Fury over Modern Family storyline

Modern Family has been attacked by clean-up TV campaigners for an episode about a toddler dropping the F-bomb .... even though the word is never heard and the child actor never said it.

The episode which aired on the ABC network last night is based around the shock parents Mitchell and Cameron feel when their two-year-old character Lily utter the swear word.

However, it is bleeped out – indeed the episode is entitled Little Bo Bleep – and while recording the scene, Aubrey Anderson-Emmon, who is actually three, used the word ‘fudge’.

Yet even the suggestion of the word has proved too much for the conservative Parents Television Council, whose spokesman Melissa Henson said: ‘It is certainly in poor taste.’

‘The more we see and hear this kind of language on television, the more acceptable and common it will become in the real world.’

McKay Hatch, an 18-year-old who founded the No Cussing Club, is also protesting against the episode. ‘Our main goal is to stop this from happening,’ he said. ‘If we don’t, at least ABC knows that people all over the world don’t want to have a 2-year-old saying the F-bomb on TV.’

But the complaints have largely fallen on deaf ears at the show, which airs on Sky1 in Britain.

Actor Eric Stonestreet – who plays Cameron – tweeted: ‘Lily didn’t ACTUALLY say FU*K. She said fudge. How bout see the episode, THEN form an opinion.

‘For fudge sake people. Chill the f–k out … how bout redirecting energies of the No Cuss Club 2 reading 2 the elderly, picking up litter, feeding the hungry…’

After the show had aired, he added: ‘And now the "I feel really stupid for making something out of nothing" feelings set in for the people who made something out of nothing.’

And executive producer Steve Levitan said last week: ‘We thought it was a very natural story since, as parents, we’ve all been through this.’

Published: 19 Jan 2012