The document compares the 1973 documentary series "An American Family" with the 2002 reality series "The Osbournes". Both followed real families in their homes and were early examples of the reality television genre. While "An American Family" was seen as a social experiment, "The Osbournes" was intended as entertainment. Both shows portrayed families that maintained traditional roles but added unique twists. Reality television must balance capturing real moments with conforming to audience expectations of what a television family should be.

1. Exraordinarily
Ordinary
The Osbournes as “An American Family”
Derek Kompare
BY: ANTHONY MENZA & MICHELLE SORIANO

2. March 5, 2002- Premiere of
The Osbournes
By its fifth episode, it
was MTV’s all time
highest rated regular
television series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17j8jryYK8o

3. In 1973, a PBS
documentary An
American Family
followed the lives of
the Loud family
Both shows followed the format of a “Reality Family”
and both were seen as unique and fresh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-yofcaPMk

4. Differences between the two
• In the 1970’s An American Family was seen as a
social experiment rather than entertainment.
The Loud Family was seen by critics as
symbols of the ultimate fallout of the 1960’s
lifestyle
• The Osbournes was seen as an innovation of
television comedy. They were celebrated for
their hip parenting and “let-it-all-hang-out”
media savvy

5. Genre and Family
• Both The Osbournes and An American Family
were premised on an awareness of the
categories of genre and family, and the role
each member of the family played
• They maintain the “traditional family”
stereotype (mom, dad, brother, sister, pet) and
add a unique twist

6. Genre and Family
• It is important for an on-screen family to have a lifestyle that viewers
would want to emulate
• The normative parameters of genre and family affected the
conception, production, promotion, and reception of both An
American Family and The Osbournes
• Functional families such as The Cleavers (Leave it to Beaver), The
Brady’s (The Brady Bunch) and The Simpsons (The Simpsons) were
seen as the normal “television family”, which means fictional events
and storyline’s must be introduced or influenced in the reality
“television family” in order to match viewers predisposition of a
television family

7. “Documentary and Reality”
• Both An American Family and The Osbournes have
the same intent; to capture REALITY, as opposed
to NORMALITY
• The term “documentary” should not be used to
describe these shows, but the root word,
“document”
• “While documentary has traditionally claimed to
produce truth about its subjects, documentation
instead displays examples of actuality...”

8. The Display of Ignominious
Bodies
• While An American Family in the 1970’s
had an aim to reveal hidden truths
behind the family’s lifestyle, The
Osbournes in the 2000’s playfully
depicted the ordinary things that the
extraordinary subjects do on a day-to-
day basis

9. The First Reality Sitcom
• MTV always ventured to keep its content
fresh and hip, and The Osbournes was the
first show to push the envelope in terms of
content limits, which appealed to younger
audiences, and continues to today with
shows such as Teen Mom, Buckwild,
Jersey Shore, or even Jackass.
• This broadening of the content limit paved
the way for all of entertainment today

10. CONCLUSION: “We Argue,
but at the End of the Day,
We Love Eachother
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF7ejMam3s8

11. • While the series’ portray actuality, it is important for
the audience to subconsciously realize that the
characters they see on these programs are just that:
CHARACTERS
• They do so by doing other media appearances, such as
talk shows, magazine articles, and radio interviews,
acting somewhat unlike their on-screen persona, which
is more towards the average side of things
• In the instance of The Osbournes, Ozzy and Sharon’s
eldest daughter Aimee never makes an appearance, in
an attempt to maintain her privacy

12. • “While An American Family and The Osbournes are
certainly unique television series’, they both had to
function under particular normative categories of genre
and family in order to be comprehensible, let alone
successful. The fact that they functioned in radically
different ways indicates how the content of these terms-
in particular, the effective meaning of television
“reality”- has shifted considerably over three decades.
Thus, the key question for reality television, now and
for the foreseeable future, is not whether its reality is
produced but how it is articulated with existing codes
and expectations.”