The Strength of Famlily

The Strength of Family

Michael J. Fox once said “Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” This quote alone expresses the true relationship of the family in the TV show Empire which implies that family is everything. There are many cases of evidence in the show Empire how family can be the most important thing to a person. No matter the circumstances in life, one can never live without family. The TV show Empire sends many messages about the importance of family in an entertaining and engaging way. The director, Lee Daniels, expresses this by showing love and hate at times to bring out the fury a family has and still be one, strong family at the end.

The goal of the director is to capture the audience’s attention by showing them how important family is. There were many instances in the show where the Lyon family had its downfalls, but in the end it made them stronger. For instance Lucious Lyon, which is the father of the family, was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) which gave him only a few more months to live. We could clearly see the point given, the family obviously has to stay strong and come together as one, and we do see this happen with his three boys and wife. They always stick together no matter how tough a situation may be. Saying this, we can relate to the devastating news Lucious heard about his son Jamal, when he sang his feelings out at a party. When Lucious heard Jamal, his own son say that he is gay at a party, he was shocked, because Lucious is a man of hate towards homosexuals. However, he soon had to except the fact that he could never change the way Jamal feels about men, so Lucious has to accept his son either way. We see here that one has to choose their own route to happiness, in this case Jamal did, and still know that no matter what, family will still be by your side even if they do not like the choices made. Each character has their own way of expressing themselves, and each contributes to how important it is to always have family by one’s side.

A broken down Lyon family is what it may seem to the eyes of many, but every single person simply fits in the family in their own way. Hakeem and Cookie are a perfect example, because Hakeem always thought that his mother Cookie never loved him ever since she was sent to prison for selling drugs. Hakeem saw Jamal as the preferred child by Cookie, the mother, so he felt that his father Lucious was everything he had. Being the rap star he was Hakeem saw everything his own way, with hatred. Until one day he realized that he needs his mother to continue his career, for she is his mother and boss. Seeing Hakeem forgive his mother for leaving him as a child was the hardest but best decision he could have made. Not only did he make the bond between his mother and him, he also made his family even stronger.

Andre, who is the son of Lucious and Cookie, on the other hand, is the son that feels left out. Andre feels left out of the family, because he’s the only different one, he does not rap or sing; instead he is a man of business. Soon, the family finds out that Andre has issues controlling his anger and that is when they try to communicate and help out Andre with everything. They all tried helping by sending Andre off to a mental institution, but instead they put him in music therapy since it