An American Family
Encyclopedia
An American Family is an American television documentary
filmed from May 30 through December 31, 1971 and first aired in the United States
on the Public Broadcasting Service
(PBS) in early 1973. After being edited down from about 300 hours of raw footage, the series ran 12 episodes
and one season Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m. Originally intended to be a chronicle of the daily life of an American family, the groundbreaking program documented the break-up of the Loud family via the separation and subsequent divorce
of parents Bill and Pat Loud.
reflected on some of the controversy the series engendered:
In 2002, An American Family was listed at #32 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time
list. It is one of the earliest examples of the reality television
genre.
Controversial at the time, the Louds' eldest son, Lance, came out to his family as openly gay
during the course of the series. He is credited as the first openly gay character on television and subsequently became an icon
within the LGBT
community.
One of the more notable moments of the series was when, after 21 years of marriage, Pat asked Bill for a divorce and to leave the house. Pat saying to her husband "You know there's a problem", with Bill's response, "What's your problem?" was chosen as one of the Top 100 Television Moments by TV Guide
.
The series drew over 10 million viewers and considerable controversy. The family was featured in Newsweek
on March 12, 1973. The article was titled "The Broken Family".
-TV )
spoofed the series in his film Real Life.
In 1983, HBO broadcast An American Family Revisited: The Louds 10 Years Later.
The series inspired the MTV
reality television series The Real World
.
In 2003, PBS broadcast the show Lance Loud!: A Death in an American Family, shot in 2001, visiting the family again at the invitation of Lance before his death. The same family members participated in the documentary, with the exception of Grant. Lance was 50 years old, had gone through 20 years of addiction to crystal meth
, and was HIV
positive. He died of liver failure caused by a hepatitis C
and HIV co-infection that year. The show was billed by PBS as the final episode of An American Family.
Subsequent to the showing of A Death in an American Family, Pat and Bill Loud moved back in together, granting one of Lance's last wishes. They live very close to three of their surviving children, Grant, Michelle and Delilah, and keep in close contact with Kevin and his family, who live in Arizona.
In April 2011, PBS rebroadcast the entire original series in a marathon format on many of its member stations, also coinciding with the then upcoming release of the HBO film Cinema Verite, based on the series.
On July 7, 2011, most PBS stations presented An American Family: Anniversary Edition, a two-hour film by Alan and Susan Raymond that featured selected moments from the documentary series, in tribute to the 40 years since the series began filming in 1971. It was subsequently released on DVD.
and under the direction of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
, the cast includes Tim Robbins
as Bill, Diane Lane
as Pat, Thomas Dekker
as Lance and James Gandolfini
as Craig Gilbert.
Television documentary
Documentary television is a genre of television programming that broadcasts documentaries.* Documentary television series, a television series which is made up of documentary episodes....
filmed from May 30 through December 31, 1971 and first aired in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on the Public Broadcasting Service
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
(PBS) in early 1973. After being edited down from about 300 hours of raw footage, the series ran 12 episodes
Episode
An episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program. An episode is a part of a sequence of a body of work, akin to a chapter of a book. The term sometimes applies to works based on other forms of mass media as well, as in Star Wars...
and one season Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m. Originally intended to be a chronicle of the daily life of an American family, the groundbreaking program documented the break-up of the Loud family via the separation and subsequent divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
of parents Bill and Pat Loud.
The series
In 2011, The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reflected on some of the controversy the series engendered:
In 2002, An American Family was listed at #32 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time
TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time
TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time is TV Guides list of the 50 most entertaining and influential television series in American pop culture...
list. It is one of the earliest examples of the reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
genre.
Synopsis
The Loud family members profiled were:- William Carberry (Bill) Loud (born January 22, 1921, EugeneEugene, OregonEugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...
, OregonOregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
) - Patricia (Pat) Loud (born Patricia Russell, October 4, 1926, in Eugene, Oregon)
- Alanson Russell (Lance) LoudLance LoudAlanson Russell "Lance" Loud was an American magazine columnist and new wave rock-n-roll performer. Loud is best known for his 1973 appearance in An American Family, a pioneer reality television series that featured his coming out, leading to his status as an icon in the gay community.-Early...
(June 26, 1951 – December 22, 2001) - Kevin Robert Loud (born January 28, 1953)
- Grant Loud (born May 5, 1954 in Eugene, Oregon)
- Delilah Ann Loud (born October 15, 1955)
- Michele Loud (born October 15, 1957)
Controversial at the time, the Louds' eldest son, Lance, came out to his family as openly gay
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
during the course of the series. He is credited as the first openly gay character on television and subsequently became an icon
Gay icon
A gay icon is a public figure who is embraced by many within :lesbian, :gay, :bisexual and :transgender communities...
within the LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
community.
One of the more notable moments of the series was when, after 21 years of marriage, Pat asked Bill for a divorce and to leave the house. Pat saying to her husband "You know there's a problem", with Bill's response, "What's your problem?" was chosen as one of the Top 100 Television Moments by TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
.
The series drew over 10 million viewers and considerable controversy. The family was featured in Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
on March 12, 1973. The article was titled "The Broken Family".
