The Middle

After watching the documentary about television shows and class, I realized how the representation of the working class in sitcoms has changed over the years.  Shows decades ago such as Leave it to Beaver and The Brady Bunch focused on similar family traits: nuclear family, a nice house, a father with a good job, a mother who stays at home, and children who rarely get into trouble.  However, as the documentary acknowledged, television shows like Roseanne and George Lopez have changed the way families in these shows are constructed.  With this in mind, I thought of the relatively new show The Middle.  Although The Middle portrays a nuclear family, it also portrays a working mother who never cooks or cleans, a house that is somewhat small and always a mess, and kids who do not always get good grades and sometimes get into trouble.  The family members often fight with one another and are often unhappy.  I feel like this show more accurately represents a working class family because it is a family where the father is not the sole provider, they do not live in a gorgeous house, and the children are not always smiling and happy.  Even the title of the show suggests they are just a hard working, middle class family living in the suburbs.  The representation of the working class in television has definitely changed and evolved throughout the years.