Malcolm in the Middle-Class Love Letter
Make no mistake — this wacky early-2000s family comedy is a magnifying glass aimed at lower-middle-class strife.
On January 9th, 2000, American viewers were introduced to a new family on the block — one (allegedly) without a last name, without a laugh track, and no shortage of shenanigans. Starring harried, domineering mother Lois, overworked and playful father Hal, and their growing gaggle of wayward sons (including the fourth-wall-breaking wunderkind, Malcolm) we were presented with a unique, but also strangely familiar, viewing experience.
I’m old enough to remember when new, albeit late-season episodes appeared regularly on Fox, but being a kid, I was far more focused on the landmark crossover happening over on Nickelodeon with the Jimmy Timmy Power Hour. Besides, Malcolm in the Middle isn’t exactly built for young viewers, as it’s wrought with quick, witty humor, some subtle jokes, bad behavior, complex grown-up problems, and what would be considered some light “adult situations”. Most of it flew directly over my head at the time.
But now, in my late twenties and through the power of Hulu, I, for the first time, could watch the entire thing, front to back and commercial-free.
It’s a very different show than I remember, and one that I always enjoy rewatching for the sake of nostalgia — as well as to bask in the endless creativity and important socioeconomic implications. Vice even called it “A Socialist Masterpiece”, and honestly…they’re not wrong.
Firstly, it’s brilliantly written. Malcolm in the Middle’s characters are structured to be familiar and relatable, and as their circumstances become more unfair, it becomes all the more true-to-life (clown fights optional).
Malcolm’s continuous fourth wall breaks make him accessible to audiences of all ages.
In every episode, Malcolm addresses the audience directly, sharing his thoughts and feelings, and interpretations of the world around him as he grows up. Malcolm is a complex and fascinating character. He talks about the responsibilities heaped on him, the dynamics of his family, and the double-edged sword of having an IQ of 165.
But even in his brilliance, Malcolm is not out of reach for us: he struggles in social situations, conceals calamities of his own making, kneecaps his own happiness, and does battle with his brothers while also being fiercely loyal to his family. His understanding and problem-solving tend to be age-appropriate, despite his massive intellect. At times he’s selfish, impulsive, destructive, kind, charming, soft-hearted, foolish, clever. He is all these things because we are all these things too. When Malcolm talks to us, he’s appealing to the kids out there, and the kids in all of us.
If we watched when we were younger, we related to his complaints and concerns about his parents, friends, and wild ideas that made perfect sense at the time. Now, we watch and begin to remember what it was like in a crowded house or fighting with our siblings, stressing about school, wrestling with the hormone-charged time of budding sexuality, and partaking in unorthodox family rituals that at the time seemed normal.
Malcolm’s family is painfully authentic: win, lose, or draw.
Above all, Malcolm’s family is like so many others out there, even now, some twenty-odd years after the premiere— they are one unexpected expense away from total collapse. They are steeped in struggle, deeply in debt, and taking what little pleasures they can to stave off the stresses of criminally underpaid work and always coming up short.
Luxuries are few and far between, and incredibly sacred (The Dress comes to mind — Lois works in a drugstore and has spent months saving for one nice dress and one nice anniversary dinner, both of which are undone by the antics of her wild family and her own laser focus on justice). Across even just the first few episodes, we get a good look at the family’s financial and work situation — like how a medical expense sets the entire family back for weeks, and they get along with unwashed clothes and cheap meals. It’s a recurring theme throughout the series, from the pilot to the finale. They are always on the brink.
Set in a dumpy little house in a nondescript town, Malcolm in the Middle was a show far more accessible to middle America than stories about childless, wealthy big-city dwellers that seemed to dominate the airwaves in the 90s and early 2000s — think Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, Sex and the City and the like. Not that these other shows were bad or wrong, they just told a different kind of story. Sure, we’d all like to live in the luxurious and prestigious Elliot Bay Towers and work just three hours a day, but the grand majority of us have only known paycheck-to-paycheck living and ignoring that nagging tooth pain or body ache for another day.
Hal, brought to us in full technicolor by the infinitely talented Bryan Cranston, works long hours at a never-quite-specified place doing never-fully-explained white-collar work. Just the anonymity and perceived uselessness of his job (as well as a later-series situation that lands Hal on the witness stand) is a satirical jab at corporate America. Hal is an artist and a lover at heart, with niche hobbies and a love of the finer things. He’s a wild child penned in by the walls of a cubicle, propping up someone else’s dream at the sacrifice of his own.
Lois, having no time to pursue any of her passions, is an amplified caricature of the put-upon mother. She mentions she works 38 hours a week, meaning she is technically a part-timer and is therefore not entitled to health insurance, while also shouldering the cooking, cleaning, and general management of her family. Hal and Lois tend to take solace in each other, in a particularly comically passionate sexual relationship that goes a long way toward making them one of the healthiest married couples on television (a facet of the show so complex it requires its own article). Their sex life pulls double duty in the show — Hal and Lois are crushed under the financial weight of rearing a family, even with two incomes, and intimacy is their last refuge. They remember the young, idealistic kids they used to be and find their way back there — a time before the harsh reality of an average life set in — by keeping up a healthy and active physical relationship.
Beyond that, in a mid-series episode, Lois contracts a yeast infection, preventing intimacy for two weeks — in an often revisited joke in the vein of “the family’s financial problems are a result of their behavior and not a system that is oppressing them”, Hal and Lois work off the pent-up energy by investing in their house and finances, increasing its value and finding unclaimed tax returns. Suddenly, life is perfect! If only they’d give up that last little bit of self and joy, look how well off they’d be!
