Arts & Entertainment
Dysfunctional Tribe
Though none of its characters is Jewish, co-creator Steven Levitan's life is fodder
for his new hit ABC sitcom, Modern Family.
N
Naomi Pfefferman
Jewish Journal of Greater L.A.
11 of our stories come from real
life Steven Levitan, co-creator
and executive producer of ABC's
Modern Family told 1,200 fans at a recent
Paley Center for Media event in Beverly
Hills, Calif. Asking his wife, Krista, to
stand, he told the PaleyFest group that she
really did smash his expensive television
remote control into a thousand pieces
and left it by their front door for him to
find. He then introduced their son, Griffin,
whom he was obliged to shoot with a
BB gun after Griffin shot his cousin; and
daughter, Hannah, whose video chat with
her friends caught him wearing nothing
but his underwear.
All raw material for a guy hailed as a
savior of the half-hour television comedy
for the uber-hit he created with longtime
collaborator Christopher Lloyd.
The show revolves around three dis-
parate branches of a dysfunctional tribe
headed by Jay Pritchett (Ed O'Neill of
Married ... With Children), a lovable
update on All in the Family's politically
incorrect curmudgeon, Archie Bunker. Jay
is as flummoxed as he is delighted by his
second marriage to the much younger,
explosive Colombian woman, Gloria (Sofia
Vergara), who came into his life with her
overly sensitive 11-year-old, Manny (Rico
Rodriguez). Jay's own son, Mitchell (Jesse
Tyler Ferguson), meanwhile, is an uptight,
gay workaholic who, with his partner,
Cameron (Eric Stonestreet), has just
adopted a baby girl from Vietnam. There's
also his formerly wild daughter, Claire
(Julie Bowen), now a stressed-out mom
married for 17 years to a dorky realtor
named Phil (Ty Burrell).
In one episode, Claire insists that her
husband sternly lecture their son about
viewing Internet porn. Phil's response is to
clandestinely show the boy how to delete
browser history on the family computer.
Levitan, like Phil, has been married for
17 years, has three children and views
himself as a "cool dad" to his unimpressed
kids.
If some of this MOT's own Jewish sensi-
bilities make it to the screen, it's not in the
way that early television writers used to
"write Yiddish, cast British:' as Neil Simon
O
The cast of Modern Family: Ed O'Neill, Sarah Hyland, Eric Stonestreet, Jesse Tyler
Ferguson, Ariel Winter, Julie Bowen, Sofia Vergara, Nolan Gould, Rico Rodriguez, Ty
Burrell.
put it. "Modern Family's multicultural
milieu is perhaps more similar to a show
like Everybody Loves Raymond, which
melded the Italian sensibilities of name-
sake star Ray Romano and Jewish co-cre-
ator Phil Rosenthal.
In an interview, Levitan credited the
success of Modern Family to its blending
of diverse points of view. Levitan says he
has "no filter" for his emotions; co-creator
Lloyd, in his opinion, is reserved. Levitan
believes that his own cultural sensibilities
at times trickle down to the writing, while
Lloyd sees no Jewish or religious sensibili-
ties on the show.
"We certainly don't delve into religion
— second, after politics, on the list of
show-killing topics — nor do we have any
intention of doing so," Lloyd wrote in an
e-mail.
"Personally, I have never understood
what a 'Jewish sensibility' is. I understand
what being Jewish is, and what many of
the tenets of the religion are — having a
Jewish wife is an asset here — but I have
never understood what people mean when
they speak of a Jewish manner. We are
skating on the edge of stereotyping here,
for my money"
"I think Jews tend to wear their emo-
tions on their sleeves:' Levitan said. "My
experience is that families are loud and
emotional, and you don't leave things in or
have an unexpressed thought.
"One of our constant issues is, what
level of fighting can these couples do?"
Levitan added. He cited the remote-con-
trol argument between Claire and Phil:
"They barely got into it, from my point of
view, and Chris was like, CI think they're
too angry'... But oftentimes, from our dif-
ferences, the best [work] comes!"
Levitan, 48, acknowledges his strong
cultural Jewish connection but says he
is not religious. He grew up attending a
Reform synagogue in suburban Chicago,
where he aspired to become a writer from
an early age. After graduating from the
University of Wisconsin, he took a job as a
reporter at Madison's ABC affiliate because
"I wanted to be on TV' he said sheepishly.
That career ended the day Levitan cov-
ered the drowning death of a child. Upon
seeing the family "sobbing and shaking:'
he said, "my first instinct was,'Where's my
photographer? Why isn't he getting this?'
And I thought, `I don't want to be this per-
son.' I quit three days later!'
Eventually, he got a job writing for
Wings, won an Emmy for Frasier and cre-
ated a slew of comedies, including Back to
You, which mined his TV reporting days
and was co-created with Lloyd. The show
died a quick death, as did Levitan's series
Stacked, starring Pamela Anderson.
"I was trying to deliver a hit for Fox,
which had given me a lot of money over
the years:' he said of Stacked. "And I
started asking myself, 'How did I go from
doing shows I really loved and believed in
to [this]?"
During a hiatus, he began jotting down
funny interactions between himself and
his children, which helped fuel Modern
Family.
The creators didn't want their show to
be "snark-Y,' Levitan said, but, at the same
time, they were concerned that the series
have some grit so it didn't come off as
"another cutesy, sappy family show." Some
of the edginess stems from politically
incorrect humor, which "always comes
out of the characters and their conflicts;'
Levitan said.
Thus, the patriarch, Jay, who is old-
school macho, "is dealing with his
son's homosexuality, but he's not com-
pletely at ease with it. He's also dealing
with a Hispanic stepson and an Asian
grandchild. He's trying to evolve, but he
blunders:'
So, why aren't any of the Modern Family
members Jewish? Casting, Levitan said. "I
don't subscribe to the thinking that people
won't fall in love with a Jewish family,"
he explained. "But when you have actors
like ours, they don't look Jewish or seem
Jewish. So even if some of the humor
seems Jewish, we're not avoiding the issue
to play to a mass market" El
Modern Family co-creators Steven
Levitan and Christopher Lloyd
Modern Family airs 9 p.m.
Wednesdays on ABC.
April 29 • 2010
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