Enormous Changes Not at the Last Minute

Alex sweaters shouldn't get all the love

I've been thinking about continuity and clothes again on Family Ties, and I think Judith Butler (yes, I went there) would be useful here:

If the ground of gender identity is the stylized repetition of acts through time and not a seemingly seamless identity, then the spatial metaphor of a "ground" will be displaced and revealed as a stylized configuration… .The abiding gendered self will then be shown to be structured by repeated acts that seek to approximate the idea of a substantial ground of identity, but which in their occasional discontinuity, reveal the temporal and contingent groundlessness of this "ground." 

The characters on Family Ties present gendered selves through the "stylized repetition of acts through time" - for example, they return to the same outfits, which conform to gender norms (even as some characters are understood to be more fashionable than others). But I would argue that the show uses the "occasional discontinuity" in characters' clothing, appearance, and behavior to solidify the "ground" of identity, gender and otherwise. In other words, on Family Ties there's no surer sign that a character is going through a phase than when he or she makes a big, physical change. All extreme transformations signal the temporary.

Sometimes these transformations are chosen individually, as when Mallory scores higher than Alex on an IQ test and then dresses differently to rub it in:

Or when Alex tries to be part of his girlfriend Ellen's world by auditioning for a dance company:

But more often than not, one character gives another a makeover, as when Alex helps Jennifer prepare for a history presentation on how a bill becomes a law and costumes her in the style of his brand of overachieving student:

Or when Mallory and Jennifer take their little brother Andy shopping:

Or, in the most problematic example of all, when Alex helps Nick change his style so he'll better fit in with the Keatons:

(I'll write a whole post about the show's treatment of Nick, but I want to finish the series first).

On shows like Family Ties, discontinuities don't shake the solid ground of identity; they reveal an anxiety about our true selves and our relationships, concerns that are resolved playfully or seriously in a matter of scenes but that are always resolved in favor of the "real" person. Everyone dresses like themselves, again. In this way, the show flirts with alternatives but comforts its audience with a continued return to age, class, heterosexual, and other norms, all of which can be bought and worn.

I do wish this store existed, though.