Very recently, I watched the last episode of Persons of Interest and needed something else to watch. Over the last few years, I’ve watched a lot of different things and starting to run out of things to watch. I started searching around and found a show. It has Martha Plimpton in it, who I liked in Raising Hope, but the premise seemed horrible.
The Real O’Neals, or TRON, was described to me as being about a kid in a conservative Catholic family coming out to the world. With the media and shows as of late on TV being bent on giving us the “men bad, women good” maxim, this seemed like a perfect vehicle for SJWs about the hardships faced by gays in the world.
I will say that I enjoyed the show. For a show about a gay character, it is less gay than the second Tron movie. (As you can tell, I hated Tron Legacy). I will say that TRON is not an SJW TV show, and there is quite more going on with it than one gay character. I dare say, this is an example of how to have a family show about a gay character without appealing to politics.
Our show starts off with a mother of a Catholic family, who strives to have the perfect family. Whatever troubles they have are simply ignored in favor of presenting to the public that they have it all under control.
They don’t, especially since their youngest son has figured out he is gay and wants to come out to everyone, not just to his family, but his sexually aggressive girlfriend.
After a series of mishaps, we come to learn more about the family. The parents are getting a divorce. Their oldest son has an eating disorder, and their daughter is a kleptomaniac (setting up a ‘feed the African children’ fund to buy herself a car on Craigslist). And also, their youngest son is gay. But as they admit all of this in a secluded area, they learn it is not as secluded as they thought, and their entire church community hear all of this.
Perfect family… shattered.
The show starts off with these imperfect characters trying to deal with their flaws. The mother is still trying to push the family to be perfect, or at least fix the problems in her own way, such as her sending her son’s ex-girlfriend to try to get them to sleep with each other. In her mind, “He doesn’t know he’s gay. Perhaps if he sleeps with a girl, he might realize he’s straight.”
This, of course, failed. But if this were an SJW TV show, then we would see that the mother is 100% OK with her son being gay, and it would be the male members of the family having the issue with his sexuality. Instead, the father is more comfortable with it than the mother. For the most part, the mother is in denial.
The father is a bit of a dunce. This is a sitcom after all, and him being stupid is just a staple. However, he does get some moments to shine, like when the daughter has her period, she tells her dad because the mother guilts her on this subject of “don’t get pregnant.” The father is not prepared for this, and of course embarrasses his daughter in trying to find her tampons at the store. He then realizes that his daughter is becoming a woman, and he begins giving her self-defense tips and advice such as not setting her drink down to avoid getting roofied. (Yes, you read this right; a father teaching his girl personal accountability). By the end of the episode, he gives her a toolbox, which he refers to as her period kit, which has aspirin, chocolate, and a gift card to buy tampons when she needs it.
The father is having difficulty going through the divorce, and is feeling disconnected from the family, so he tries harder to be a part of his children’s lives, in contrast to the mother who mostly takes them for granted. Mother is more concerned what other women think of her than the needs of her own family. However, she does get a moment or two, such as defending her daughter’s science fair project when she uses Moore’s Law to prove there is no God (at a Catholic School no less). The mother later grounds her daughter, until she believes in God again.
Think about a show by SJW’s… does TRON sound like an SJW show?
But that’s just his parents, let’s talk about the children. Start with the older brother. Let’s just say, he’s stupid. He’s a moron. This, too, is a classic TV Trope that the older brother is stupid, not unlike the show Tool Time. However, he still has feelings, and his heart is in the right place, like when he believes that some kid has made a homophobic remark about his brother at school (which we’ll talk about in a moment,) he beats up the kid and afterward gets in trouble. Later in the first season, he feels like his father only likes him because he’s in wrestling, so he quits the team.
The daughter is a criminal mastermind. She has a few things figured out and doesn’t play by the rules. She knows how to get things done, so long as you don’t ask too many questions. She is also questioning her faith. We learn in one episode that she has skipped her confirmation class and has instead been working a job in the mall (at which she’s really good.) She has also manipulated the grandmother into giving her money, by being the ‘perfect’ granddaughter. She also goes in with her brother when they steal their dad’s police badge to go around town getting free stuff.
Last, we talk about the youngest son, Kenny, who is also the narrator of the show. His experience is more of a teen who is discovering himself and dealing with dating life and school life, and his crazy family. The only difference is, he’s gay. At first, he becomes paranoid that children at school are talking about him behind his back, so he announces to everyone that he’s a ‘fag’. He then learns that ‘fag’ is an offensive term at school, but because he’s now a protected minority, he doesn’t get into trouble.
