An American Family

Considered as television's first reality show, An American Family was shot documentary style in 1971 and first aired in the United States on PBS in 1973. The show was twelve episodes long, edited down from about 300 hours of footage, and chronicled the experience of a nuclear family, the Loud family of Santa Barbara, California, during a period of time when parents Bill and Pat Loud separated and Pat filed for divorce.

The parents had five children. One of them, Lance Loud, was a gay 20-year-old man who occasionally wore lipstick and women's clothes and took his mother to a drag show in the second episode of the series. Scholars sometimes mention that Lance came out of the closet on TV, but this is technically incorrect—he was simply gay without announcement or drama; his family says that they had known for quite a while. As such, Lance was the first openly gay character on television and has become something of a gay icon.

On airing, the show drew over 10 million viewers—phenomenal viewership for PBS standards in 1973 or even today—and drew considerable controversy. The series was widely discussed in the media in 1973, and the Loud family appeared on the cover of the March 12, 1973 issue of Newsweek magazine.

The series was parodied in 1979 movie Real Life, in which a narcisstic filmmaker disrupts the filming of such a television series, citing the changes are "good for the series". The show was featured in a 2002 television special, where TV Guide named it one of the best 50 shows of all time.

In 1983, PBS broadcast American Family Revisited, and in 2003 PBS broadcast the show Lance Loud, A Death in An American Family, shot in 2001, visiting Lance and his family again at Lance's request. All participated in the documentary, except brother Grant. Lance was 50 years old, had gone through 20 years of addiction to crystal meth, and was HIV positive and died of hepatitis C that year. The show was labeled the final episode of An American Family.

Family members

As seen in An American Family, the members of the Loud family are:

• William C. (Bill) Loud (born 1921)
• Patricia (Pat) Loud (born 1926)
• Lance Loud (1951–2001)
• Kevin Loud (born 1953)
• Grant Loud (born 1954)
• Delilah Loud (born 1955)
• Michele Loud (born 1957)

Quotes

In Lance's final appearance on camera in the 2003 documentary, A Death in an American Family, mother Pat holds him in her arms and he states, "When Louds love, they love long and deep, about six feet deep."

References

• An American Family: A Televised Life, Jeffrey Ruoff. (University of Minnesota Press; 2002) ISBN 0-8166-3561-7
• Pat Loud: A Woman's Story, Pat Loud and Nora Johnson. (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan; 1974) ISBN 0-698-10578-8

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