Media – ATLAS Surrey

What is Modern Family About?

Modern Family is an American family sitcom / mockumentary which revolves around three different types of families (The Dunphys, The Pritchetts and the Tucker-Pritchetts) who are all interconnected to each other through Jay Pritchett, the patriarch (Grandfather/Father) of the family. The show was incredibly popular, and it ran for 11 seasons from 2009 until 2020.

Throughout the series, the show tackled a lot of themes either relating to the family or to real life issues in the world around them such as love, bullying, age differences, family values. However, in this blog, we will be focusing on the theme of LGBTQ+ due to two of the main characters, Mitch and Cam, being a gay couple in the series.

How Mitch and Cam are presented in the show.

Mitch and Cam are main characters in Modern Family as well as being an LGBTQ couple, they appeared in nearly every episode throughout the show’s run as well as being a part of major storylines that either involved their family, the LGBTQ community, or a mixture of both worlds due to them getting married in Season 5 with their loving and supportive family by their side.

When we were first introduced to them in the first episode, they adopted a Vietnamese girl called Lily who they raised and deeply loved and the family fell in love with her when they introduced her in the first episode. In Season 3, they attempted to adopt another baby but sadly didn’t succeed, however by Season 11, they decided to adopt a baby boy after their adoption profile was reactivated.

A major storyline around Mitch and Cam started in the first episode of season 5 after it was revealed that California has legalised gay marriage, Mitch and Cam proposed to each other by the end of the first episode even though a few members of the family were helping both out with their own separate proposals.

Throughout Season 5, a few of the episodes built up the hype for Mitch and Cam’s wedding such as one episode introducing a new LGBTQ character to help with designing the wedding, those episodes all finally led up to the finale where Mitch and Cam finally get married in front of their friends and family even though there were many mishaps along the way.

How Jay’s views of the LGBTQ community change over the series

Jay was presented as a traditional old white American when the series began, and it was mentioned that Mitch had to come out to him three times due to him not understanding why his son is gay which led to their relationship becoming strained. Even though he becomes closer to them, there were moments that his old ideals got the better of him.

An example of this was in an episode of season one where Jay introduced Cam as his son’s friend which made Mitch mad at him and pointed out that Jay’s friend might be gay. This prompted Jay to become supportive and comforts his friend, even though this was revealed to be a way of Mitch getting back at his dad, it shows how he deeply supports Mitch.

Another moment where Jay’s old ideals backfired heavily on him was when he couldn’t get his head around Mitch and Cam’s wedding and claims that he didn’t want it to be a massive spectacle in the episode before the season 5 finale which caused a massive rift between him and Mitch.

However, in the finale, Jay realised the errors of his ways and redeemed himself to show his love and appreciation for the wedding as well as Mitch and Cam by not only providing his golf club as a venue to the wedding, but he also walked Mitch down the aisle.

Even though he never said it, it is shown how he loves them deeply at certain points in the show by helping with the renovation of their burned down kitchen, bonding with Cam over football, and interacting with their LGBTQ friends. But in the finale of Modern Family, he announces that he loves Cam like another son to him as well as Mitch. The show explored this personal growth from homophobia to acceptance and understanding.

What themes around LGBTQ were shown in Modern Family?

Modern Family never shied away from tackling stereotypical topics in a few of the episodes as well as addressing real life issues that’s been happening in some of the episodes in the series or throughout the things that they say or mention.

Mitch never acted like a stereotypical gay person and his actor, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, is also gay and could therefore bring his lived experiences into the role. Cam did sometimes act flamboyantly in the earlier seasons, however both characters have their own individual aspirations such as Mitch being a lawyer and Cam having various careers before settling in as a openly gay football coach.

There were a few instances where there were some homophobic phrases or references to homophobia in the show, some examples comes from the first ever episode of the show when Mitch presumed someone called them “Cream Puffs” while the person was actually were commenting on the cream puffs that they were eating. Another example came from an episode where Hayley suggested that Alex was a lesbian though this wasn’t true. This was a powerful way for the show to address real life issues of discrimination in the LGBTQ+ community through comedy.

