Through sarcastic dialogue with her siblings and her parents, Sarah Hyland’s depiction of Haley utilizes contrasting foil, blue humor and flat character in order to portray a stereotypical teenage girl.
Haley is characterized as a stereotypical teenage girl and her younger sister, Alex, is characterized as a book nerd—Haley’s polar opposite. Their interactions are similar to a typical relationship between two sisters, always fighting and disagreeing with each other. Haley is constantly having arguments with her mom about how she does not need to go to college and puts little effort into learning different subjects in school; “Holá Gloria, gracias for coming over.” Alex, her foil, wears glasses, and seems to always have a book with her. It can be inferred that she has great dreams about college and her future. A teenager who is able to hide things very easily from her parents, Haley got mad at Alex in a scene when they were trying to hide a dent in their mom’s van, saying, “you disgust me—“ to Alex, then immediately cutting off to Gloria “—Are you hungry?” Their scenes together are very funny because the audience is easily able to connect to their stereotypical characterizations. They talk about things that two normal sisters would talk about, and make fun of each other as well, such as when Alex says a big word and Haley says, “I don’t know what that means—and don’t tell me.” The humor also comes from Alex’s side when she says to Haley, “The only stage you’ll be jumping to will have a pole on it,” suggesting that Haley does not have a bright future ahead of her. Blue humor is when comic effect is brought about with a topic that can be easily offensive, and Haley seems to always be caught up in these conversations with her dad. The fact that these conversations are with her dad make the scenes even funnier because daughter-father conversations are commonly awkward. In Virgin Territory, the two are caught talking about virginity through dolls, and how “it happens, dolls grow up.” The humor in this scene is that both of them keep using the dolls as an analogy for Haley and how she is no longer a virgin. She also gets caught in awkward moments where she exclaims about “wearing one of [Kenneth’s] bras” and asking Kenneth if he would still have been as successful as he is now if he had gone to college, “except [it would come] four years later.” Another seemingly offensive topic that Haley is caught in with Phil turned from a nice conversation about Phil “walking [Haley] down the aisle,” and turned to Haley telling her dad that he would probably be “in perv jail” by that time. Different from the other scenes, this one brings the comic effect because of the offensive way that Haley ruined Phil’s moment.
Previously mentioned, Haley is a stereotypical teenage girl who loves to party and hates school, this can also characterize her as one of the flat characters in Modern Family. Haley’s attitude and tone do not change from scene to scene, no matter which member of her family she is talking to. Her care free and sarcastic attitude carries from conversations with her sister that “saying nothing is not lying” to her mom when she says, “ease up. It’s a holiday.” The stereotypical teenager comes out when she says “Uh I have a party tonight. You promised I could go if I got a B on my test. I studied, I read stuff, what was the point of all that?” This side of her is commonly seen when she is talking about school or her friends, and doesn’t change much in her conversations with and about her family.
Teenage girls are easily able to connect to Sarah Hyland’s character, Haley Dunphy, because she provides comic scenes through her sarcastic dialogue with her family using the contrasting foil between her and Alex, the blue humor in her interactions with her father, and the flat character that helps portray her as a stereotypical teenage girl.
