The Brady Bunch and its Hamartia, Hamartia, Hamartia
Tags: Screenwriting, TV, Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch via Getty Images

My mother once told me that the Brady Bunch put her to sleep. At first, I didn’t understand that. To me, the subject matter was certainly benign but not boring. Jan Brady expressing her detestation for residing in Marcia’s shadow was derivative at times, but made interesting when Jan donned a black Afro wig and declared herself the new Jan Brady or when she finally expressed, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!’ in the Her Sister’s Shadow episode. But I’ve come to realize that she didn’t mean the topics lulled her to sleep. It was the cadence of the show, the predictability. She wasn’t on the edge of her seat when she watched the Brady Bunch. And, what I’ve also come to realize is that’s what I love about the show.

There’s a comfort to The Brady Bunch that I think will always endure. The fact that the episodes have a predictable structure that they very rarely diverge from is relaxing. “Set up, conflict, resolution, moral” became the true north of the Brady’s compass, and when an episode ended, so did the conflict for that week. A new Marcia/ Greg competition or Bobby/ Cindy shenanigans would arise next week, but for now all was well in the Brady household. The Brady Bunch is like a well-funded after school special — only there to teach you morality lessons, the show would then go on its merry way and you don’t see it again until its next installment. But the Brady Bunch has one fatal flaw (a hamartia, hamartia, hamartia if you will): it doesn’t use its genius structure to advance itself. For a family existing in the 1970s, the only thing that was ever 70s about it was its clothes. Really, the fashion and hair styles of Carol Brady changed much more than any of the characters. Marcia would always be the smart one, Greg the playboy, Jan the forgotten, and Cindy would be the beautiful youngster in curls. Sure, I was glad that the day’s conflict finished at the end of an episode with a lecture from Mike and Carol, but after a few seasons of the same, the Brady Bunch can become boring, no matter how comforting it is. Despite pleas made by the cast to tackle heavier subject matter, the family stayed stagnant. As young men were getting drafted to fight in Vietnam, a fighting-age Greg was worried about a class election. The show’s plot was so unrealistic that its major conflict (blending a family of children who were all well into their childhoods and adolescence) is only ever covered in episode one. The Brady Bunch was the perfect vehicle to transition from archetypal family values to a wider range of more realistic families. By using the classic sitcom structure that the Bradys came to popularize, the show could have tackled the real world issues that were facing its young cast and viewers at the time. And, they could have done this all while staying within the familiar, comfortable confines of their episodes. All could’ve still been well in the Brady household at the end of a thirty minute program. However, instead of teaching lessons in morality, fit more for Sesame Street than prime time television, the Bradys could have raised the stakes.

For me, the perfect Brady Bunch episode is simple to describe. First, the family would tackle a real topic. Greg finds himself worried about the draft or Marcia fears the repercussions of the psychedelic drugs all her friends are taking, and the typical family rigamarole ensues. Greg would try to hide his worry from his parents, and Marcia would try to hide her fearful confusion too, all while Cindy, Jan, Peter, and Bobby try to guess what’s going on with their older siblings. When the pressure gets to be too great, Greg and Marcia finally spill what’s going on to their parents who are (as they always are even in the original show) honest with their children. There would still be a set up, a conflict, and a resolution, but the moral would be grainier. Or, maybe it would be just as simple as the only real reoccurring moral in the show: integrity means everything, but family means more. Whatever the lesson of the episode that week, it would still end on a happy note. The family would be together, all would be well, and we would see the Bradys same time next week — predictability in all.