1. Tim Skladzien
Media Crit.
Paper #2
Modern Family’s “Game Changer”
A game changer can be huge! In our everyday lives, it can be just one little thing that
can make or break a job or a relationship. But in the TV series, Modern Family, Game
Change is the title of an episode that makes reference to those little white lies that the
characters, like many of us in real life, make to achieve peace and harmony. While
analyzing the narrative complexity and the use of genre conventions of this episode, a
look into this sitcom reveals a non-traditional family that supports traditional family
values.
The Modern Family is actually made up of three families. The first family is the
Dunphy’s: Phil, the dad, who likes to think that he’s cool, his wife, Claire, the mom, who
admittedly was a little crazy as she was growing up and is worried that their three
children will fall into her mischievous foot steps, their three children, Haley, a high-
school space-cadet, Alex, a nerdy 8th
grader, and their curious and clueless younger
brother Luke. The second family: Mitchell and Cam are a gay couple that become parents
after adopting their Vietnamese daughter, Lily. Mitchell is brother to Claire and they are
children of Jay Pritchett. The Pritchett’s are the third family who include: Jay, his second
wife Gloria, younger and vivacious, and her son Manny.
In Game Changer, the plot is centered on Phil wanting the newly released Apple iPad
for his birthday. In order for that to happen, his wife Claire needs to be in line at the

2. Apple Store when it opens. The game that’s changed is the strategy needed to make that
happen. Simultaneously, the Pritchett’s have their own dilemma regarding the truth as to
which one of them is actually the best in playing the game chess. Mitchell and Cam are
involved in their own game when their baby monitor picks up conversations from a
neighbor that implies marital infidelity.
Within the thirty-minute episode, the game-changing plot relates to Mittell’s
description of discourse time as the temporal structure and duration of the story is told
within a given narrative. He states “Narratives often reorder events through flashbacks,
retelling past events, repeating story events from multiple perspectives, and jumbling
chronologies…” (Mittell). The episode, Game Changer of Modern Family, relates to
what Mittell calls the plot where communication is ongoing between characters; the
communication always involves conflict. In the beginning, Phil talks about how he would
be complete if he got the iPad for his birthday. As the episode continues, flashbacks shed
light on the events of his birthday, from Claire oversleeping and not getting to the store
on time to multiple individual scenarios involving attempts by her, Mitchell, and Luke to
find an iPad for Phil. Mittell also states that plotlines often play with discourse time by
creating an interest in the events of the episode by waiting until the end to reveal the
instigating incident that occurred near the beginning of the story. The viewer is lured to
find out how this family needed to change their game and ultimately give Phil an iPad.
Modern Family can be compared to the 90s TV Series: Seinfeld. Mittell identifies
Seinfeld as thriving in the mechanics of its plot, individualizing stories for each character.
Like Seinfeld, Modern Family typically starts out with three individual plotlines
involving each of the families while leaving how the stories will collide to the viewer’s

3. imagination. Mittell comments that when watching Seinfeld, one would expect each
character’s petty goals to be thwarted. In Modern Family, producers Steven Levitan and
Christopher Lloyd pull off the narrative mechanics required to bring together the three
plotlines into a comedic narrative machine. In this particular episode, The Game
Changer, Jay, the husband/step-father is always right. In this incident, the husband
would, again, decompensate if he weren’t the best at playing the game of chess. He
usually tends to think he knows it all as he’s pretty much the oldest in the family. It is
interesting that the writers/producers use the “game” of chess when using the example of
changing one’s game. The stepson is told by his mom to be dishonest while playing the
game with his stepfather to maintain peace, harmony, and his masculine image.
Dishonesty is pathetic and warrants psychological intervention. However, “the little
white lie’ comes into effect when dishonesty changes the game; the step-son, Manny
purposely puts his king in check and loses the game. Changing the game allows the
hierarchy of the family to be maintained; everyone is happy.
When Claire overslept, she told Phil the truth about not getting to the Apple Store and
getting the iPad for his birthday. Phil decompensated, felt his family didn’t care, and
retreated to activities he knew that would make him happy; he changed his game. After
taking it upon himself to make his own birthday celebration the producers show that with
each different experience he chooses, he feels worse. While done in a morally correct
manner, being a game changer is not a negative reflection toward an individual as
exhibited in obtaining the ultimate birthday present, maintaining “the man of the house’s”
self-esteem, and intervening in a neighbor’s possible marriage crisis.
Vladimir Propp’s study of Russian fairy tales was published in Morphology of the

