Jay and Manny

In the ABC hit, Modern Family, we observed the relationship between the characters Jay and Manny. Manny is a middle school boy and Jay is his much older stepfather. Because of his flaky birth father, Manny lacks a true father figure.  Jay steps in and tries to be a father for Manny.  Jay and Manny have a very interesting relationship. The fact that Manny and Jay are incredibly different is key in the culture of their relationship.  Jay is more of a manly man. He’s into sports, drinking beer and playing pool. Unlike Jay, Manny is very mature for his age and is more interested in love, books, and culture. In once scene Manny tells his mother, Gloria,  “I want to quit soccer, it’s a game for children.” These differences have an effect of their relationship because Jay doesn’t want Manny to act so sensitive and continuously pushes him into activities that are more masculine.

In another scene, Manny is talking about how he wants to dress up and go see this older girl (a 16 year old) at the mall and tell her how much he loves her.  Instituting his “tough love” antics, Jay tells Manny if he goes to the mall and confesses his love, he will surely get beat up by the guys at school. His main goal is to toughen up Manny and teach him to be a strong, silent male like himself.

The culture of their household is much different from the traditional family.  Their age difference is a main part of their relationship.  Manny is Jay’s third child (he has 2 older children and 4 grandchildren).  Because he has had children before and has seen them make mistakes, Jay tries to stop Manny from making silly mistakes.  In one scene with his wife, Jay says that he is only hard on Manny because he doesn’t want him to make a fool of myself.  Gloria, Manny’s mother and Jay’s wife, plays a significant role in the interaction between the two characters.  From Manny’s birth, Gloria has been heavily involved and overbearing, but not to Manny’s displeasure.  He considers his mom his best friend and has more in common with her than his father or stepfather.  Because he has been influenced by such a strong female figure, it seems obvious that he would obtain these sensitive characteristics.  Gloria also pushes Manny and Jay into doing things together such as putting a ceiling fan together. This activity displays a classic example of their relationship. Manny continuously warns Jay about the safety hazards of not reading the instructions and Jay yells at him to just “let him do what he wants.”  If one were to just read the dialogue, one could assume that this scene was between two older adults or even between a male and a female; it would be rare that one would guess it was between a father and son.

Not only did we want to examine the culture of these different relationships but we also wanted to look at the social interaction. Let’s first look at Jay; his status is to be a father and husband.  His roles are to be the provider, teach his son lessons and also enjoy being a man in his late years.  Jay exhibits role strain when he wants to fly his remote control airplanes but also has to bring Manny along and teach him. This once relaxing hobby is now bombarded with questions and comments.  Jay, being a strong male, has a difficult time of controlling his temper when he is dealing with role strain.  Manny on the other hand is completely opposite from his stepfather.  His status is to be a son. His roles are to act like a kid, be carefree and also do his school work.  Manny consistently deals with role strain because of his maturity.  He wants to be grown up, drink coffee and read the paper but he is just ten years old.  He is never satisfied with being a child and always tries to act more grown up.

The relationship between Jay and Manny is very complex.  Jay doesn’t seem to know how to handle Manny and his sensitivity and Manny gets frustrated with Jay and his lack of awareness for what’s going on around him. Their relationship is definitely one of the most entertaining ones in Modern Family and always provides good laughs for the audience.