There must be a graveyard out there somewhere with foreign comedy series that achieved cult status in their own country but flopped badly in Germany. There one would sadly stand in front of tombstones of classics like “Seinfeld”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, “Absolutely Fabulous” or “30 Rock”. Overwhelmed with awards in the distance, but relegated to the rearmost niche places on TV in Good Ol’ Germany. Or not sent at all.
The brilliantly acted US sitcom “Modern Family”, written with an astonishing portion of sarcasm, has also unjustly met this fate since its launch in 2009. First on RTL Nitro, it was shifted from one slot to the next and punished with hardly countable ratings the clairvoyant infantile comedy about three very different families, who all get on each other’s nerves and end up falling into each other’s arms again and again, is broadcast in late-night programming on digital special interest channels.
That’s a pity, because “Modern Family” deserves a larger audience in this country too. Because the series is a lot smarter than the simple basic idea would suggest.
Family is dead – long live the family
With great acumen, “Modern Family” shows the supposedly typical American extended family Dunphy, the gay (married) couple Cameron and Mitchell as well as the patchwork association around the furniture millionaire Jay Pritchett, his very young flame Gloria and her adopted son Manny from Colombia that the concept of family has long since been overused.
But what seems dysfunctional on the surface just needs to be brought back to life. Even if that means chaos and the clash of all kinds of prejudices. The last time the “Simpsons” showed two decades ago how gallingly, despite all the wretchedness and inabilities, one can finally love one another again. And how to stick together, although everything speaks against it.
Slapstick in mockumentary format
Completely without laughter and with a generous arsenal of locations that go beyond the typical sitcom scenarios, “Modern Family” gives new life to the genre, which has been somewhat exhausted in recent years. The series cleverly plays with mockumentary elements (a process that has also been known to a wider audience since “The Office” and “Stromberg”), as if the individual family members were accompanied in a documentary. So they sit in front of the camera again and again, chatting about their degenerate everyday life or – of course without wanting to – verbally attack each other.
The married life of adults is pointedly picked apart (Phil Dunphy, the devilishly playful, slightly hyperactive husband; Claire Dunphy, the ambitious, self-righteous helicopter mother with a wild past; Jay Pritchett, the well-off early retiree with chauvinistic views; Gloria Pritchett, the Colombian wildcat with lots of make-up and jewellery; Mitchell Pritchett, the neurotic-anxious lawyer; Cameron Tucker, the portly drama queen with a passion for clowning).
The needs and longings of teenagers and children are also exhibited in a quirky way. One thing is clear: Alex Dunphy can shine at school, but with her intelligence she can’t compete with all the nonsense around her. Haley Dunphy is more interested in her cell phone and pot than she is in college. As a baby, Luke Dunphy has to live with not being noticed by anyone. And against the nasty and revealing remarks of Cameron and Mitchell’s adopted Vietnamese daughter Lily there is no herb anyway.
Raised index finger or middle finger?
At the same time anarchic and essentially endearing, the plots in “Modern Family” cleverly play with the moral views of the viewers, which are often exposed as absurd and crooked. While the authority of the adults is gleefully thrown off its hinges from episode to episode (especially when it comes to the urgently needed defense of love and sexuality in the face of everyday sadness, the screenwriters are not very considerate with their characters), the children hardly succeed either to assert oneself against the family madness. There is simply no retreat from the horror of being forced to spend time together. Also a topic that is pulled through the cocoa in every second episode.
Haley Dunphy tries selfies, chubby boyfriends and her own fashion blog. With his dandy-esque appearance, Manny Delgado more than once makes himself the laughing stock of his foster father Jay, who possibly recognizes the same homosexual traits behind it as he once did with his son Mitchell, with whom he has a distant relationship.
But no matter how mean the intrigues are against each other: At the end of each episode, there are always forgiving words from the off that evoke the cohesion and integrity of the American way of life. If only seconds later a short epilogue wouldn’t throw all this upside down again. With its often silly, but always imaginatively illustrated moral case studies, “Modern Family” deals with the fact that the conservative image of the nuclear family has long since collapsed, but ultimately the effort for each other (including the willingness to forgive mistakes) is the basis in whatever group for family stays. No other series in recent years has told this so honestly and wittily. The question of what is modern and what isn’t quickly fades into the background.
Exuberant playfulness
There’s no question: “Modern Family” wouldn’t be half as good without its versatile actors. Ed O’Neill is back as a husband and father after his iconic portrayal of a run-of-the-mill boy in The Family. The world views have remained almost the same, only Peggy Bundy has to give way to a buxom Colombian, who heats up the sometimes very stubborn average American. Like no other character in the series, Jay Pritchett, embodied by O’Neill, stands for the outdated moral concepts that are being thrown into the wall here from episode to episode. Sentimental at heart, Jay doesn’t always emerge as the loser in the battle between past and present.
In contrast to many other comedy series that do not explicitly deal with the subject, “Modern Family” gives space to the everyday life of a homosexual couple with great attention to detail. Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet play the very different, highly narcissistic lovebirds with squeaky silliness. No gay cliché is spared – and that to the limit of parody. The fact that the tenderness between the two is limited to occasional hugs and that the passion has shifted to the interior design of the apartment is a gift.
The funniest part, however, are the performances by Ty Burrell, who plays the all too easily enthusiastic model broker Phil Dunphy with a vibrating penchant for overconfidence. Again and again the Schlacks want to stage themselves as the perfect father, as an experienced craftsman and playful lover – and fails completely. But because he is almost the only one who makes an effort, he is also the first to get up again when he falls on his face. A more comical commentary on the crisis of the modern man can hardly be imagined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlyHTgW3Jcw
Follow the author if you like Twitter and on his blog (“Melancholy Symphony”).
More highlights
<!–
–>
<!–
–>