4. Folktale in 1928. He concluded that similarities existed amongst the tales where
characters fell into one of seven types of dramatic people: hero, villain, donor, dispatcher,
false hero, helper, and princess and her father (Narrative Theory, Kozloff pg. 71). The
actions of these people served as the momentum for telling the story. These stories/tales
are guided by unwritten rules. This explains how these stories can be both variable and
consistent. In Game Changer, Phil wants an iPad. The family exhausts all efforts
including telling a life and death story to get Phil one. Someone feels for Phil and gives
the family an iPad and Phil is happy. In addition, Jay has to win at playing chess. Gloria,
an expert chess player, taught Manny to be an expert player too and also taught him how
to always let Jay win the game. Manny looses reluctantly and Jay is happy as a clam
when he wins. Then, when Cam hears the neighbor’s conversation over the baby alarm
and assumes that his planned meetings with secrecy to his wife might be evidence of a
marital affair, he takes it upon himself to report the alleged affair. He decides to confront
the neighbor, but learns of the truth of the secretive conversations during another baby
monitoring eves-dropping time.
The narrator of Modern Family is homodiegetic since he is a character in the narrated
world that he describes. In this episode Phil is the narrator as the camera shoot isolates
him describing his personal story. He is definitely narrowly focused because all he cares
about is himself. As the narrator Phil seems trustworthy because he portrays himself to
the viewers sympathy making us put ourselves in his shoes. The episode begins with Phil
telling his woes and about his family not caring enough to make his birthday special with
the gift that would make him complete. Flashbacks are used to manipulate time while
serving as a break in the chronology where past events are disclosed to the viewer.

5. Mittell argues that the pleasures offered by complex narratives are richer and more
multi-faceted than conventional programming, even in fact unconventional. Standard
narrative characteristics introduce a plot; chronologically follow the events that lead to a
resolution of the problem identified at the beginning of the episode. Mittell identifies
narrative complexity as being wide spread from the 1990s to the present as the era of
television complexity. In Contemporary American Television, narrative complexity
allows for manipulation of plots and characters weaving through a period of time without
fear for temporarily confusing the viewer. This is what sets television apart from film.
Television’s narrative complexity is predicated on specifics facets of storytelling that
seem uniquely suited to the series structure that sets television apart from film and
distinguish it from conventional moods of episodic and serial forms. Modern Family is a
definite example of narrative complexity because the elements of the show involve
storytelling. Since there are three different families and three different stories involved in
Modern Family, the show is not based on one story nor one event that starts at one point
and continues to a resolution at the end of the episode. Each of the episodes deals with a
different plot or controversy. Each episode introduces a specific situation, centering on a
theme that the characters discuss at the beginning of the episode (for example, their
greatest fear or in this episode, lying to make a bad situation right.) This character
monologue is centered on that character/s of which the main theme or lesson is learned.
The monologues are a great part during the s how because they show the character/s
venting their feelings about the issue at hand that sets the tone for the plot. As the plot
continues, it depicts how the family member/s or the families deal with and resolve the
situation. At the end of the episode, the family member/s or families present their final

6. thoughts on the situation.
Modern Family is classified as a family comedy. It is based on humor and the family
provides entertainment through exaggeration of real scenarios. The Modern Family can
be typical of some current day families. However, it is an addendum to what was
considered the conventional family of many years ago when divorce, re-marriage, and
homosexual relationships were not the social norm. Producers Steven Levitan and
Christopher Lloyd have previous experience with sitcoms. In this case, they’ve created a
multi-family story with Modern Family telling multiple stories of multiple families that
flow well and intertwine while providing lifelike humorous scenarios to the viewing
audience.
In Genre Study & Television, Jane Feuer states, “Genres are made, not born.” A
genre is constructed based on something abstract rather than something that existed. As a
situation comedy, Modern Family meets Feuer’s description of identifying its salient
features: the half-hour format, the basis in humor, and the problem of the week. While
Critic David Marc believes that certain authors, or in this case producers Levitan and
Lloyd, make Modern Family into a social satire. Feuer’s approach to a sitcom genre
would be a synthetic one: developing, for historic reasons, toward the future development
of the season’s episodes. Along with Modern Family’s salient features are those generic
conventions that give this show its creditability as a situational comedy. In particular,
those conventions are acting, mise-en-scene, plot, camera angles, cinematography,
editing, and title sequences. The acting allows for each character to max out at their
stereotyped role. This is seen in the overly compulsive Phil needing to have every little
detail for his birthday the way he wanted it to Claire’s flighty behaviors to compensate

