The War at Home is a sitcom that premiered on September 11, 2005 on Fox. The show also broadcasts in the UK by E4 & Channel 4, and in Hungary by HBO. The show is sometimes compared to another former Fox dysfunctional family sitcom, Married... with Children[1]. The show discusses controversial issues such as sex, drugs, racism and homosexuality. The show is currently in its 2nd season.
| The War at Home | |
|---|---|
| File:War at home.jpg | |
| Created by | Rob Lotterstein |
| Starring | Michael Rapaport Anita Barone Kyle Sullivan Kaylee DeFer Dean Collins |
| Country of origin | USA |
| No. of episodes | 35 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | approx. 22 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | FOX |
| Release | September 11, 2005 – present |
The War at Home will be permanently airing in the 8:30 timeslot on Thursdays following 'Til Death.
Plot
Dave and Vicky live with their three kids: Larry (Kyle Sullivan), Hillary, and Mike. Dave is a middle class, Jewish father who works as an insurance salesman. Being a pigheaded, paranoid, overprotective, and bigoted father, his family has a hard time putting up with him, especially Larry. Dave is constantly being chewed out by Larry, and even punched once by Larry, for always picking on him. It is established toward the end of the first season however, that Dave is the way he is because he had a father who constantly badgered him around. Dave is married to Vicky, an attractive, Catholic interior designer. Generally level-headed, she usually spends her time dealing with Dave's bad reasoning and behavior, but can also behave quite indecently herself.
The couple has three kids. The oldest is Hillary, a typical 17-year old teenager who often does what she's not supposed to and tries to get away with things behind her parents' backs. For this reason, she's often treated with suspicion by Dave and Vicky. Second oldest is 16-year-old Larry, an eccentric misfit. Larry behaves melodramatically, such as when Vicky denied him to go to see Brian Boitano star as Bilbo Baggins in an Ice Capades version of The Lord of the Rings On Ice. He is often with his best friend Kenny. Initially Dave thinks that they are possibly gay, but it is later revealed to the audience that while Larry is not gay, Kenny is indeed holding a secret crush on his best friend. Dave, and to a lesser extent Vicky, often treat Larry's flamboyancy warily. The youngest child, the pubescent 14-year-old Mike must deal with issues such as masturbation, dating, and underage gambling.
Dramatic style
The episode frequently breaks the fourth wall in between segments during the episode. Dave makes the occasional rant during some episodes.
Reactions of professional TV reviewers
A television critic, Matthew Gilbert, for the Boston Globe noted controversial dialogue that elicited criticisms of racism: "Does she actually think we're gonna let her go out with this guy?" the dad in Fox's The War at Home rants about his teen daughter's black friend. "I'd rather drink my own urine." [2]
Much of the program focuses on the father's displeasure at suspecting that his eldest son is gay. The means through which the show gets across the idea that the son is gay through the use of stereotypes has elicited criticism that the show is homophobic. Gilbert wrote:
But he's [the father] more like a karaoke Archie, mechanically spitting out his homophobic and racist gags at the camera as if they were banal sitcom punch lines. And even worse, we're supposed to laugh along with him, and not necessarily at him. We, too, are expected to fret because Dave's 15-year-old son likes show tunes.
Time magazine's James Poniewozik rated the show among 'The Worst TV of 2005', in the December 28, 2005 issue. [4]
The Washington Post deemed the show "unconscionably smutty", then continued,
the problem is not just that it's crude and gross, but that its crudeness and grossness are so pathetically forced and contrived. Its vulgarity has no integrity... all the characters are vile in spirit and objectionable in essence.
Focus Group Controversy
In September 2006, Open Line, published a report on focus group showings of the second season conducted in early 2006 in order to gauge general critical response to the show. Conducted in Brookings, SD, the report detailed how though some of the viewers had reacted negatively to the prominently crass humor, the majority of the male focus group participants found themselves identifying with the main character, and found his homophobia and sexism particularly endearing. Once this information was published, the participants offended by the release of this data filed a lawsuit for breach of privacy contract, and Fox has yet to issue a statement in response to the controversy. [citation needed]
Gay-Positive Efforts
Perhaps due to criticism of the main character's homophobia, the episode Out & In, first aired on January 4, 2007, deals in a gay-supportive way with Kenny coming out of the closet. The show closed with a public service announcement with Michael Rapaport, Rami Malek, and Kyle Sullivan, out of character, talking about The Trevor Project, a suicide-prevention support service for gay and questioning youth.
Template:Spoiler The plot involves Kenny admitting to himself, then Dave, the rest of the Gold family, and his own parents that he is gay, and his parents' (off-screen) negative reaction of kicking him out of their house. Although Dave uses some anti-gay slurs in the course of the episode and seems somewhat uncomfortable being hugged by Kenny, he also tells Kenny that he should be proud of who he is. With some prompting from Vicky, Dave also consents to let Kenny move in with them and begins to treat him as a member of the family.
Larry briefly has trouble adjusting to the magnitude of these sudden events, especially the fact that his best friend kept such a big secret from him for so long. However, he and Kenny quickly resolve matters, and Larry tells Kenny his sexual orientation will not be an issue in their friendship. Kenny does however keep his crush on Larry a secret for obvious reasons. Template:End spoiler
Cast
- Michael Rapaport .... Dave Gold
- Anita Barone .... Vicky Gold
- Kyle Sullivan .... Lawrence Allen "Larry" Gold
- Kaylee DeFer .... Hillary Gold
- Dean Collins .... Mike Gold
- Rami Malek .... Kenny