Luke’s best moment was his declaration that he wasn’t very liquid at the time.
There is an episode where Gloria asked Jay if he was going to work and he said, “I’m the boss, since I married you, people are surprised I come in at all.”
Oh yeah - she looked like, what, Trailer Trash Claire?
Yup. It seems to be turning into a running joke on the show why Manny looks the way he does (with his two drop-dead gorgeous parents).
I’d watch it.
[Resume hijack]While it really doesn’t bother me on this or several other TV shows, in fairness I have to admit the wealth of the characters make many seminal '80s and '90s films absolutely unwatchable to me (Risky Business, Ferris Bueller, Home Alone, Uncle Buck, etc., even movies with kids who have realistic problems such as Breakfast Club or Dead Poets Society). Knowing fully well that money alone doesn’t bring or guarantee happiness, the knowledge of how many problems it would most definitely have solved in my own life and those of most of the people I loved, especially at the time when these films were big news, make them unenjoyable; when you’re trying to work your way up to emptiness and teen-rebellion and existential angst it just makes you seethe and want to scream at the rich characters “Well at least you don’t have to worry about the lights being turned off or whether the repo order has already gone out…”.[/Resume hijack]
Different strokes I guess. It just seems that the spending goes beyond the usual suspension of disbelief of real estate. It’s the extravagance of their lifestyle that kind of bugs me. Things are done with money that seem beyond just the excess especially on a single income.
Though I guess the things that I really take issue with can easily be handwaved to say that it’s Jay’s deep pockets that are funding it, but it’s still extravagant. The vacations (hawaii and dude ranch), the snow machine, so many tee-times, going shopping just whenever and always coming back with multiple, multiple bags, etc.
also, to whoever that thought that haley’s bf was too dumb to be in private school. in affluent suburbs of NYC/DC/LA private schools are pretty normal and in some cases the standard. Often it’s unrecognizable from a typical high school and people send their kids there because the local public HS’s are split between super-difficult magnet programs for the super-smart and really crappy warehouses for the rest. It’s perfectly reasonable for a guy like haley’s bf to go to a private HS because he couldn’t get into a magnet program and his parents didn’t want him to get shipped off to a public HS.
Is there an episode where they specifically say the kids are at a private school? It was my impression that Haley, Alex*, Luke, and Manny all attended public schools. I remember Cam and Mitchell were trying to get Lily into some ritzy private preschool before being outdone by “disabled interracial lesbians with an African kicker”, but not any reference to the others being in private schools.
*Wait a minute, that combination of names suddenly seems significant. Coincidence, or joke that I totally missed until now?
It’s been mentioned in previous threads about the show but beyond the fact that Modern Family is about a family and Alex Haley wrote Roots which is about the semi-fictional journey of the author’s family, what connection is there? I chalk it up to coincidence.
It’s been mentioned in these boards before, but I don’t know that anyone has determined for sure whether it’s intentional.
I think you are forgetting that there is a large population of us viewers in the “flyover” states who don’t apply the expense of the coasts to our thought process. I’m firmly in the middle of middle class and live in a house very comparable to the one that Phil and Claire live in… as does my neighbor who is a Realtor. Also, the fact that Jay is well to do makes the vacations a simple thing… my parents are very successful and they took the whole family to Costa Rica for ten days (cost me the price of a few tee shirts and some beer at the bar). This is fairly common for people I know. Tee Times… the golf course near me is $20 on weekdays and $25 on weekends. The people I know who play golf as part of their business relationship, and probably play at nicer courses just consider it a business expense… no big deal for a middle class person to do.
I have to say that living above their means never even entered my mind.
But are you single or dual-income? My parents are dual income and Phil and Claire’s house is at the upper end of what they would consider purchasing. It’s the fact that the only money coming in is from Phil’s house-selling that makes us look slightly askance at it.
That’s pretty much what I was thinking. Golfing, vacations and shopping aren’t really things that only millionaires do. And even if they are…so what. I think we’re supposed to working under the assumption that Jay’s a millionaire.
If you’re worried about it being single or dual income…I have a single friend, owns a factory (just like Jay!) that I know is a millionaire. I also have very good friend who’s grandfather owns a horsetrack, I believe he’s worth something closer to 50 million…last I was told her grandmother doesn’t work.
Dual… but by choice. We could (and have) lived a similar lifestyle on my income alone. We have three kids who play travel sports which costs way more than a vacation to Hawaii every year or multiple tee-times would. The Realtor next door is a single income family.
But just because your parents can’t afford a big house together doesn’t mean no one person can afford it on their own.
It seems odd to me that it’s odd to you. I don’t know how else to phrase this so forgive me if this comes off as rude, but it seems like your saying that no one is allowed to make more money then your parents. I imagine when you drive around town you see bigger houses then theirs. Can you really not imagine a divorced father living in one of them with some kids or a married family with a working husband/housewife scenario?
I didn’t say couldn’t purchase (and my parents are more strictly a 1 1/2 income household anyway.) but yes, in my hometown, people who own houses on that scale are upper middle class and the realtor families I knew growing up living in those houses, or even ones on a slightly smaller scale weren’t single income.
Now imagine being a real estate agent in a city where houses like Jay’s/Clair’s are common. When you’re selling a $700,000 house 5 times a month instead of five times a year (plus the other houses) and suddenly you can afford to live in a big house.
So we’re back to ignoring the difference in cost of living between the coasts and the midwest, then?
No, not at all… if I can do simple math for the sake of ease… lets say it is 10x more expensive on the coast… than think about if he sold 5 houses at $70k each month. With a 3% commission. $350,000/month at 3% is $126k per year, which is a very comfortable household income in the Midwest.
Cameron and Mitchell have a much lesser lifestyle. I think they rent the ground floor of what was probably once a single house but is now a duplex and I know plenty of people of middle class income who’ve lived in places as nice or nicer. It’s been mentioned also that prior to adopting Lily Cam worked as a high school music teacher, which wouldn’t pay as much as Mitchell but would have added significantly to their income and ability to pile up some savings.
Phil is supposed to be a good realtor. I just assumed that he was intelligent enough (perhaps with Jay’s coaching) to bank a good bit during the boom years to see him through the bad, and even in the bad years you still sell some houses. Plus Jay and presumably his ex-wife (who since Jay is self made would have gotten a bundle in the divorce) provide safety nets and probably gifted Claire and Phil with a down payment if not the house.
Plus, a realtor could probably get his hands on nicer house for a lower price (with no realtor fee, natch).
I didn’t mean that I don’t like the show because of perceived extravagance. I adore this show. I was just merely saying that to me it appears that the characters on this show live further beyond their means a bit more than other sitcoms. As a random example let’s say… sure Tim the Tool-man Taylor’s house in Home Improvement was spacious, and he had disposable income for hospital bills and hotrods but it never seemed like the Taylors were living beyond their means for a host of a small budget local tool show. The Dunphy’s do. to me, at least.