slightly annoyed sometimes?) Literature forced me to think too clearly about my own life situation. (I’ve been reading Middlemarch for straight up 6 months now.)
Exercise works for many but I famously “rack” enough “disciprine” to find it anything but extremely boring. Reality TV is not for me; I didn’t consume it early enough in life to internalize its logics and so I find it very grating and uncomfortable, and I read it as a symptom of our times instead of just enjoying it for what it is. Video games are fun but after a few hours I begin to despair at all of the problem solving, lore memorization, and repetitive effort I’m throwing at the wall to achieve something that a game developer intended me to achieve.
I could, of course, begin my great works in this world, but that seems difficult, so I turned instead to the most reliable and friendly companion of all: scripted comedy television.
Over the years, I have completely rotted my brain by rewatching basically every sitcom I’ve ever seen over and over on an infinite loop. When in the midst of one, I am a langurous, drooling, couchbound sloth. This recently occurred with the noted jejune and optimistic program Modern Family.
I was on a plane when I threw on an episode of Modern Family to kill the last few minutes. I hadn’t watched it in probably ten years. I actually had almost completely forgotten it exists, much like everyone else in America. But now, after 11 seasons, I’m brimming with thoughts.
It pains me to admit it, but I’m basically Manny.
I wish I were some combo of Phil, Claire, Jay, and Mitch, with maybe some of Alex’s good qualities in there. I can recognize Manny as basically the worst guy ever to hang out with, with a number of infuriating qualities. He’s a little fancy boy averse to emotional distress, he’s obsessed with getting girls to like him without actually developing any of the qualities they might be attracted to, he’s quite callous with said girls’ hearts, and he’s sort of decamped from his race for the Cliffs of Dover of whiteness (does this metaphor track?). In general his storylines are completely stupid, especially when he gets older and it’s not as funny for him to be erudite—it’s just irritating. I don’t think I’m a pain to be around, but realistically, out of everyone in Modern Family, I’m Manny.
Luke and Manny are too horny
The later seasons get pretty disgusting with it. Everyone on earth is smashing constantly inside the Dunphy house. Luke is fully with some random older lady who has college-aged kids for like a whole season. Actually, all of the characters are just always dating significantly older, except when Alex is secretly hooking up with Reuben. I need to get my brain checked.
But yeah, Luke and Manny turn into weird sickos. Genuinely creepy. Why is Luke always calling his sisters “kitten?”
The show is surprisingly reactionary
There’s this very intense pro-business, anti-intellectual component to the show. It makes some sense; all of them rely on the Pritchett’s Closets largesse to fund their lifestyle. Jay made them all rich through some kind of masculine construction enterprise. All of the adults’ apotheoses in the show are around finding classic American Republican forms of success—Claire as boardroom bitch, Phil as parking lot landlord, Jay as patriarchal retiree, Gloria as hot sauce CPG queen / high-end realtor, Mitch as DISTRICT ATTORNEY 🤦♂️, Cam as a college football coach.
They want nothing more for their kids to be socially popular in high school, like that matters at all, and seem not to care one whit for the concerns of the world at large. They are all kind of extremely anti-nerd in a way which doesn’t make sense to me. They’re all adults, and objectively not very cool anymore, so where does the anti-nerd thing even come from? No one has ever been able to define what nerds really are in a way that tracks with the 2010s American conception of nerd. I did like this one 2019 essay from Rosa Lyster about it though.
In general I feel as if Alex is just done super dirty by the show at every turn. She is a thoroughly unpleasant and unlikable character; spiky, haughty, and cruel to everyone around her to spite them for their philistinism. And yet I can’t help but feel for her, even though my own parents and siblings are all quite a bit smarter than I am. All she wants to do is read her books, and she’s basically the only one who has real ambition to access world-class things. She knows about the world at large, and is the only one in the family with any kind of curiosity that isn’t based on naked self-interest! And they all kind of hate her for it. For shame!
Fulgencio “Joe” Pritchett is the best character
There is a quippy erudition to the show that is missing from modern comedy television
It’s nothing quite as intense as like, 30 Rock or Arrested Development, but there are a lot of cultural touchstones that are genuine parts of the characters lives. I appreciate that. I was especially struck by an episode in Season 2 where, on screen, Mitch explains the whole plot of a Hitchcock movie to Claire and connects it to their lives. Kind of awesome!
It rotted my brain in the way that other slop would
At a certain point in my disgusting binge, I felt like I was gavaging the show like people do with TikTok and Love Island. It became smooth and made me feel sick. I was struggling to be away from the show during non-working hours, and even was playing it on my phone while I was taking a shower. I was addicted to it like a horrible drug. Something happened to my brain; it’s not right to be consuming things like this. Just worth noting. I don’t know. This whole newsletter’s late anyway.
Nabeel’s Footnote
Gavaging. Now there’s a word