The Family

No self respecting tv-lover should have missed Wednesday night's 'The Family' a fascinating fly-on-the-wall look at the everyday life of a British family. A documentary once made, one revolutionary has been reborn in an age of cheap, desperate reality television.

Saying that, I nearly missed it, I was luckily because I came home to see it being repeated later the same evening. I was however, a little bit tipsy and though I had many a comment in my head that night, two days later it's gone.

'Why don't you 4OD it and then bother us with your thoughts' I hear you cry. Well, I can't be arsed so I'll try and piece whatever memory I have of the show and my thoughts on it together, excruciatingly.

Firstly, I remember being quite fascinated by the way they really looked like a family. I mean, they all looked alike. I found that incredible, that on our screens, on a daily basis we are faced with fake families and here they were, really, very real. It struck me and I realised just what this show was capable of: reality.

The focus was the mother's looming birthday and the eldest daughter's total irresponsibility. It was a classic scenario where the mother feels unappreciated, she feels old and disconnected, her daughter doesn't want to be around her and the rest. It reflected my own experiences in a lot of ways, in spite of the situation being completely different. No doubt I'd imagine everyone could relate and reflect each in their own special way.

My personal alliance lied with the younger siblings, the young boy who remained quiet, doing everything to please, trying to be nice but getting it thrown back in his face. It's trouble being the young one, the quiet sensible one. You get lumbered with the suspicion when you're older because your sibling lied and argued and shouted, but all the while you're honest and try to keep on the good side, not wanting to rebel. That's how I saw the boy, the way he didn't even know what to do with himself a lot of the time, quiet...silenced.

I liked it because I'm a voyeur but also because I'm human. Seeing the utterly, abysmally normal is quite satisfying. Seeing successes and failures and seeing the poignant moments where daughter and mother reconcile like the good friends they know they are inside. I feel like the family agreed to do it because they know it's not embarrassing really. They're aware that everyone in every average family will be able to read what's going on perfectly, no judgements, just sympathy.

I do wonder what happened (no, I haven't tried to research it), did they nominate themselves? Were they found for being statistically average? (wasn't that a Simpsons episode? Or Family Guy or something?). How did they agree? Did anyone kick up a fuss or did the media-whore in them get the better of them?

Then, saying that, I don't feel like that fame criticism is there, I'm not sure why but there's something else to it, perhaps the true reality aspect which nulls the whole celebrity hunger bullshit. Maybe they just saw it as important.

Is it important? Is it important for us to watch a family as they plod through their days, struggling at parenthood, struggling with adolescence, struggling with the very essence of the everyday? What does it achieve? I know I (drunkenly) felt some affection towards them through my empathy. But do we need it on our screens? And is it still revolutionary now?

I suppose it could be, because it reverts to the simple and it reminds us of what is missing, if we must be so obsessed with the reality format, then we should return to this level, the Big Brother Series 1 approach of shove some people in a a house, let them read if they want to and don't play stupid tricks on them all the time. It just brings us back to a question of purpose for television; public service or commercial. What do people needs vs what do people want?

I have no answers really, but I'll certainly keep watching, maybe I'll start to figure it out.