Did Modern Family impact the media / the world with their LGBTQ Representation?

Throughout its 11 year run, Modern Family inspired other TV shows to either bring in more LGBTQ characters due to Modern Family having a few number of LGBTQ supporting characters as well as having Mitch and Cam as their main characters.

The show also made other TV channels make sure that they had a better and positive portrayal to their own LGBTQ couples or main /supporting supporting characters without causing any offense to them.

Conclusion

In summary, Modern Family did represent the LGBTQ+ community to a high standard throughout the show’s run and made Mitch and Cam one of the most iconic couples in the media due to their stories and relationship throughout Modern Family. They also employed a gay actor to play a gay man which is important not only for representation but in ensuring the characters and stories are realistic.

Rose Alying Ellis: the first deaf Eastenders character and Strictly Come Dancing contestant

Who is Rose Alying Ellis?

Picture of Rose in an interview

Rose Alying Ellis is a British actress who was born deaf and mostly relies on sign language, however she often performs using Sign-supported English to reflect her own communication style and make it clear for audiences to understand her. She first gained an interest in acting after taking part in a filming weekend that was run by the National Deaf Children’s Society. It was on that weekend that she met a deaf film director that would kickstart her entire acting career.

Rose first acting role in a 25-minute movie called “The End” that was an award-winning short movie. She took part in several stage productions and in a music video by the Vamps as well as being a part of other short films. Rose also had minor roles in certain TV shows such as Casualty before finally landing her big role in EastEnders as Frankie Bridge in 2020 and becoming the first deaf celebrity to be on Strictly Come Dancing and becoming the winner in 2021.

Her time on EastEnders

Rose as Frankie Bridge

EastEnders announced that Rose would be joining the cast as Frankie Bridge back in February 2020 and she wouldn’t make her on screen debut until a few months later. On the 18^thof May, she was introduced as Ben Mitchell’s friend after he was diagnosed with deafness after the “Boat Crash” Storyline. She became a series regular while taking part in a few storylines in EastEnders over the past 2 years as well as getting a job at the Prince Albert Bar. She recently took a break from the show to focus on Strictly, however it was announced that she will return in the beginning of 2022.

The producers and writers of EastEnders were proud to create the soap’s first deaf character. They wanted to see more representation of deafness in the media and the use of sign language in scenes marks the first time it was used in any Soap Operas by an actual deaf actress. EastEnders also received a lot of praise with featuring a story on hearing loss and introducing a new deaf character. Rose also talked about her excitement with joining the cast and having her character being portrayed as a positive, upbeat person who embraces the deaf community and raises awareness for the deaf people in the UK and British Sign Language as well as being the first deaf character on the soap.

Her time on Strictly Come Dancing

Rose and Giovanni after winning Strictly Come Dancing 2021

On the 19^th series of Strictly Come Dancing, Rose was one of the 15 celebrities that was confirmed to be taking part this year. This marked the first time that a Deaf Celebrity was on Strictly or on any other major shows such as I’m a Celebrity or Britain’s Got Talent. Rose won the hearts of the entire world and eventually went on to become the champions alongside her partner Giovanni Pernice. In an interview that she did before the show began, she said “I have a hearing aid, so I pick up some of the music and I can hear the beat. I can hear someone singing, but I can’t identify exact words. I also feel the vibrations” which made people believe that she will do well on the show.

During Rose’s time on Strictly Come Dancing, she rose more awareness to the deaf community as well as having some memorable moments such as scoring 40 points for their tango in week 6 which was the earliest “perfect score” in the show’s history. But in week 8, their Couple’s Choice dance featured a period of silence, this was included as a tribute to the deaf community, that same dance also won the TV Moment of the Year at the Heats Unmissable Awards.

How did she bring more awareness to the deaf community?

Since Rose won Strictly, she has raised more awareness of the deaf community helped to increase the number of people wanting to learn sign language: google searches for BSL have gone up by 448%. This would be beneficial as even learning a little bit of sign language can allow a hearing person to make a difference to the deaf community and help them understand one another. As well as that, she also shown how deaf people can do anything that they wanted to do.