Many theorists within the conflict paradigm have long warned about the threats posed by the capitalist system to the institutions of family and religion. Among them is Samuel Bowles, a sociologist in the field of education, who argues that capitalism, in its effort to purify the socialization of students, seeks to weaken other socializing institutions such as the family and the church. Likewise, some strategists of the capitalist system—such as Alvin Toffler in his book The Third Wave—have viewed the achievement of capitalist goals as dependent upon facilitating the acceptance of diverse family forms in the third wave, which he terms the “electronic cottage.” Therefore, the capitalist system's endeavor to make the construction of family more flexible—shifting it from a marital, husband-wife relationship to other forms aligned with economic imperatives is understandable.
The primary focus of this article is the construction of family in terms of the patterns of individuals and relationships that constitute it. While the couple-based family model (husband and wife) is introduced as one among various family patterns, in all natural or innate forms of the family, the couple relationship constitutes the fundamental foundation. In other words, although extended and nuclear families may differ structurally, the marital bond remains their essential model. Nevertheless, the capitalist media system has largely aimed at dismantling this foundation, promoting alternative bases for the family beyond the husband-wife dyad. This, in turn, leads to the erosion of the marital bond as a necessary and defining element of the family.
In the 1970s, the Hollywood media system—one of the most influential agents of the Western capitalist media complex—undertook a significant effort to deconstruct the constructed model of the family through the production of well-crafted and widely viewed television series centered on family themes. Series such as Three’s Company, The Odd Couple, Eight Is Enough, and The Love Boat serve as examples of this endeavor. These series aimed to transform the social construction or public perception of the family—traditionally based on a husband-wife dyad—into alternative patterns of relationships, including those between one man and two women, two men, or one man with eight children, thereby normalizing the fluidity of romantic and domestic arrangements.
The effort to disrupt traditional notions of family in Eight Is Enough, for instance, operates through the retention of biological ties within the household while simultaneously extending the imagined boundaries of the innate family unit. In reality, it is rare to encounter a single-parent household with eight children in American society. However, the experience of watching and identifying with the characters in such a series gradually stretches the audience’s perception of the innate family structure to the point of dissolution, causing a detachment from the original concept of the natural or normative family.
The series Three’s Company stands out as one of the radical family-centered shows of its time. This program challenges the model of the normative or natural family by introducing a new type of alternative to the innate family structure. Particularly, the title “Company,” with its dual connotations of companionship and a commercial enterprise, provides a framework for transforming the family into an economic unit.
The deconstruction of the innate family structure requires a fluidity of concept and the audience’s acceptance of this fluidity—a sentiment effectively conveyed in The Love Boat. This series, along with others aired from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, made significant efforts to disrupt the construction of the natural family. Their primary strategy was to create doubt about the concept of human nature (fitrah) by presenting functional and appealing alternatives to the innate family model—a phenomenon that can also be observed in some series and animations broadcast by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s national television.
Media are regarded not merely as tools for entertaining the public, but as instruments of cultural policy-making and power. Every medium, whether intentionally or not, assumes such a role. It is inconceivable that in a society governed by capitalism, media outlets are truly free to broadcast whatever they wish, or to cultivate individuals, groups, and communities in ways that could threaten the interests of the ruling minority. This issue becomes even more critical when those interests are defined beyond national borders, and media serve to eliminate obstacles to the achievement of broader global objectives. Given such an essential function embedded within the media, belief in their freedom is nothing but an illusion.
In a society such as the United States, where public perceptions and understandings gained importance, paradigms of symbolic interactionism and middle-range theories flourished. It was in this context that sociology was enlisted to develop more effective mechanisms for securing hegemony and safeguarding the interests of ruling groups. Social science theories as well as epistemological schools of thought, in the light of this orientation, gained academic popularity. The result of this interaction and collaboration between the capitalist system, the state, and universities is what we now observe in the media: the destruction and deconstruction of the natural family structure.
The general orientation observed in the television series under review reveals a coordinated effort to undermine the foundations of the natural family and to make alternative models appear plausible. In The Odd Couple, two men live together, yet their relationship never explicitly reflects homosexual dynamics that could have provoked public backlash at the time. Nevertheless, the show mentally prepares the audience to accept such relationships in subsequent decades. Moreover, the portrayal of a family composed of two men under the label of “family” plays a significant role in stretching the conceptual boundaries of the natural family.
If the deconstruction of the natural family structure is regarded as a key concept in this article, it is evident that this objective has been pursued in various forms. In The Odd Couple, this is achieved metaphorically through the presentation of an alternative model that replaces blood-related and heterosexual relationships with non-biological and same-sex connections. In fact, the natural family is defined as a group whose core consists of blood ties and marital bonds based on heterosexuality.
Beyond the aforementioned cases reflected in mass media during previous decades, contemporary times also witness more intense attacks on the family structure through social media networks alongside mainstream media productions. These efforts include the promotion of LGBT identities and structural initiatives that present deviant relationship models as valid partner preferences. Such actions have provoked resistance in rival social systems, prompting significant efforts to preserve the traditional family structure. Issues such as gender choice and preferences for same-sex or opposite-sex partners within formal education and family upbringing are, on one hand, outcomes of globalization and previously propagated media teachings, and on the other hand, they themselves intensify the assault on the construction of the family.