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Sunday, September 11, 2011
Functional.
Rowdy and I came up with another idea for Positive TV.
In the style of Intervention and Hoarders, Positive TV presents: Functional. Our camera crews will go inside the homes of functional families and observe how they treat each other with love and respect. Trained psychologists will interview family members and we will bring you shocking revelations on this little-seen way of life in our midst.
Experience it from the inside:
Resiliency!
Honesty!
Emotional stability!
Forgiveness!
Compromise!
Responsibility!
Unconditional love!
"On the surface, we probably looked like the perfect suburban family. ...That was about right, actually."
"Our family was close-knit and loving until our father, who had been the core of our lives, died suddenly. Then we really came together and learned to be there for each other."
"After some time, our mother remarried. Her new husband was very different from our father. But he's always been very good to us and really became a part of the family."
"Another shock came when my brother came out as gay. We were shocked that he'd taken so long to tell us, when he should know that he's safe telling us anything that's important to him. Still, we understood it was his decision when to share it with us."
"Growing up, you know, you don't question these things. You think of your family as normal. I just assumed everyone's parents included the kids in major decisions."
"The moment when it really crystallized for me--when I became aware of how we'd been living--was when I looked around the dinner table and realized that I didn't just love my family, I actually liked them."
Don't miss tonight's riveting season premiere, in which the Ramirez family realizes that their teenage daughter's spending is out of control, so they talk to her about it and she agrees to create a budget and stick to it!
A lovely idea, but there's no conflict, and therefore no drama, and therefore it would be boring. I mean imagine Romeo and Juliet where the Montagues and Capulets could merge and get along with each other. A Hamlet where Hamlet gets off the pot and just offs Claudius and rules as a philosopher-King? It would take 5 minutes.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as these people don't exist, I hardly think it's a REALITY series.
Ah, but what network would greenlight it? That is the question.
ReplyDelete@williamthecoroner,
ReplyDeleteThere are functional families that learn to get along, but there's still massive amounts of conflict. I mean, just b/c you love and like and respect someone doesn't mean you don't get angry with them or fight or disagree.
It'd be especially good if they could get poly families or undocumented immigrant families or other kinds of marginalized/non-normative families and show that they were still, in fact, totally functional.
ReplyDeleteReally my only problem with this idea is the title. I don't like the idea of a family actually getting the official label "functional," especially from an outsider. How would that be decided, and who would get to decide it? But give it a title suggesting these people aren't the ones who get the official label of "functional," but clumps of genetically related people who have actually pulled together and worked to survive a crisis together, and I'm completely sold. I'd watch it every time it was on.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this. I think it could work because while it wouldn't be DRAMA! or "look at these people...this is such a trainwreck I can't look away" or "I may suck, but I'm better off than these guys", it could fill the niche of a sociological study or even a how-to show. (like home improvement, except with family relationships instead of remodeling).
ReplyDeleteSo many people lack models for functional families, and only hear about them or see them from the outside. And the advice given in books and talks about interpersonal relationships often sounds cheesy and unrealistic-- seeing it actually working with what is (hopefully) a real family would be awesome for a lot of people.
If *only* TV worked that way . . .
ReplyDeleteBadass!
ReplyDeleteA lot of this (as well as a lot of the Nonfunctional stuff) is covered in what's generally considered "Womens' TV." A lot of the scenarios you list here are basically romance novel tropes. Uplifting stories are actually out there, they just don't get a lot of respect because they're considered "fluff" (and with the exception of sports underdog movies) marketed to women.
ReplyDeleteI would totally watch that! I think there would still be tons of drama and tension, it's just that the families would address the drama well.
ReplyDeleteAwesome heartwarming idea :) I really like it!
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I think I could really benefit from seeing how "functional" families behave. My family has always been so fucked up, you know? Watching real families interact in positive and supportive ways would give me something good to model.
ReplyDeleteThere already have been some shows like this. I'm thinking "Little People, Big World" and the first few seasons of "Jon & Kate plus 8" - they were pretty functional families that had their ups and downs but generally handled the challenges that came along in healthy ways.
ReplyDeleteInstead of drama, the gimmicks to hold the audience's attention were "midgets doing normal people things! (woah, they're people too!)" and "fertility gone amok/cute kids, lots of 'em!".
Isn't this what "Full House" tried to do in a really ham-fisted, moral-of-the-week type of way? Scoff now, but it was HUGE in it's heyday.
ReplyDelete@achteheelweit As a reviewer said, Full House's problem was that it *tried* to have issues, but it was looking at a picture book of someone else's family. Nice, but you don't really feel anything. And that godawful sappy music that played over the problem-solving speech every time didn't help.
ReplyDeleteI love "Little People, Big World." They are great parents. Too bad the fact that they are little is their selling point. Also ironically, I watched a show, I forget the title, about a polygamous family. Mind you, they were Morman so multiple wives only, which kind of irks me, but putting that judgement aside they were also a functional family, included the kids, talked and sorted things out, etc etc.
ReplyDelete^I think that is "Big Love." My roommate was obsessed with it for a while.
ReplyDeleteBig Love is fictional. Sister Wives isn't.
ReplyDeleteDid my comment on the original Positive TV post get put in a spamtrap?
ReplyDeleteI think this might be a good idea, maybe with a different title, and with perhaps a focus on diversity, because people who aren't abled/white/cis/het/middle-class/monogamous need attention too. Of course, if it DID ever become a real show about healthy family relationships, the network would have to be really careful about narrators because of them fucking up trans kids' pronouns.
ReplyDeleteAs someone with depression, I think I'd find a show like Functional really hard to deal with.
ReplyDeleteI spend a lot of my time thinking about how I'm fucking up basic things like getting the laundry done every week, and a show which really focussed on daily life would really highlight those gaps.
I kind of imagine no one would sit down and watch something like this. Instead, you'd leave it on in the background while you do your homework or cook or do the dishes or whatever.
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe if you're living on your own for the first time... ;___;
I ove this idea. I think it would make exciting TV because - at least in my world - functional families are something that's really unusual. I'd be watching something truly new and truly dramatic. AND it would be educational.
ReplyDeleteOK, so who's up for turning this into a web series? All we'd need is an HD camera, a website and a few families willing to share their lives.