There were the Tanners, Connors, Matthews, Winslows, Sheffields, and Cosbys, these were the families that 90s kids spent their weeknights in front their TV screens for. Over the last two decades, these sitcoms have become a part of the late night rerun line up, and have been replaced by shows like Modern Family, Baby Daddy, Arrested Development, and The Middle. All sitcoms are categorized as such based on the fact they’re family oriented. All these shows are shows about families made for families. Despite this common ground, the sitcoms produced in recent years have evolved in many aspects such as the physical makeup of the family, gender roles, financial situations away from how shows depicted these things in the 90s. As time changed, so has the portrayal and the definition of the “average”
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In shows like The Cosby Show and Boy Meets World the family makeup was traditional and old fashioned. In both cases, the families were homogenous when it came to race; all the members of the Crosby family were African American and in the Matthews family they were all Caucasian. Modern Family, a sitcom that debuted in 2009, has a more diverse representation of races and sexuality as there is a Latina married to a white gentleman, a gay couple with an adopted Asian daughter, as well as the all-white and heterosexual family people were more accustomed to seeing on the TV screen. The “diverse” family that has appeared in various sitcoms is reflective of the recent advances that have happened in American society in regards to biracial families and sexuality. In the nineties, marrying someone of another race, yet alone of the same sex was not as common or legal as it is today. That is why back then on TV, the stereotypical family consisted of a wife, a husband (of the same race), and their kids. As opposed to families being represented with racially different spouses or staring same sex couples. With the
In shows like The Cosby Show and Boy Meets World the family makeup was traditional and old fashioned. In both cases, the families were homogenous when it came to race; all the members of the Crosby family were African American and in the Matthews family they were all Caucasian. Modern Family, a sitcom that debuted in 2009, has a more diverse representation of races and sexuality as there is a Latina married to a white gentleman, a gay couple with an adopted Asian daughter, as well as the all-white and heterosexual family people were more accustomed to seeing on the TV screen. The “diverse” family that has appeared in various sitcoms is reflective of the recent advances that have happened in American society in regards to biracial families and sexuality. In the nineties, marrying someone of another race, yet alone of the same sex was not as common or legal as it is today. That is why back then on TV, the stereotypical family consisted of a wife, a husband (of the same race), and their kids. As opposed to families being represented with racially different spouses or staring same sex couples. With the