I never really understood the phrase “blood is thicker than water”. First, because it’s a biological fact, and second, as an only child I never understood how siblings could choose one other above things like friends, spouses, or even – dramatic pause – “the law”. Siblings, to me, were just people who grew up together. Just like childhood friends or cousins. Mainly because that’s all I had.
Of course, the older you get, the more you begin to understand the complexities of sibling dynamics. Families are complicated, often dysfunctional and far more interesting than Full House would suggest. For instance, as I grew up, I learned that it’s not OK to hate on a friend’s brother or sister openly, and driving a wedge between siblings – such as siding with your best friend’s elder brother in a disagreement between them – is a crime arguably punishable by death or a request you please go home. Blood, it turned out, really was thicker than water.
Last weekend, Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak hit cinemas worldwide. In it, we watch as a brother (Tom Hiddleston) and sister (Jessica Chastain) invite a third party (Mia Wasikowska) to participate in a psychodrama that takes place in a crumbling, sinister mansion. In a radio interview with Nick Grimshaw on Thursday, Hiddleston described his fictional sister as a “few sandwiches short of a picnic”, yet his character sticks by her, sibling loyalty running deep and dangerous.
So far, the fall’s most talked-about films revolve around tension between familial loyalty and the demands of the wider world. In Legend, Tom Hardy plays Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the real-life gangster twins who ruled mid-60s east London. Meanwhile in Black Mass (also a true story), crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger (Johnny Depp) runs Boston, as his brother (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) goes into politics. In both films, the characters are told that their sibling is a liability and ordered to cut them loose (one Kray was a little more, well, cray, for instance), and each refuses.
But even on the fictional front, series like Empire (which pit siblings against each other) and Scream Queens (which equates sorority sisters with the biological type), tout the importance of family. Instead of ratting out sorority queen Chanel for killing her housekeeper in the show’s pilot, the sisters stay quiet so they can remain in her good graces – and because that’s what you do.
On Empire, the cable network equivalent of King Lear, the increasingly tense (and emotionally scarring) hip-hop drama tells the tale of what happens when the strength of brotherhood is tested by power and money. With three brothers vying for their father’s company, each seek loyalties among their peers and their mother before they turn to one other. Yet, it’s also not that simple: the Lyon sons still find common ground between themselves thanks to past experiences and similar enemies. But unfortunately, spurred on by the people around them and their own insecurities, their dynamic remains rocky.
Empire proves that family dynamics still drive soap operas. In ABC’s recent dramatic endeavour Blood & Oil, an oil magnate, his wife, their conniving son, and his illegitimate sister (who naturally ends up having an affair with her father’s driver) become entrenched in disaster. It turns out that power corrupts, but it’s oil that’s the really dirty business. In Blood & Oil the cardinal rules of family are broken, and the heir seems to have little or no loyalty to anything but oil. So, I guess, oil is thicker than blood.
Blood & Oil is unusual in that it doesn’t attempt to humanise its depraved characters by showing how, deep down, they’re family guys with a moral compass. In Legend, we’re assured that Reggie Kray can’t be all bad, because he still adores his brother. In Black Mass, the spineless congressmen can’t be a total wash because he still won’t give up his sibling to police. Each of the sons in Empire suffers because of their inter-familial disputes, so they clearly have the capacity for compassion and empathy, despite gunning for both fame and their father’s company. Even in the Dark Places, this summer’s adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel of the same name, you feel pity for the heroine’s (supposedly) murderous brother. And then you want her to prove his innocence, which is what keeps you tuned in.
But beware: there’s only so far this concept can stretch. It’s easy to use sibling-based loyalty to paint a villain as somebody who is human and deserving of love – and easier still to use the concept as a replacement for actual character development. In Dark Places, the hero’s adult brother seems two-dimensional because he is defined almost entirely by his relationship to his sister and his interactions with her, leaving viewers interested in her story, but almost indifferent to his since he has no discernible character traits.
On the flipside, Black Mass establishes its siblings as two separate, well-defined entities. Whitey is volatile and violent compared to his cool, calm brother. And because both characters are so complex and so different, we viewers can understand how powerful (and unconditional) their love really is. In the same way a character should never be defined by their love interest or enemy, a narrative cannot live on a sibling storyline alone.
That’s what’s made this year’s family dramas so compelling: whether East End gangsters or Chicago music moguls, they’re expressing the complexities of blood ties. The best of these works show family dynamics sway; how quickly lifelong bonds can disintegrate. As the concept of family is being redefined in the wider world, they show that some relationships are atavistic and visceral. Ultimately, pop culture is helping explain why blood can be thicker than water.
So now I finally get it. Even though I grew up only with a cat.
