Shameless: The Gallagher Family

Shameless is a Netflix and Showtime series that shares the dysfunctional story of a single father and his six children. While the father Frank Gallagher spends time around Chicago drunk or with a new girlfriend, the oldest sibling Fiona Gallagher raises the kids. Throughout the series, the Gallagher family illegally cashes social security checks for deceased relatives, deals drugs and used fake identities. While the family attempted to get away with all their illegal behaviors, police and social workers played a role in reinforcing the law. The law was included but it was not accurate and did not stop the family from finding ways to get away with their unconstitutional behavior. Watching a family break the law continuously and not get in trouble for doing so was highly entertaining. The issue of the series was that they did not accurately portray the law and legal component. This series does a great job in portraying how to break the law in America but the lack of reinforcement from legal authority takes away from an accurate representation of law in American life. Since money was tight around the Gallagher household, the family did everything in their power to save every penny as well as
While the series was entertaining the portrayal of the law in American life was inaccurate. The Gallagher family broke many laws got brief interventions and then continued to break the law. If this was a reality television show the law enforcement would be widely present and the consequences to the law when it would be broken would be widely present. Since this series main goal was entertainment the focus of the series was not law in American life. The only lesson that could be extracted from this series is that the law is always present, whether we follow it is up to us and as Americans we have to deal with the