Family Ties Appreciation



Summary

Set in suburban Columbus, Ohio during the Reagan administration, Steven and Elyse Keaton (Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Birney) are baby boomers, liberals and former Hippies,[2] raising their three children: ambitious, would-be millionaire entrepreneur Alex (Michael J. Fox); fashion conscious, gossipy Mallory (Justine Bateman); and tomboy Jennifer (Tina Yothers). Married in 1964, Elyse is an independent architect and Steven, a native of Buffalo, New York, is the station manager of WKS, a local public television station.

Much of the humor of the series focuses on the cultural divide during the 1980s when younger generations rejected the counterculture of the 1960s and embraced the conservative politics which came to define the 1980s.[3] Both Alex and Mallory embrace Reaganomics and exhibit conservative attitudes: Alex is a Young Republican and Mallory is a more materialistic young woman in contrast to her feminist mother.[2] Mallory was also presented as a vacuous airhead, who was fodder for jokes and teasing from her brother. Jennifer, an athletic tomboy and the youngest child, shares more the values of her parents and just wants to be a normal kid. Steven and Elyse have a fourth child, Andrew, born in 1984 whom Alex doted on and quickly moulded in his conservative image.