Our TV Lives

When you look at the average prime-time sitcom on television, there’s usually the same family set up. Thinking of shows like 8 Simple Rules, Still Standing, and According to Jim, there’s the slightly overweight father, the attractive mother, and the kids who are generally 2 daughters and one son, the son being mischievous and the daughters being one smart, and one dumb. These families have also usually been portrayed as middle class and even if they do have struggles, they generally overcome pretty quickly. Whereas in shows like King of Queens, Malcolm in the Middle, and Raising Hope, the struggles are very apparent and may be dealt with, but we as an audience expect the challenges to continue. And while Busch writes in his article that there have rarely been shows that challenge the idea of this working class buffoon, fairly recently, there has been a show that does challenge this idea.

On the show The Middle, the father, Mike, works as a manager but at a quarry and the mother, Frankie, has bounced from a couple of jobs on the show and is currently going back to school. Even the children are a bit flipped in this show as there are two sons and one daughter. In contrast to the working class buffoon, Mike generally parents strictly and doesn't do things that could end up with him being made fun of. I definitely think this show is trying to challenge the stereotypical portrayal of working class families on television. They’re trying to show the struggles that many families face, whether they consider themselves middle class but yet can still be classified as working class. Even though Mike is a manager, they are still struggling as a dual income household because Frankie has worked in a few different careers and now she’s going back to school in hopes that she can get a stable job in an economy where even a bachelor’s degree isn’t a guarantee of a great job. In this way, I think the show demonstrates this idea of what class we are categorized into and how it can differ from the way we actually live.