Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2001 | 8:49 a.m.
The HBO series "Six Feet Under" rose above its summer competitors to grab the attention of a culture that is often reluctant to discuss such finalities as death.
The show, created and produced by Alan Ball, who wrote 1999's Oscar winner "American Beauty," uses a funeral home as the backdrop for a dysfunctional family and to show the way Americans deal with death.
The show, which ended its first season Aug. 19, centers on the relationships of a recent widow, her twentysomething sons who run the family funeral home and her teenage daughter, while it skims over the issues of death, love and lifestyles.
Ball has reportedly said he focused the show around the business of death because of the taboo nature of the subject and Americans' reluctance to discuss the topic.
"This is a show that's about life in the presence of death," Ball recently told Cox News Service. That is exactly why the show has garnered attention within the funeral industry itself.
To some in the burial business, "Six Feet Under" is a well-researched show that portrays the tender side of the industry.
Others consider it a slap in the face.
Funeral directors may differ on the show's level of good taste, but most agree it brings the dicey subject of death to the office watercooler, said Laura Glawe, a spokeswoman for the National Funeral Directors' Association in Brookfield, Wis.
" Six Feet Under' has done more for the funeral service, in terms of people better understanding death and dying and how we are involved, than any other public-education tool has ever been able to do," Glawe said.
She has seen only a few episodes, but has caught up on the show in conversations within the industry. It's a hot topic among funeral directors, mainly because it is the first time a show has stepped into the backroom of a funeral home and explored the lives of those who chose the profession.
"It portrays funeral directors as real people," Glawe said.
"These are sensitive issues that the show brings up. This is a business, but funeral directors have to be compassionate people to work in this business."
Death at the door
The show has attracted a large following. In its first season this summer "Six Feet Under" drew better ratings than HBO's other knockouts, "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City."
The heart of the show may lie in its flawed characters and soap-opera storylines, said Barry Garron, chief TV critic for the Hollywood Reporter.
Drug use, midlife crisis and homosexuality coax viewers into watching a show about how people die and grieve, Garron said.
"The death factor makes the cable show more appealing because it's a topic that doesn't get explored on network television," Garron said. "The show itself reveals some interesting truths about people, among them that even if they are in the business of death where they need to help others, it doesn't preclude them from handling it themselves."
Each episode of "Six Feet Under" begins with a gruesome death -- an accidentally electrocuted porn star; a pureed baker; a limousine passenger who rises from the speeding car's sunroof and collides headfirst into construction equipment.
The opening death scene sets the tone for the insecurities and emotional upheavals of the show's main characters while the cadaver lingers in the basement of the family's funeral home -- and in the minds of the audience.
The show centers on Fisher and Sons funeral home. The senior Fisher was the victim of a fatal Christmas Eve-car accident during the first episode, which aired June 3.
The business is left in the hands of the grown brothers -- uptight David (Michael C. Hall) a closeted homosexual, and laid-back Nate (Brian Krause).
The matriarch of the loosely knit family, Ruth (Frances Conroy), admits to having had an affair behind her now-late husband's back and aches to be closer to her sullen teenage daughter, Claire (Lauren Ambrose), who drifts through the family home -- and the season -- smoking pot, falling for the wrong men and always acutely aware of the cadavers downstairs.
Ball may have explained his motivation in creating the intense characters best in a June interview with Reuters.
"There's a lot of me in Nate with the Peter Pan thing," Ball said. "There's a lot of me in David -- I needed to be the good boy for such a long time, desperate for everyone's approval ... Then there's a lot of me in Claire. My two (real-life) brothers are so much older than me. I was the youngest child who was very unexpected. I felt like an afterthought."
The earliest influence for "Six Feet Under," Ball told Reuters, came at age 13 after the death of his sister in a car accident.
"I was in the car, too," Ball, 44, said. "It was a moment where your life is divided into a before and after. That was my first real taste of death."
Ball said that he created "Six Feet Under" in part to expose the so-called death-care industry and culture of dealing with death in America.
"This person you've loved was in your life and is gone, and then you go into this building where everything is quiet and muffled and the whole subtext is 'sweep it under the carpet,' " Ball said. "My mom, who was devastated by my sister's death, was weeping copiously at the funeral. They swooped her off, and the subtext was 'That's unattractive, that's embarrassing.' "
Reality TV?
That may no longer be the case, Glawe said.
"Alan Ball show or not," Glawe said, "society still needs to embrace the ability to appropriately be emotional and respond to this natural thing that occurs."
