DHMIS Episode 9, and the Nuclear Family
I wrote a video essay script for a class. Tagging @littlemoondarling Here it is:
Visuals, text, [length/minutes]
Loop the DHMIS series opening over and over
Don’t Hug Me, I’m Scared is a tv series based on the viral internet videos of the same name. It is known for its surreal horror, zany humor, and medium blending in a package of a supposed kids show. From puppets to animation to live action. The original YouTube series could be considered a quintessential part secret-kids-media-not-what-it-seems-not-clickbait genre of horror, like Five Nights at Freddy. While I subscribe to the theory -
Game Theory’s DHMIS original series videos thumbnails float across the screen
That the original series was about the corruption of children’s television by executives and advertisers, this new series seems more interested in the characters. It also has more to say about a wide variety of topics. This leads to today’s video: Family.
[ 1.2 min.]
Switch to a frame of the family song from episode 9
Loop to job montage from episode 1
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared’s world is a broken, nightmarish world where things don’t make sense wrapped up in bold, primary colors. It is through this usage of surrealism, that it points out the hypocrisy of real-life societal systems. Things may not be this way one-to-one, but it sure feels this way. For example, in episode one, Red Guy snags an upper management job and ends up not having to do anything, like picking up trash, because the trash bin does it for him. Or how the Duck doesn’t mesh well with the workplace,
Loop Care Hound song visuals
so he gets sent to the ‘care hound’, fed a song that makes no sense, fed some pills, and when none of that works, gets confronted with this:
Show Care Hound
And gets turned into a happy little office drone. Now get back to work!
[1.2 minutes]
Back to family song
In episode 9, DHMIS applies this level of fantastical lampooning to the concept of the family, or more specifically, the nuclear family. At the start of the episode, our three intrepid heroes try to open a family bag of chips. Then, these two:
Show Todney and Lily
Proceed to interrupt them and claim they can’t have those chips, because they aren’t a family. The protagonists proceed to argue against them, saying that they either fulfill parental roles (even if they can’t agree on who the dad is), that they all live together and share the same lawyer, and Yellow Guy even has a biological dad.
Show Roy
These two don’t like those arguments, and say that a family requires “a full set”. They proceed to sing a weird little song on what supposedly makes up a family, like having a landline. They song is supposed to spell out FAMILY, but actually it spells out this:
Frame where Duck spells it out
[1.2 minutes]
Go to clips of T&L’s house
Anywoo, the twins take the three to their house to meet their family. Red Guy tries to find his own family, AKA people who are red like him. Duck goes back and sings about he doesn’t want to be in a family (he secretly does). Yellow Guy gets coerced into being the twin’s family mother so they could qualify for a family discount for a tub of chicken. Yellow Guy’s father, Roy shows up to save the day and is implied to eat that broken nuclear family. The gang reunites, and open their family sized pack of chips, only to see that there are only two left.
Intersperse with clips of mentioned plot beats
There are many things to take away about DHMIS episodes, just look at the vibrant theory community surrounding the show. From the way I see it, this episode is about the pitfalls of not only striving for a nuclear family, but also performing as one.
Photos of TV nuclear families
Todney and Lily’s designs call back to an American TV era starting in the 1950s, of shows centered around a traditional nuclear family. Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, The Brady Bunch. Breadwinner husband, stay-at-home wife, 2-3 kids, and a house in the suburbs. According to PBS’s The Rise of American Consumerism, the traditional nuclear family structure had its boom in the 1950s, with the baby boom and post-war economic opportunities. And within that boom came consumerism, AKA the way to do a nuclear family ‘right’. According to the article:
“Consumer spending no longer meant just satisfying an indulgent material desire. In fact, the American consumer was praised as a patriotic citizen in the 1950s, contributing to the ultimate success of the American way of life.”
If you wanted the ‘right’ domestic life, you had to have cars, TV, fridges, toasters, vacuum cleaners, and of course, traditional gender roles.
[3.2 min]
Go back to family song and family rules frames
DHMIS criticizes these arbitrary rules for familihood through this twisted sort of nuclear family and the junk they consider to be quintessential for a family, even disqualifying the actual family members. I mean, it’s the 2020s, how many of you guys have a landline?
Go back to episode climax
The climax, where we learn the family’s nefarious plans, can even be a commentary on how our societal systems reward traditional family structures, while leaving those who aren’t in nuclear households in the dust.
Stock footage of homes
For example, home ownership. According to the Tax Advisor, the number of people cohabiting together is increasing, but because they don’t have an official document stating they’re married, home ownership tax laws become infinitely more complicated. And let’s not get into taxes in general for nontraditional families.
Episode ending footage
You can even take the ending, in which a family sized pack of chips only yields two, to be a commentary on the rising costs of living and supporting a family, even when it is nuclear. According to CNN, the average cost of a middle-income household to raise a child to age 17 has soared to over 300000 dollars thanks to inflation. Given the current economic situation, we’ll probably see more households with nontraditional living structures will probably increase as time goes on.
DHMIS opening footage
So what does DHMIS say about this? Well, it’s quite simple. You shouldn’t need to kidnap people or give your blood to a tree to be a family. Sometimes, all it is, are three people who care for each other, stick together, and share a lawyer.
[3 minutes]
[total time: 9.8 minutes]
Works Cited
Kelly, Claudia. et al. “Tax Issues for Nontraditional Households.” The Tax Adviser, 1 Apr. 2017,
www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2017/apr/tax-issues-nontraditional-households.ht
ml. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.
Maruf, Ramishah. CNN, “It Now Costs More than $300,000 to Raise a Child, Thanks to
Inflation.” CNN,
www.cnn.com/2022/08/29/success/child-raising-costs-rise/index.html. Accessed
14 Nov. 2023.
PBS. “The Rise of American Consumerism | American Experience | PBS.” Pbs.org,
WGBH Educational Foundation, 2019,
www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-consumer/.
Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.