When his older brother finds out about this, he beats up a kid with the same name has his brother, not understanding that his brother is both a victim and a bully for using the term. Of course, his older brother gets into trouble for beating up someone while ‘defending’ his brother. Kenny wants to leave school, so he too beats up the kid (same one as before), but again, he doesn’t get into trouble.
We see throughout this show, that the Vice Principal is giving special concessions out to Kenny, because Kenny is gay. You could almost call them: Privileges. Kenny finds a way to use this to his advantage in at least one episode.
Kenny spends his time trying to find love. His biggest issue is that he just doesn’t know that many gays in his area. His father tries to help by taking him to a gay coffee shop. His brother and sister try to help by signing up Kenny for a dating site.
There was a camping episode that I did dislike, on the fact that Kenny was shown as being afraid of nature, yet after seeing Reese Witherspoon in the film ‘Wild’, becomes a survival expert. That was a bit annoying. Plus the fact that Kenny was judging his father and brother, as they often wrestled each other, suggesting that male aggression appeared quite gay.
To be fair, there are tiny instances of SJW elements inserted here and there, but for the most part, it is not an SJW show. Had it been a show for SJWs, the mother would have been very comfortable with her son, showing more love to him than her other son, the father disowning his gay son and spending more time with his straight son, and the daughter taking on social issues for women, being the model of feminism. None of that happened.
The first season is over and it is coming back for a second season. Given how successful the first season was, it does worry me about if the second season will cater to SJW more now, especially given some negative comments recently by Noah Galvin (who plays Kenny.) He basically called Colton Haynes for his coming out of the closet pussy bullshit, or stating that Eric Stonestreet in Modern Family: ‘he’s playing a caricature of a caricature of a stereotype of stereotype,’ or Bryan Singer basically being a Pedophile.
Noah seemed willing to call shit like it is, but he then came out and apologized to everyone, stating he was wrong. Typical Hollywood, likely someone told him to apologize, so I’m sure he doesn’t actually mean it. On one hand, I agree with him as far as Modern Family, as the few times I’ve seen it, the character is a little ‘too gay,’ and calling out how fake people are in Hollywood and the lack of a true gay community. But either he should have known his comments would have been a big issue (thus not saying them at all) or he should have stood by what he said, as it makes him a pussy for apologizing. I can’t help but wonder if this was all a setup to add controversy to bring awareness of his show?
Despite what politics exist outside the show, I do recommend people watch it. It is a family sitcom, so it’s not really going to move people, but it does have some funny moments in it. Kenny can be stereotypical gay (like his love of ABBA. Do millennials still like a band from over 30 years ago?) T,here is some male on male kissing, but beyond that, it is a coming of age story. Hopefully, the second season will follow the example of the first season and keep the LGBT/Feminism/SJW politics out and just tell a story.
He's an easy going guy who loves deep analytical thought, enjoys gaming, and being goofy.
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Why do I feel the father bringing his kid to a gay coffee shop is cringy and paternalistic?
That’s the kind of shit I’d do but I can’t help but find that cringy, like dad jokes.
Why a father (or mother) helping his son/daughter find love while they are kids is cringy?
Maybe because sexuality is more adult, so you are either breaking the father norm by being a friend or you are hindering your kid’s sexual value by being paternalistic, basically making them look less mature and self sufficient.
But if you don’t you are a bad parent by not helping your kid.
this is one of the things in parenting that is really hard to figure it out.
I would contend that a parent trying to help his or her teenager “find love” (aka find someone to go on dates with) is not necessarily, or even typically, going to be about sex. It is a parent’s job to help children learn to be functional, healthy adults and encouraging your child to date while they still live with the parent provides the opportunity for communication about healthy romantic relationships. True, you can tell your child what a healthy romantic relationship should be and you can model it in your own life, but your child will most likely need some actual experiences in order to really learn. Encouraging your child to date, and even helping them by introducing them to people they otherwise might not meet, is not the same as telling the child to engage in a sexual relationship. I feel that learning to navigate the emotional aspects of a romantic relationship probably needs to come before adding in the physical aspect of having sex since it is through the emotional aspects that one learns to treat their partner(s) with respect. If one jumps straight to the physical aspects of these relationships there is an increased chance that the distraction of one’s physical needs, desires, and urges will stifle the emotional learning that needs to occur in the course of becoming a mature, adult individual.
Well, that already turned more long winded than I had intended so I’ll leave it at that. The only thing I’ll add is that I too have watched the show and I, as well as the other members of my family, did enjoy it.