Malcolm in the Middle vs. The Middle - Orthodox Filmmakers and Artists

This site purports to provide an "Eastern Orthodox Christian perspective and inspiration on all things media-related & the creative process"-however, it seems to want all families in the media to be exactly like their family (Christian, gender role conforming, and incredibly traditional). Or at least, that's what I can tell from this blog post.

This post is very homophobic, claiming Malcolm in the Middle had a hidden gay "agenda" (not even kidding, that's the word it used). It acts like Malcolm is somehow tarnished by having a gay creator, and looks up to the Middle's creators in having "traditional lives". It points out that Bryan Cranston (Malcolm's Hal) supports LGBT rights, as if that is somehow relevant (I would estimate that of the non-Scientologist celebrities, at least 50% support LGBT rights). It talks about how Eric has two fathers, who together have approximately 50 seconds of footage (and are actually the only gay characters on the show).

It talks about how awful it is that some of the characters don't conform to traditional gender roles exactly (eg Reese wears a pink apron, Hal and his friends gossiping while playing poker-as in, how people actually play poker with friends, Francis complaining about his mother to his fellow cadets??). As you can tell, the last two are completely nonsensical. Tying this and the last paragraph together, it often calls this "queer behaviour" and accuses it of being part of the gay agenda ("Perhaps MM wanted to show that even straight men could act in a queer way and vice-versa – so that the audience could reconsider what was ‘normal’ behaviour").

It then goes on to complain about how Malcolm treats women-and while I do agree that there aren't  enough female characters on the show, there are a couple decent characters (even if you discount the characters mentioned on the post)-such as Cynthia, Miss Miller or Piama. The Middle also treats women stereotypically. In the episode I last watched, Brick got "married" to a girl named Olivia who starts hounding him with threats of cheating him out of his books if they break up. In the final scene, Brick, his father, and Axl sit around with a drink mulling over the complications of women, with Axl finishing by saying "I have only two thoughts in my head right now. Driving and sex."

Finally, it complains about the Malcom family's perceived lack of religion, which is really just them complaining that not every family is exactly like theirs. They then say that the Middle manages to be Christian and yet not preachy-despite admitting a preacher appears several times (and from what I've seen, acts as a deux ex machina).