‘Modern Family’ Creator Is ‘Disgusted’ By Association With Fox News
All’s not well in the family for “Modern Family” co-creator Steve Levitan.
After conservative commentator Laura Ingraham called child detention centers “essentially summer camps” or “boarding schools” on Fox News, Levitan joined Seth MacFarlane in saying he was “disgusted to work at a company that has anything whatsoever to do with” Fox News.
Let me officially join @SethMacFarlane in saying I’m disgusted to work at a company that has anything whatsoever to do with @FoxNews. This bullshit is the opposite of what #ModernFamily stands for. https://t.co/dnvIbgoIyA
— Steve Levitan (@SteveLevitan) June 19, 2018
“Modern Family” is produced by 20th Century Fox TV, although it airs on ABC, which is owned by Disney.
Listen: when you’re joining Seth MacFarlane on the right side of history, we’re truly living in the simulation.
Filmmaker Judd Apatow commended Levitan for his statement, tweeting, “Way to go Steve. Who’s next? It’s important to speak up when your boss is the propaganda arm which promotes putting children in cages and holding them hostage so Trump can build a wall. What other stars, showrunners or executives from Fox will speak up against this madness?”
Apatow had already tweeted extensivelyabout his discontent with Fox News, saying that he stopped working with Fox in 2002.
On Monday, Ingraham clarified her initial statement regarding boarding schools on “The Ingraham Angle”: “Apparently there are a lot of people very upset because we referred to some of the detention facilities tonight as essentially like summer camps. The “San Diego Union Tribune” today described the facilities as essentially like what you would expect at a boarding school. So I will stick to there are some of them like boarding schools.”
While Levitan announced that the tenth season of “Modern Family” would be its last, perhaps the spinoff that he previously hinted at could be a thinly veiled takedown of Fox News. Just a suggestion! I would definitely watch that over the decrepit corpse of “Modern Family” any day.
Juliana Kaplan is a news intern at The Forward. Email her at kaplan@forward.com or follow her on Twitter, @julianamkaplan
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO