Posted in: NBC, Opinion, streaming, TV, TV | Tagged: Alex Keaton, Family Ties, michael j fox, nbc, opinion, Reaganomics, sitcom

Michael J. Fox: Family Ties' Alex Keaton "Would Have Left" Today's GOP

In an interview with Variety, Michael J. Fox said his breakout Family Ties character Alex Keaton would have long rejected today's GOP.

In a major cover story interview with Variety this week, Michael J. Fox had some interesting things to say about Alex Keaton, the character in his 1980s sitcom series Family Ties that first made him a star. Fox said that Alex Keaton would have abandoned the GOP long before Trump and the Jan. 6 attack: "He would have left. I don't think Alex would even see Republican and Democrat now. He'd see normal people and crazy, fascist weirdos."

Alex Keaton was kind of a smug little creep. He worshipped at the altar of Reagan's Republican Party and constantly poked at his parents' late hippy humanist liberalism. He was possibly the biggest symbol of the Reagan 80s on television: a peppy, optimistic, teenage True Believer in Reaganomics. He was like a teenage descendant of Archie Bunker from All in the Family, only smarter, savvy, and with the belief the world was his oyster instead of a bitter, aging, pessimistic reactionary like Archie was. In many ways, Alex Keaton was the most loathsome character on television in the 1980s and a testament to just how good of an actor Michael J. Fox is that he made the character watchable and even attractive to many. Alex was an awful character made watchable by Fox's inherent likability and comic timing. The role made Michael J. Fox a TV star before he left to make the movies – The Secret of My Success, Teen Wolf, and Back to the Future – that cemented him as a major star of both movies and television.

There's an episode of Family Ties where Alex sits down with the father of a girl he was dating, who eyes him intently and asks, "Are you a Communist?" That moment was meant to be a joke in a sitcom. The look on Alex's face was the punchline. That expression of mild surprise and a wide-eyed "Are you kidding me?" was everything. It seemed to sum up a lot about Alex's character and the show.

So Michael J. Fox imagining where Alex Keaton would be in 2023, in his mid-fifties, is an interesting touchstone for where the character – and former Reaganite Republicans would stand is particularly telling. Basically, even Alex Keaton would know there are lines you don't cross.

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