From The Bachelor franchise to the Big Brother series and even zombie reality content; reality television is kind of a big deal. Viewers really love it!
While many modern reality fans make the assumption that the first reality show was Survivor, that’s not actually the case. The television series that is considered to be the very first instance of reality TV is called An American Family.
So, what was this series, that was filmed and broadcast in the early 1970s, about?
An American Family was a TV documentary series that offered viewers a long look at the private lives of the Louds, a California family in 1973.
As the first American reality television series, An American Family, attracted millions of weekly viewers.
Fans of the show were fascinated by a fly-on-the-wall view of an upper-middle class suburban family who seemingly was living the good life, but was actually on the verge of falling apart due to divorce.
This series became a cultural force at a time when family sitcoms like The Brady Bunch only showed rosy depictions of family life.
But families were changing because of social forces like the women’s rights movement, changing race relations, shifting attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community, and the newfound prevalence of divorce.
Creator Craig Gilbert was inspired to make the cinema verité series about an imploding family partly based on his own experiences, as he had recently separated from his own wife.
He stated, “The idea for the series was something out of my own life,” he told The Washington Post in 1973. “My marriage, my parents, television and really something about the country.”
Because it was broadcast during those changing times in American culture and had such a huge impact on viewers, An American Family is ranked at number 32 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time list.
It’s also credited with having started the reality TV phenomenon, though it took decades for that genre to really take off.
For seven months from May 1971 to Jan 1972, a film crew captured the family’s ups and downs and the marital issues between father Bill and mother Pat Loud, as well as their childrens’ coming of age journeys.
Twelve one-hour episodes were edited down from over 300 hours of film, and then aired on PBS. The footage was shown in a cinema verité style with no voiceover narration.
Gilbert said that he based An American Family “on the belief that there is considerable drama in the daily lives of ordinary citizens.” Previously, television was either scripted or it showed musical performances and variety shows.
In its day, this show was a pretty big deal. More than 10 million viewers tuned in every week, and it was blasted all over the media, too: An American Family was on the covers of major magazines, and the family and creator also made the rounds on TV talk shows.
Viewers were shocked and fascinated by Lance Loud, who was the eldest child, because he was one of the first openly gay people on television. Lance’s mother Pat went with him to a drag show in New York City to try to better understand her son.
There was far more drama on the series than that, including the Louds’ house almost being destroyed by a wildfire, and father Bill Loud’s struggling mining equipment business.
The deteriorating marriage between Pat and Bill Loud was particularly fraught with dramatic tension. Pat Loud confronted her husband about suspected cheating in a difficult scene upon his return from a business trip.
While keeping her emotions under tight control, she informed her husband that she’d met with a lawyer and wanted Bill Loud to move out of their home.
“Well, then,” answered Loud calmly, “I don’t have to unpack my bag, do I?”
They were divorced by the time the series aired. Because of the public outcry about the ethics of putting real people under the microscope in this never-before-seen way, show creator Craig Gilbert never made another major television show.
Critics said that it was cruel and unsavory to put people on display in this hyper realistic way, although the family was initially pleased with the nuanced, truthful, and respectful tone of the documentary series.
Later, though, after much public scrutiny and criticism, the family’s attitude changed.
When they were interviewed on the popular The Dick Cavett Show in 1973, mother Pat Loud opined that the reality series that showed their lives to the world made them look foolish.
She said that An American Family “makes us look like a bunch of freaks and monsters . . . We’ve lost dignity, been humiliated, and our honor is in question.”
Luckily for reality TV fans, times have changed, and the reality genre is alive and well.