7. for her mistakes. The lighting and camera set the mise-en-scene during the show is relates
that of a typical family sitcom where the characters are directly facing the camera and
talking into the camera as if they are being interviewed, like in The Office, for example.
"Modern Family" strides to be a diverse family on television. In each of their families
home there is a thoughtful interior set designs for each home. The set designers and
decorators make sure their main settings: the homes, reflect just that. For instance, Jay,
Gloria and Manny live a more sophisticated lifestyle and that's apparent by the sleek
furniture that blends her Columbian roots (exotic prints) and his more traditional taste
(leather couch). For Phil, Claire and the kids, we see a more family friendly, comfy look,
albeit posh look with eclectic patterns. Not only do the producers and crew make the
mise-en-scene recognized in each of the families’ homes, but they also bring out Gloria,
the hot Columbian woman with her make-up and clothes and contrast her to her older
husband Jay really could care less about how he dresses or the physique he keeps. The
plot in Modern Family episodes focuses on life’s experiences that many people go
through and don’t think that other people are having the same experiences. That is why
Modern Family has been awarded many Golden Globes because it is successful in
allowing the viewer to laugh at himself while laughing at the members of Modern
Family. The humor is achieved through editing allowing slower cuts between scenes to
build up to a punch line. Editing also allows for the character, as the narrator, to talk to
the camera. Title sequences are apparent at the beginning of each episode of Modern
Family when each family stands as a group holding a picture of another family in their
modern family.
The emotional expectations this genre sets for the audience is humor and satire. Each

8. week real-life funny situations happen and the following episode/ week begins an entirely
new and funny situation completely independent of the previous week’s episode. Usually,
the situation becomes complicated due to some human error and confusion builds in the
television family resulting in comedy relief among the viewers. There really are no
cognitive expectations from the viewer standpoint. Feuer identifies Horace Newcomb’s
explanation that the situation comedy gives simple and reassuring solutions to problems.
The viewer is not challenged nor forced to re-examine their values. In addition Newcomb
identifies the sitcom as the most basic of the television dramas because it is the farthest
from “real world” problems, like those seen in crime shows. The problems actually give
viewer a feeling of security: simple problems, simple solutions.
Modern Family is part of the generic revolution in programming that evolved
because of the needs of the viewers. Viewer’s needs are determined by shifts in culture
and/or the demands of the television industry. Modern Family has evolved because of the
successes of previous situational comedies like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the Dick
van Dyke Show, and Full House. These are examples of how the genre didn’t change, but
the audiences did. While these comedies were based on problems encountered by family
members, the commonality exists to today’s situation comedies because humor can
allows be found within families.
Through analyzing the narrative complexity and the use of genre conventions of
Modern Family, television has proven that it has progressed from the conventional sitcom
to those much more innovative. This allows for the use of storytelling to provide
entertainment while being unconventional. Technological advancements and viewer’s
interest in shows like Modern Family sets the pace for new storytelling strategies by the

9. producers of television programming.
Works Cited
“Media Criticism Blog: Blog #2- Narrative Criticism in Modern Famliy.” 10 Mar. 2011
Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
Merritt, Jonathon. “From ‘Full House’ to ‘Modern Family’: Ten shows that forced us to
reimagine the American family.” Religion News Service: Jonathon Merritt on
Faith & Culture. 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
“'Modern Family' Decor Is Up For Grabs, Satisfying Your Inner Claire Dunphy
(PHOTOS).” huffingtonpost.com. Huff Post Home, 7 Sept. 2013. Web. 28 Feb.
2014.

10. producers of television programming.
Works Cited
“Media Criticism Blog: Blog #2- Narrative Criticism in Modern Famliy.” 10 Mar. 2011
Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
Merritt, Jonathon. “From ‘Full House’ to ‘Modern Family’: Ten shows that forced us to
reimagine the American family.” Religion News Service: Jonathon Merritt on
Faith & Culture. 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
“'Modern Family' Decor Is Up For Grabs, Satisfying Your Inner Claire Dunphy
(PHOTOS).” huffingtonpost.com. Huff Post Home, 7 Sept. 2013. Web. 28 Feb.
2014.