Modern Family is a great example of a show that has lots of diversity in it's characters, especially compared to many other television shows. The show is based on a "modern" family which consists of three little sub families. Jay is the father to Claire and Mitch. Jay is a middle aged, upper class, white male. Jay is married to Gloria, a beautiful, much younger, Colombian woman. Gloria has a son from a previous marriage named Manny. Claire is married to Phil and they have three children together, two daughters and a son. Mitch is gay and he married Cam and adopted a Vietnamese girl together. The cast has a perfect combination of genders, being almost 50% for each. While there are more Caucasian actors in the cast, this is really very normal considering that almost everyone is related.
Unfortunately, despite the characters being fairly diverse, there is still a good amount of racism and gender stereotypes in Modern Family. Gloria, the oh-so-beautiful Colombian is often portrayed as a hot airhead. She pronounces words wrong for a laugh. She also falls within her gender stereotype as being a character who loves to shop, look pretty and do nothing else. After watching the show for awhile, you can start to see how she can actually be extraordinarily smart and cunning. She also has an enormous amount of pride for her heritage and struggles with being a proud Colombian in a white, American family. This is a very believable struggle a real person in her position might have. Gloria is also an exceptional mother though sometimes she can be overprotective and naive.
Claire, the other mother in the show, depicts many stereotypes for a middle class mom. Claire is a stay-at-home mom, who doesn't "work" outside of doing everything for her family. It is sad to see some of the scenes with Claire play out because at least for me, she's not a very likable character. She is really uptight, serious and usually puts an end to all the fun, which really does depict a stereotypical "soccer mom".
The examples for how Modern Family promotes stereotypes both racially and gender-ed are numerous. The real enjoyment comes when the characters show an unexpected side that is opposite to their stereotype. Some links showing the many racial and gender stereotype jokes are included below.
http://adamjohnsonnyc.kinja.com/can-we-officially-call-modern-family-a-racist-show-now-1648805655
http://imgur.com/gallery/t0aMR
http://flavorwire.com/395863/two-liberal-gay-couples-with-a-side-of-white-supremacy-please
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