As with any profession dramatized for television, "Six Feet Under" may miss the mark on some of the deeper emotions of the funeral director's 24-hour job.
But in some ways it is eerily right on target.
Carl Bridges, general manager of the corporate-owned Bunkers Memorial mortuary/ crematorium and cemetery at 925 Las Vegas Blvd. North, has not seen an entire episode of the show. But he's seen enough.
"I've heard from people that it is graphic, but very realistic," Bridges said. "But they definitely did their homework in investigating a funeral home's rooms."
The Fishers' fictional funeral home (set in Southern California) reminds Bridges of the type seen in the Midwest and on the East Coast. In those regions families still live in the rooms above the viewing room and basement morgue.
"The set looks real, with the sliding doors in the parlor and the way it is decorated," Bridges said. "The preparation room is correct with the way it looks and all the equipment. It's nicely done."
Kyle West, a funeral arranger for Bunkers Memorial, began watching the show earlier this month during a free-HBO promotional weekend offered by Cox Cable.
He was hooked, but not enough to order HBO from the cable company. Instead his sister, who does order the channel, tapes the shows for him.
West had firsthand knowledge of living with the dead in his own home.
As a young funeral director in Kinsington, Kan., 10 years ago, West occupied a 90-year-old funeral home that was a large part of the small community.
It was not uncommon for people to pour themselves a cup of coffee from his kitchen coffee maker or make themselves at home in his living room while discussing the entombment of a family member.
Although he never held square dance classes or christening receptions at the home as the characters on the show have, there are some similarities to the program.
People would knock on his door late at night after a loved one had passed away to quickly make arrangements. West would answer in his T-shirt and jeans and comfort the bereaved as the body was delivered to the home for embalming.
"They liked that somebody lived there," West said, "that somebody was there all night with (the deceased)."
The fact that the show deals with his daily work routine doesn't interest him as much as the compelling story lines.
Just as doctors probably don't catch every episode of NBC's Emmy-award winning show, "ER," West doesn't race home to tune into the show, which he said can be, at times, overly dramatic.
"It's almost too much," West said of the show's gruesome details of disfigured bodies and traumatic accidents. "But would you watch ("ER") every week if people just came in with a headache or the flu? We want to watch the crashes and the gunshot (victims).
"But it's not like that on a weekly basis here. We may (need to) do reconstruction work (on a body) once a week."
The show has stirred up his nostalgia for entering the business, which, at age 13, he knew he would pursue.
"I had a calling. It's very rewarding that I can help people at their lowest time," West said. "(The show) does make me appreciate my business."
Brenda Hines, a funeral director for Harrison-Ross Mortuaries, at 2071 Las Vegas Blvd. North, said she tunes in to the show because it portrays her job and lifestyle with a dash of drama.
"It's nice to see something about my life, what I go through," Hines said. "You never stop funeral directing."
Hines, who turned her part-time funeral director's job into a career more than 10 years ago, can relate to the character Nate, who reluctantly joined his brother in the funeral business.
"He realized that this is a very tedious and compassionate (job) that he's doing and he stays because he loves it." Hines said. "It's about caring for people more than a business."
The other side
Death is not a funny business, said Jean Hites, co-owner of Hites Funeral Home, at 438 Sunset Road, with her husband Elliott.
While she finds the storyline is witty and compelling, Hines said it doesn't always portray a funeral director's delicate daily duties.
"It's not how we want to be perceived," Hites said. "You cannot do this job and do it right unless you are committed to the job. It's very emotional."
Each day funeral directors are confronted with tragedy -- spouses who have lost their partner, mothers who have lost children, and children who have lost their parents.
"It's often the worst time in their lives and they need someone who is loving and compassionate," Hites said. "You become a part of that loss for a while. It's not easy."
Ned Phillips, vice president/community relations for Palm Mortuaries, which is a family-owned corporation with seven locations in the valley, has heard the buzz about the show, but has yet to watch it.
"I'm not a big TV person," Phillips said.
The reality of his job may be more interesting than the fictional portrayal, anyway.
Families turn to him during a weak moment and he provides strength -- something he does not take for granted.
"I've cried with a family. I've laughed with a family," Phillips said. "There's a sense of satisfaction in being there for people."
Many families who come to the mortuary are unprepared for the questions that must be answered when someone dies. How did they want to be buried? Where?
"So many people think it's a taboo area and it should be an area that we are open about," Phillips said. "Every family member needs to have the death talk with their next of kin. It will give (each person) more piece of mind."
Maybe it takes a hit TV show for the public to recognize their mortality and discuss the inevitable.
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