Introduction to the Family in Literature and Media

Many of today's established myths about family life have been created and popularized by television and movies. Early television fostered the perfected image of the traditional middle-class family: a stay-at-home mother, a gainfully employed father, well-behaved children, and an orderly suburban home. "Family portrait of Ozzie and Harriet" presents a look at the stylized families of 1950s and 1960s television.

For years, television in the United States showed few minority families, low-income families, or portrayed little family conflict. Beginning in the 1970s, shows began to regularly feature more diverse themes and characters. Single women and minorities became title characters of popular, primetime shows. Series focused on once-taboo family issues such a pregnancy, divorce, sex, remarriage, and family conflict. As television and movies presented more adult themes, some lawmakers and members of the public called for increasing regulation or restriction of content, claiming that limiting certain TV programs to late-night or giving movies ratings would help shield children from inappropriate content. Others decried the content of popular media as a mark of declining social esteem for the family. In 1992, U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle famously denounced the television comedy Murphy Brown because the show's title character was an unwed mother.

In recent years, shows such as the The Simpsons have centered on families with realistic—if not exaggerated—foibles. African-American families, immigrant families, interracial and interethnic families, single parent, and same-sex parent families have all been featured in prominent media releases.

Questions about the appropriateness of various programs and movies for family viewing have also garnered public attention. Media is no longer limited to the silver screen or television. Internet content is also the focus of child protection advocates. Several entries discuss the roles of parents and government regulation in protecting children from potentially unsuitable media content and online predators.

Finally, just as popular media today both creates and reflects the changing concepts of the family in society, so too has literature. Literary portrayals of the family featured in this chapter range from polished to gritty. Their subjects grapple with marriage, family relations, and death. An excerpt from "Pride and Prejudice" discusses problems of an early nineteenth-century family with no male heir, dependent on their daughters' marriages for economic security. The somber mood of a family dealing with death in "A Death in the Family" contrasts vividly to the boisterous family conflict from an excerpt of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."