Gay Today: People

All in the Familia

By Jesse Monteagudo

Recently PBS began airingAmerican Family, a dramatic series about the Gonzalez family of East L.A. directed and produced by Gregory Nava (El Norte, Selena).

Though Latino family life has been dealt with before on television (Showtime's Resurrection Blvd) and in the movies (Nava's own My Family/Mi Familia) American Family is the first dramatic series about Hispanics to air on English-language, broadcast TV.

PBS's American Family, starring Edward James Olmos and Raquel Welch, brings Latino life to the small screen

The series is produced, written and directed by Latinos and boasts an "a-list" cast of talented Latino actors: Edward James Olmos, Sonia Braga, Raquel Welch, Constance Marie, Kurt Caceres and Esai Morales, just to name a few. (The mere presence of Morales, one of the sexiest men on Earth, was enough to plop me down in front of my TV set on Wednesday nights.)

Growing up in a Latino (Cuban) family myself, I could relate to this Mexican-American family's attempts to strike a balance between tradition and assimilation. In short, American Family struck a chord with me.

Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the population of the United States, and it is natural that PBS would want to reach out to this particular group. PBS did not hesitate to buy American Family when CBS turned down the series.

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Related Sites:
American Family: Official Site

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But what would have been a commendable series on CBS became less than adequate when placed against the likes of Masterpiece Theater or Great Performances.

Basically a soap opera, American Family is melodramatic and cliché-ridden, and its plots are invariably predictable. Likewise, the characters are stereotypes: the gruff but lovable patriarch, the self-sacrificing mamacita (who dies in the first episode), the successful son who is a doctor, the not-so-successful son who is an ex-con, the activist daughter, the assimilated daughter who's married to an Anglo and so on.

Esai Morales stars as Esteban Gonzalez

Whoever is writing the scripts for this show must think of it more as a primer for curious Anglos than as a complex reflection of Latino life. And I am still waiting for Esai to take his shirt off.

Of course, like many viewers, I expected too much from American Family. If this is so, it's because "American Family" is the only show of its kind (outside of cable's Resurrection Blvd.)

In fact we have to go back to Que Pasa, USA, a 1977 series about the Cuban-American Peña family of Miami to find another PBS show about Latinos in America. If we had a greater variety of TV series about Hispanics to choose from, we could be kinder to "American Family".

Though a soap opera, American Family is superior to most daytime dramas, not to mention the telenovelas that dot Spanish-language television throughout the Americas. What soap opera can boast a director like Nava, or stars of the caliber of Olmos, Braga, Welch, Marie, Caceres or Morales? If we accept it for what it is, American Family can be quite enjoyable.

Since this is a gay column, I cannot leave out American Family's gay angle.

Unfortunately, there isn't any. Though the 10 members of the Gonzalez family range from 6 to 60, none of them are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Either Nava has a surprise in store for us in the future or he thinks that sex and gender variance do not exist in Hispanic families.

Coming from a Latino family with at least one queer member (me), I can attest otherwise. Certainly a TV family that boasts a doctor, a "drama queen" (female) and a cyber geek can make room for a lesbian or gay kid, cousin or even a next door neighbor. If los Beltràn could do it in Spanish, why can't the Gonzalez do it in English?

A.J. Lamas is Cisco Gonzalez in American Family

Growing up in a television age, we yearn to see people who resemble us on the TV screen. For those of us who are ethnic, racial, religious or sexual minorities, TV often fails to reflect our lives.

That is why whenever we come across a show that deals with people like us - whether it be American Family, Soul Food or Queer As Folk - we expect things from it that it cannot or will not deliver. Though American Family is a good show within its limitations, limitations are often not good enough. So we accept it for what it is, hoping that it will get better or that a better show will come along.

Jesse Monteagudo is a South Florida-based writer who shares an American Family with his life-partner of 17 years. You may reach him at jessemonteagudo@aol.com