Character Analysis: The Fosters

In Melanie Kohren’s book, “Queer Representation, Visibility, and Race in American Film and Television”, Kohren compares the TV shows, The Fosters and the 2006 American television drama series, Brother & Sisters. Kohren states, “… the Fosters center on relationships between parents and children. While The Fosters may appear as focused on domesticity as Brothers & Sisters, the outcome is very different. Instead of mounting a defense of the white domestic sphere, The Fosters allows for a redefinition of domesticity that emphasizes familial belongs among people who are unrelated and come from multiple cultural backgrounds. The Fosters’ theme song emphasizes, “it’s not where you come from, it’s where you belong.” This type of belonging is hard-won.” (Kohren, pg. 82). Kohren goes on focusing on …show more content…
When Stef and Lena decide to get married, Frank receives the invite to the wedding but Stef mentions to her dad that he is to only attend if he can support them and be happy for them. In result, Frank does not attend the wedding. Later in the first season, Frank resolves his issues and realizes he has been wrong to not care for his daughter’s happiness and to let religion get in the way. Kohren states, “Overall, The Fosters explore lesbian identities in the context of an interracial relationship, redefining familial belong, and acknowledges that identity formation in the media is an on going process, especially in to viewers that are a part of a tradition family. Programs like The Fosters make me hopeful that the discourse of queer representation is indeed entering a new phase in the second decade of the 2000s- one in which those types of queer representation that have been screen out for a long time reasserts their presence and make a move from the edge to the center of the screen” (Kohren, pg.