Blended families make great TV. I thought The OC took the cake for whacky blended families (mostly thanks to Julie, who was married to Jimmy, Kirsten's ex high school sweetheart, but then married Kirsten's dad, then got engaged to her daughter's best friend's dad, then started getting friendly with Kirsten's adopted son (Ryan)'s dad. Meanwhile Ryan dated Julie's daughter, Marissa for a while, but also dated Kirsten's half sister (whose name escapes me), who was the product of a secret affair her dad had). I'm also a fan of the general weirdness of the relationships in Nip/Tuck (Julia married Sean, but concealed the fact that their son was actually the product of a fling with Sean's best mate and business partner, Christian. Julia later had a relationship with Quinton, Sean and Christian's other business partner, and Sean slept with Christian's fiancee, Kimber). But now I've started watching Aussie drama Love My Way.
So. Main character Frankie (Claudia Karvan) has a kid with Charlie. She lives with Charlie's brother Tom- they're not together, but they have had sex at some indeterminate point in the past. Charlie and his wife Julia have a new baby, and Julia's ex, Howard has moved back to town- and started seeing Frankie. Everyone's parents show up all the time- everyone seems to have a key to Charlie and Julia's house, and just get stuck into the wine and fancy cheese. Seems ok when it's Charlie's parents show up at his house, but it's a bit more weird when Frankie's mum (who can't identify Frankie's dad, btw) is caught eating the fancy cheese at Charlie and Julia's- by Julia's ex, who was staying there briefly. It's all very messy. And everyone swears a lot. It's quite a lot of fun :)
Anyway, I think the reason that we didn't have TV before the 50's (or whenever it was invented) is because there just weren't enough dysfunctional families to make sitcoms about. Think about it. Even the Brady Bunch were blended- and what the hell was with Alice? Something weird going on there, I'm sure (not sure what, though). Meh, who wants to watch a normal family on TV, anyway? We'd all just feel paranoid about how dysfunctional our own families are. I suppose with the high drama of TV families, our own lives look quite pale by comparison. Almost normal. Almost ;)
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WHAT? Sean slept with Kimber? Why did he do that?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think you've hit the point of the blended family story. By showing exaggeratedly dysfunctional families, it does help put our own family situations into perspective.
I don't think dysfunctional families started in the 50s though! What about all those medieval royal families where siblings were trying to kill each other? That's pretty dysfunctional.
Ooh, I really wanted to watch Love My Way too. I'll have to get it on DVD. They've just started playing season 3 on cable.
ReplyDeleteSee you at blues tomorrow! Gene's coming this time :)
Nick- Sean slept with Kimber at some point in the long drawn-out divorce with Julia. Kimber brought in the Miss Kimber blow up doll, and Sean, in a fit of frustration, used it. Kimber found out, thought it was hot, offered him the real thing.
ReplyDeleteSarah- yay, see you at blues! You can borrow the DVDs from me once I am finished. Which won't be long. I'm only three eps from the end of the series. I'll try to remember to bring a few tomorrow.
Lindsay. Ryan dated Lindsay in Season 1 of The OC.
ReplyDeleteNow all the people who come from "functional" families get paranoid because their parents that have been married for 30 years seem weird compared to all the blended TV families.
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