My favorite show is “ American Dad ,” a cartoon series created by Seth Macfarlane, Mike Barker, and Matt Weitzman. It revolves around a nuclear family with a father named Stan Smith who works in the CIA. His wife Francine is a devoted housewife. The couple has two children, their liberal daughter Hayley and socially awkward son Steve. The family also lives with a talking fish named Klaus and an alien called Roger. Although cartoon series are often ridden with inconsistency, they also show an exaggerated view of contemporary attitudes and societal practices.
Stan and Francine Smith are in a monogamous marriage. Aspects of monogamy are depicted all over the show for instance Hailey’s marriage to Jeff and that the residents of Langley falls that appear on the show are also in similar unions. However, the show being a cartoon series allows room for inconsistency in the relationships depicted. For instance, there is an episode when Stan marries another woman who he feels that he has more in common with, but by the end of the episode he goes back to his wife. Francine is a housewife and she performs all household chores including cooking, laundry, and cleaning up while Stan, as the primary breadwinner, goes to work to provide for the family. A woman’s ability to succeed financially is questioned because anytime that either Hayley or Francine try to start a business on their own they fail and have to go back to being dependent on Stan. For instance, Francine tries to start a cupcake business but it fails. Hayley also starts an organic mulch business and it also fails.
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In the U.S the traditional view of a family depicts it as consisting a married heterosexual couple who live with their unmarried children. The Smith family from American Dad is overwhelmingly traditional in this sense. However, in a few cases it deviates from this traditional view such as when Hayley and Jeff as a married couple move back home to live with her parents. The fish and alien can be regarded as family pets. The Smith family is patriarchal because the father has authority over the other members. Stan is always trying to control the way his wife and daughter lead their lives where he views himself as an authority on morality. Although the extended family is not often featured on the show, Stan’s side of the family is usually more welcome than Francine’s.
The man is the primary breadwinner while the woman is confined to the home doing house hold duties as well as childrearing. The children do not play any major roles. Steve is in middle school and he spends most of his spare time playing with his friends. He is constantly trying to get his father’s approval because Stan thinks he is a loser, but he has a close relationship with his mother. Hayley is the rebel. She is in community college and even though she is an adult, she primarily lives at home. Hayley is a liberal which places her in constant conflict with her conservative father and she does not seem to have a solid relationship with her mother.
American Dad depicts monogamous and heterosexual marriage. Even though Stan and Francine often find themselves confronted by various differences and conflicts, they always stick together. Divorce is depicted rarely but it exists. For instance, Stan divorces Francine so that he can have sex with other women after discovering that Francine has the largest sex garden when she has a rose bush for every man she has been with. He however gets back with her by the end of the episode. Cohabitation without marriage is not depicted in this show. While most relationships are heterosexual, the Smiths have homosexual neighbors. Hayley also shows signs of being bisexual when in one of the episodes she tells her parents that she is planning to move to France where she can be more outgoing and engage in “…wild love affairs, including one with a woman named Simone.”
