Modern Family and The Middle

These two ABC stalwarts made their season debut last night. As singing shows rule the roost in our house I DVR'd these both the premiere episodes.

Both shows are examples of how tremendously funny a television show can be. Modern Family, which wins award after award each year, is funny, sarcastic and mixes effortlessly between right between your eyes funny and under the radar humor that you have to catch or observe. Last night's episode for example featured a couple of very large stuffed animals apparently copulating on the roof of a car. Who thinks of this stuff?

The Middle on the other hand is surely the less cool of the two shows. While Modern Family features a diverse group of people, including a gay couple with an adopted Chinese baby, The Middle tells us the story of a middle class family in Indiana with the last name Heck. Hollywood loves to celebrate themselves and so The Middle is rarely acknowledged for it's success. Flyover country, it seems, exists in television shows as well.

With that being said The Middle is fantastic television. While I watched the episode this morning I felt like I should resolve to find the hidden cameras in our home as they clearly were stealing all of their ideas from our lives. As the Heck family last night struggled on a thin budget to create memories of their perhaps " one last summer with everybody together" I recalled a conversation with my wife a few months ago where she said the exact same thing. Of course the similarities are clear, they have three kids, we have three kids and the gratifying thing in watching your life on the small screen is realizing that what you are going through with your kids is close to universal. They are not really spying on you, your family life is terribly familiar to all parents.

Modern Family is perhaps slightly more sophisticated in it's humor and I suppose in some parts of the country featuring a gay couple might still be controversial but I don't think in too many places that matters anymore. Ann Romney, for Goodness sake said that the show was her favorite. That of course begged all kinds of follow up questions but to my knowledge they were never asked.

The Middle featuring that white-bread, boring, Indiana family might be more of a challenge to produce. What is true is that a great prejudice exists in our culture amongst the elite against middle class families like the Hecks. Middle class values are claimed to be respected and honored but in many cases it is just lip service and those speaking the words go back to their vacation homes and enjoy their cognac. In short how many social scientists wear flannel and live in Middle America. To them the Middle and the people they portray could be as foreign as aborigines.

Both of these shows are brilliant and I enjoy them both. I suspect that most of the viewers who watch one watch the other. Still I do find it remarkable that with a little bit of thought the two shows can be seen to be portraying many of the divisions in our country. Traditional versus new age families, East and West Coast culture versus flyover country, those who live in huge palatial homes versus those that live in a small, well lived in, ranch house. Indeed in it's simplest terms blue state versus red state.

I enjoy both shows and think most people do not think that deep. Nor should they. Still I suspect that somewhere, right now, a social scientist is writing his dissertation on the subject of the ABC Wednesday night comedies.