The War at Home (TV series)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The War at Home

Genre	Sitcom
Running time	approx. 22 minutes
Creator(s)	Rob Lotterstein
Starring	Michael Rapaport Anita Barone Kyle Sullivan Kaylee DeFer Dean Collins
Country of origin	USA
Original channel	FOX
Original run	September 11, 2005–present
No. of episodes	30
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

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. 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 will be airing new episodes on Thursday December 14 and December 21 at 8:30 following 'Til Death. This is a special test run and ratings will determine whether or not the show will get that permanent 8:30 timeslot.

1 Plot
2 Dramatic style
- 2.1 Reactions of professional TV reviewers
- 2.2 Focus Group Controversy
3 Cast
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Dave and Vicky live with their three kids: Larry, 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 parent's 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, with his father, deal with issues such as masturbation, dating, and underage gambling. His mother Vicky also smoked during his pregnancy, supposedly making him shorter according to him.

[edit] Dramatic style

The episode frequently breaks the fourth wall in between segments during the episode. Dave makes the occasional rant during some episodes.

[edit] 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.

[3]

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.

[5]

[edit] 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.