This comes hot on the heels of other sitcoms that eschewed the “sanitized” family unit — the Malcolm in the Middle family home isn’t large or well-furnished. Their appliances regularly break down and the boys share two beds in one small, cramped room. The families in these types of shows don’t necessarily dress well or eat well. Keeping their cars running and the lights on is a daily battle.
According to The Atlantic, Roseanne (the original 80s and 90s iteration, that is) received similar praise for a realistic view of an average lower middle-class family. Roseanne, headed up by the titular character — another hardworking woman — openly addressed issues actively afflicting the lower middle class. Roseanne works long hours, like Lois, while also shouldering the responsibilities of raising kids — she remarks in one episode, “I put in eight hours a day at the factory, then I come home and put in another eight hours.” We never see the unpaid bills spread across the Brady family kitchen table, for example, or arriving in Frasier’s mailbox, but in both the pre-reboot Roseanne and Malcolm in the Middle, their struggles are bared for the whole world to see. Both shows were critical of stagnating wages and corporate tax breaks.
And that’s all that needs to be said on that front. Whatever happened to Roseanne — both the show and actress — after that is as confusing as it is unnecessary.
As Malcolm in the Middle progresses, we discover that each family member is in their own way, incredibly gifted. While it’s far too late for Hal and Lois to develop their own skills, we get to experience Francis’s talent for leadership and management at The Grotto, Reese being an excellent cook, and Dewey, a musical prodigy, and of course Malcolm, in taking an aptitude test, discovers he could be great at anything he put his mind to. Hal and Lois do what they can to foster each boy’s unique strengths, but the writing is on the wall: they don’t have a leg up. Talent alone is not enough, as it wasn’t for Hal or Lois. Whether or not most of the boys — besides Malcolm and maybe Dewey — will ultimately become successful, or even comfortable, is left purposely up in the air by the series finale — because every day, extremely talented people still work minimum wage.
The finale pulls out all the stops. There is no more ambiguity left: Lois spells it all out.
It’s not subtle. In the series finale, Graduation, Malcolm gets a fleeting glimpse at the life he’s always wanted when he’s offered a job in software development, but his mother rejects it on his behalf. This sours Malcolm, and when one of Reese’s overcomplicated plans goes awry, the entire family finds themselves in the backyard of the family home, covered in a sinister mix of foul septic sludge. As they hose themselves off, Malcolm makes a statement:
“You know what? I’m glad. This is appropriate. Now my life looks exactly how I feel. How could you screw me over like that?
Lois explains that Malcolm would’ve taken that job, and she considered that to be “throwing his life away”. She explains that he doesn’t get the easy way out — he needs to suffer. That’s the way it’s supposed to go. It’s revealed then that Hal, Lois, and the entire family expect him to be president of the United States. By this time he’s worked low-wage jobs, he’s been pushed around, looked down on, belittled, and coming up short his entire life. He’s a nobody. So this expectation seems to come out of left field, both for him and the viewer.
But the speech that Lois gives cements what all seven seasons of falling in love with this family have been about.
“What does matter is you’ll be the only person in that position who will ever give a crap about people like us. We’ve been getting the short end of the stick for thousands of years and I for one am sick of it…You know what it’s like to be poor and you know what it’s like to work hard. Now you’re gonna know what it’s like to sweep floors and bust your ass and accomplish twice as much as all the kids around you, and it won’t mean anything because they will still look down on you, and you will want so much for them to like you and they just won’t. And it’ll break your heart. And that’ll make your heart bigger and open your eyes, and finally, you will realize that there’s more to life than proving you’re the smartest person in the world. I’m sorry Malcolm, but you don’t get the easy path, you don’t get to just have fun and be rich and live the life of luxury.”
Lois knows that systemic change is the only way out. Sure, she and the family could’ve benefitted from Malcolm’s high-paying tech job, but that still leaves the rest of the dwindling middle class to fend for themselves. She knows that the world is a harsh place for people. It’s not fair. Her last stab at making a change is in raising good men. Rather than settle for falling back on a rich son or two, she and Hal agree to the struggle in hopes that their investment in Malcolm changes everything for everyone. She challenges Malcolm to look her in the eye and tell her he can’t do it. He knows he can. And decides he will.
Malcolm in the Middle is a Message — Someone Sees Us
Through the easy accessibility of Malcolm’s character established since episode one, we’re invited along for every twist and turn. We hate to see him upset, we hate to watch this feral family struggle to make ends meet. We rejoice in the lucky breaks, but overall, there is no safety net — just like out here. We know a Lois. We are Hal. So when Malcolm embraces his family’s vision for him, and we see him rushing between his janitor job at Harvard and making it to his next class on time, we’re ultimately rooting for him. We can believe he’ll get there, and walk away feeling a little bit better about the fate of not just the Wilkerson family (surprise! They do have a last name!) but everyone out there just like us. We’re a little inspired.
That’s no accident — the show’s creator, Linwood Boomer, based the show on his own life experiences. Unsurprisingly, Boomer directed that haunting series finale Graduation, in which Lois gives her speech. While he’s a bit of a social media recluse, the message from Boomer seems clear — someone understands. In a world of dysfunction and chaos, the lower middle class is still visible, and we can make a change.
