In my group we talked about the different ways that families can be portrayed in film. We came to the consensus that family can be portrayed in two ways, one being a "healthy" family and the other being "unhealthy" families. Healthy families have good relationships between all of the members, for example , a child could come to the parents to talk about a problem and feel comfortable doing so. Unhealthy families do not have this, the children either do not have good relationships with their parents or the parents do not have a good relationship with each other making a bad situation for the child. Both of these types of families can be seen in the TV show "Friday Night Lights" it can be seen in this show because the main family is an example of healthy relationships and the "perfect" relationship between parents and their children. Whereas the unhealthy relationships can be seen by almost every other family in the show, whether its an abusive relationship between father and son or an unfaithful marriage, it is seen on this show. In sum, on modern day TV we can see all sorts of examples of family. We see good examples and bad examples of how families should function and we can potentially learn from them and apply things we learn to our everyday lives.
Brian, nice connections between the different types of families and writing!
ReplyDeleteBrian, I was in this group with you and I thought that it was interesting that Friday Night Lights portrays both kinds of families. In every movie and TV show families are portrayed differently and it's weird that all families have different dynamics.
ReplyDeleteBrian, you are really hitting on something quite important here. In many cases the narratives in popular culture are very dualistic, meaning portrayed in a black and white or good and bad context. So some families are always good and some are always bad. In my experience this isn't the way families actually work, though, you know. Families are always changing, as are interactions, and even ones that seem to have it together have some their own complexities. You are very astute in noticing the portrayal of families as either/or rather than both/and.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how a family's relationship can have such a great effect on an individual, whether it is good or bad. However, I am curious as to how somebody that experiences an unhealthy family will be effected later in their lives.
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