Alex P. Keaton

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Alex P. Keaton is a fictional character on the American television sitcom, Family Ties, which aired on NBC for seven seasons, from 1982 to 1989. Family Ties reflected the move in the United States away from the cultural liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s to the conservatism of the 1980s. ^[1] This was particularly expressed through the relationship between Young Republican Alex (Michael J. Fox) and his hippie parents, Elyse and Steven Keaton (Meredith Baxter-Birney and Michael Gross). President Ronald Reagan once stated that Family Ties was his favorite television show.^[1]

[edit] Overview of series

The first season of the show (1982-1983) established its central premise. During the early years of the Reagan administration, Elyse and Steven Keaton (Meredith Baxter-Birney and Michael Gross) are Baby Boomers: liberal Democrats ^[1] raising their three children: Alex (Michael J. Fox), Mallory (Justine Bateman) and Jennifer ("Jen") (Tina Yothers) in suburban Columbus, Ohio.^[2] Married in 1964, Elyse, an independent architect, and Steven, a manager in a local public television station, were hippies during the 1960s. According to the episode, "A Christmas Story" in Season One, they were influenced by John F. Kennedy and thus participated in the Peace Corps when Alex was born in 1965. Mallory was born while they were students at the University of California, Berkeley in 1967, and Jennifer was born the night Richard Nixon won his second term in 1972.

The humor of the series focused on a real cultural divide during the 1980s when the "Alex Keaton generation was rejecting the counterculture of the 1960s and embracing the wealth and power that came to define the '80s."^[3] While the youngest, Jennifer (an athletic tomboy) shares the values of her parents, Alex and Mallory embraced Reaganomics and consequent conservative values: Alex is a Young Republican and Mallory is a more traditional young woman in contrast to her feminist mother. ^[1]

In the Museum of Broadcast Communications entry for Family Ties Michael Saenz argues that

few shows better demonstrate the resonance between collectively-held fictional imagination and what cultural critic Raymond Williams called "the structure of feeling" of a historical moment than Family Ties. Airing on NBC from 1982 to 1989, this highly successful domestic comedy explored one of the intriguing cultural inversions characterizing the Reagan era: a conservative younger generation aspiring to wealth, business success, and traditional values, serves as inheritor to the politically liberal, presumably activist, culturally experimental generation of adults who had experienced the 1960s. The result was a decade, paradoxical by America's usual post-World War II standards, in which youthful ambition and social renovation became equated with pronounced political conservatism. "When else could a boy with a briefcase become a national hero?" queried Family Ties' creator, Gary David Goldberg, during the show's final year.^[1]

[edit] High school

Alex is a high school student who has a passion for economics and wealth. In particular, he is a proponent of supply-side economics. His heroes are Richard Nixon, William F. Buckley Jr., Ronald Reagan, and Milton Friedman. His favorite television show is Wall $treet Week and he is an avid reader of the The Wall Street Journal.

[edit] Princeton - bound

Alex spends the first two seasons of the series preparing to attend Princeton University. While visiting for an on-campus interview, Mallory has an emotional crisis. Ultimately, Alex chooses to tend to Mallory rather than complete his interview, thus destroying any possibility of attending Princeton.

[edit] Leland College

Michael J. Fox with Tracy Pollan at the 40th Emmy Awards in August 1988 shortly after they were married

Alex receives a scholarship to fictional Leland College which is located close enough for Alex to continue to live at home and commute. Keaton excelled at Leland College and taught an economics course as a teaching assistant. While attending Leland, he had two serious girlfriends. His first was artist/feminist, Ellen Reed (Tracy Pollan, whom Fox later married). After they broke up, Keaton pursued a liberal psychology student with feminist leanings, Lauren Miller, who was played by Courteney Cox.

[edit] Post-graduation

Alex graduated from Leland in 1989 and accepted a job on Wall Street. The final episodes of Family Ties ("Alex Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Part 1 & 2", Season 7, Episodes 179 and 180) ends with Alex leaving his home for the first time as his family says goodbye.

When Michael J. Fox left his next series Spin City a decade later, his final episodes (Goodbye: Part 1 & 2, Season 4, Episodes 25 and 26) made numerous allusions to Family Ties. Michael Gross (Alex's father Steven) portrays Michael Patrick Flaherty's (Fox) therapist ^[4] and there is a reference to an off-screen character named "Mallory."^[5] After Flaherty becomes an environmental lobbyist in Washington D.C., he meets a "conservative congressman named Alex P. Keaton." ^[6]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Fox, Michael J. (2002), Lucky Man: A Memoir, New York: Hyperion, ISBN 978-078686764-6 
• Goldberg, Gary David. "Comedy Stop: What Would Alex Keaton Do?." New York Times, March 3, 2008.
• Haglund, David. "Reagan's Favorite Sitcom: How Family Ties spawned a conservative hero." Slate. March 2, 2007.
• Hurst, Alex. "Remembering an icon from the 'Me-Decade'." The Daily Pennsylvanian, April 24, 2001.
• Patterson, Thomas. "What would Alex P. Keaton do?." CNN, November 1, 2006.
• Saenz, Michael. "Family Ties." - Museum of Broadcast Communications
• Stewart, Susan. "The Parents Ate Sprouts; the Kid Stole the Show. New York Times, February 25, 2007.