When a Person Watches Television

When a person watches television, it can have various effects on their thoughts about family life. As The Cosby Show, many portray a family that seems perfect. With episodes bombarding TVs across the nation, it forces families to ask the question “Should we be living that way? They look so happy." In Stephanie Coontz’s article, she reminds us of the 1950s, when there was a standard of living that most people felt the need to live up to. It states, “They [modern parents] associate the 1950s with a yearning they feel for a time when there were fewer complicated choices for kids or parents to grapple with, when there was more predictability in how people formed and maintained families…” (Coontz). In the novel Sag Harbor, the Cooper family consists of Benji, his brother Reggie and their mother and father. They are a black family that goes on vacation to Sag Harbor in New York during the summer months when the kids are out of school. As in the 1950s, Benji’s family and many other families saw how simple of a life they could lead from shows such as The Cosby Show. With life looking so easy on television, why was Benji’s so complicated, with various surprises and problems around every corner?

Still today, The Cosby Show can be found playing on cable and satellite televisions. The show shines light upon many problems normal families face on a regular basis. In Andrea Valasquez's article, The Cosby Show, she quotes the book Enlightened Racism. It says, "The Cosby Show is really making a satire of life the way they're doing it, average every day things that happen every day. . . Because what they do, is they really carry it off and say these are things that can happen to anybody." Benji realizes this while interpreting the show and makes it known that his family faces some of the same struggles highlighted.

Benji watches how Cliff Huxtable, the father in The Cosby Show, is the head of the household and makes most of the decisions (Valasquez), much as his father does. Cliff is a doctor, just like Benji's dad and they act similar to each other by being assertive to the rest of the family. Also a similar character from The Cosby Show, the lawyer mother, Clair. Benji's mom is a lawyer in New York and proves to be just as hard-working as her husband. Benji, or Ben, notices this as well from watching the show. From seeing how the Huxtable family deals with issues in their household, it makes families, such as Benji's, realize that resolving problems should not be as difficult of a task as they are making it seem. His mother and father may think differently if they knew he was drinking beer and having his Uncle buy it for him, but that is besides the point.

Benji's father handles problems much differently than his mother would. He is an alcoholic that turns mean after too many drinks. In the book, Benji counts how many drinks his father was pouring, each one creeping toward