Old Family vs Modern Family

All In The Family, a situation comedy that ran throughout the the 70's, based many episodes on then-controversial topics that were rare on television, all while maintaining top ratings. In the specific episode we watched, a man with an artsy flair to him was assumed to be gay by the main character, Archie. Many different words with negative connotations were spoken about Mike's friend to insinuate his homosexuality. All In The Family can be compared with the new ABC comedy; Modern Family. In this show, two regular characters are a gay couple raising an adopted child. The two shows are similar in that they can cover some uncomfortable topics, depending on who the viewer is. Many episodes feature how the gay couple, Cam and Mitch, create awkward situations based around their orientation. Just like in All In The Family when Archie learns from his experiences with homosexuality (that to be gay doesn't necessarily mean you can't be tough as seen with his friend, an ex-football player), the father of the family in Modern Family, Jay, often learns from his previous assumptions of gay men (his son-in-law who is gay is good with construction work and played football in college). All In The Family addressed equality with women through the scene where Archie was in disbelief with the situation where he couldn't lift a chair that supposedly only women could lift. He found it completely unrealistic to assume that a woman could do anything physically that a man couldn't. In today's shows like Modern Family, this issue wouldn't ever really surface. Women's equality has really been done to death in media, and only a minuscule part of the population still have any problems with it, so unlike gay's rights, women's rights isn't a huge focus like it was 30, 40, and 50 years ago.