Credits
( Source: An American Family episode nine end-credits; rerun airdate April 24, 2011, 7 a.m., WNETWNET
WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
-TV )
- Conceived and produced by Craig Gilbert
- Executive producer: Curtis W. Davis
- Camera: Alan Raymond
- Sound: Susan Raymond
- Coordinating producer: Jacqueline Donnet
- Associate producer: Susan Lester
- Film editor: Ken Werner
- Assistant film editor: Bob Alvarez
- Additional photography: Joan Churchill
- Additional sound: Peter Pilafian
- Assistant cameramen: Tom Goodwin, Peter Smokler, Mike Levine
- Series title film created by Elinor Bunin
- Title-music supervision: John Adams
- Film editors unit: Pat Cook, David Hanser, Eleanor Hamerow, Ken Werner
- Editing assistants: Joanna Alexander, Ernie Davidson, Bob Alvarez, Janet Lauretano, Tikki Goldberg, Dan Merrill, Joe Lovett, Sue Steinberg
- Apprentices: Jesse Maple, Hannah Wajshonig, Harvey Rosenstock
- Sound editor: Thomas Halpin
- Assistant sound editor: Peet Begley
- Production managers: Kathleen Walsh, Michael Podell
- Assistant: Janet Freeman
- Location unit managers: David Burke, Bernard Katz, Peter Scarlet
- Production secretary: Alice Carey
- Production assistants: Kristin Glover, David Henry
- Research: Will MacDonald
- Sound mixer: Richard Vorisek
- Engineering supervisor: Ed Reingold
- Senior video engineer Art Emerson
- Funding provided by the Ford FoundationFord FoundationThe Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
and the Corporation for Public BroadcastingCorporation for Public BroadcastingThe Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a non-profit corporation created by an act of the United States Congress, funded by the United States’ federal government to promote public broadcasting... - A production of WNETWNETWNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
/13 - Copyright 1983 Educational Broadcasting Corporation
Follow-ups
In 1979, Albert BrooksAlbert Brooks
Albert Lawrence Brooks is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for his role in Broadcast News...
spoofed the series in his film Real Life.
In 1983, HBO broadcast An American Family Revisited: The Louds 10 Years Later.
The series inspired the MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
reality television series The Real World
The Real World
The Real World is a reality television program on MTV originally produced by Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray. First broadcast in 1992, the show, which was inspired by the 1973 PBS documentary series An American Family, is the longest-running program in MTV history and one of the...
.
In 2003, PBS broadcast the show Lance Loud!: A Death in an American Family, shot in 2001, visiting the family again at the invitation of Lance before his death. The same family members participated in the documentary, with the exception of Grant. Lance was 50 years old, had gone through 20 years of addiction to crystal meth
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...
, and was HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
positive. He died of liver failure caused by a hepatitis C
Hepatitis C
Hepatitis C is an infectious disease primarily affecting the liver, caused by the hepatitis C virus . The infection is often asymptomatic, but chronic infection can lead to scarring of the liver and ultimately to cirrhosis, which is generally apparent after many years...
and HIV co-infection that year. The show was billed by PBS as the final episode of An American Family.
Subsequent to the showing of A Death in an American Family, Pat and Bill Loud moved back in together, granting one of Lance's last wishes. They live very close to three of their surviving children, Grant, Michelle and Delilah, and keep in close contact with Kevin and his family, who live in Arizona.
In April 2011, PBS rebroadcast the entire original series in a marathon format on many of its member stations, also coinciding with the then upcoming release of the HBO film Cinema Verite, based on the series.
On July 7, 2011, most PBS stations presented An American Family: Anniversary Edition, a two-hour film by Alan and Susan Raymond that featured selected moments from the documentary series, in tribute to the 40 years since the series began filming in 1971. It was subsequently released on DVD.
Cinema Verite
HBO premiered Cinema Verite on April 23, 2011, a fictionalized examination of the process of making An American Family. With a script by David SeltzerDavid Seltzer
David Seltzer is an American screenwriter, producer and director, perhaps best known for writing The Omen , and Bird on a Wire , starring Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn...
and under the direction of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini are a team of documentarians who received critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for their feature film directorial debut, 2003's American Splendor. In 2010, The Extra Man premiered at the Sundance festival...
, the cast includes Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
as Bill, Diane Lane
Diane Lane
Diane Lane is an American film actress.Born and raised in New York City, Lane made her screen debut at the age of 13 in George Roy Hill's 1979 film A Little Romance, starring opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. Soon after, she was featured on the cover of Time magazine...
as Pat, Thomas Dekker
Thomas Dekker (actor)
Thomas Alexander Dekker is an American film and television actor and a musician. He is also a singer and has written and produced two albums. He is best known for his roles as John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Nick Szalinski on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, and Zach...
as Lance and James Gandolfini
James Gandolfini
James J. Gandolfini, Jr. is an Italian American actor. He is best known for his role as Tony Soprano in the HBO TV series The Sopranos, about a troubled crime boss struggling to balance his family life and career in the Mafia...
as Craig Gilbert.
Further reading
- An American Family: A Televised Life, by Jeffrey Ruoff. (University of Minnesota PressUniversity of Minnesota PressThe University of Minnesota Press is a university press that is part of the University of Minnesota.Founded in 1925, the University of Minnesota Press is best known for its books in social and cultural thought, critical theory, race and ethnic studies, urbanism, feminist criticism, and media...
; 2002) ISBN 0-8166-3561-7 - Pat Loud: A Woman's Story, by Pat Loud and Nora Johnson. (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan; 1974) ISBN 0-698-10578-8
- Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched by Mark Andrejevic. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.; 2003) ISBN 0742527484; ISBN 978-0742527485
External links
- An American Family on WNET's website
- Subterranean Cinema: An American Family: The Story of the Louds — articles on the show
- Reviews of the Jeffery Rouff book An American Family: A Televised Life:
- January magazine: "Bang the Drum Loudly" — Richard Klin's review of Rouff book
- Documentary Box #21 from the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival — Anna Grimshaw's review of Rouff book
- NYU's Fales Library Guide to the "An American Family" DVD collection
- Alan and Susan Raymond ("An American Family" filmmakers) interview at Archive of American TelevisionArchive of American TelevisionThe Archive of American Television is a division of the non-profit Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation that films interviews with notable people from all aspects of the television industry....
– conducted in 2010