Both are about families, though they have little else in common. “Six Feet Under” is the story of the Fishers, who operate a funeral business. The show’s dark humor and compelling characters have drawn a loyal audience, including many in the funeral business. NEWSWEEK’s Jennifer Barrett spoke with Todd Van Beck, who has owned or managed several funeral homes during his 35-year career and served as president of the New England Institute of Funeral Services. He offers his take on the small-screen portrayal of life in a funeral family.
NEWSWEEK: Do you think TV shows like “Six Feet Under” have helped or hurt the public’s perception of the funeral-home profession?
Todd Van Beck: The show’s characters have helped to put a human face on it. The show says you can be a relatively normal person and be a funeral director. In that sense, I think it has probably helped the perception of the industry. This society has an unbelievably fragile attitude toward death. Our cemeteries look like golf courses; when someone dies in the hospital, the body is removed through a back door by the garbage bins. We’ve done a really good job of hiding death in this society. If “Six Feet Under” brings less anxiety about the subject, that’s a good thing. Anxiety about something as certain as death is not good. A hundred years ago, people talked about death a lot and funerals lasted three to four days. But if you brought the issue of sex up, you’d be arrested. Now we’re obsessed with sex, but no one wants to talk about death. If “Six Feet Under” helps bring about a more mature balance between the beginning and the end of life, it has served a good purpose.
Does the show provide an accurate portrayal of the industry?
I have been in this business for 35 years, and I have seen such offensive and rude and exaggerated portrayals of funeral directors in the past–things that almost should be libelous they are so inaccurate and out of context. “Six Feet Under” really portrays the lives of a family that runs a funeral home, which is really what the story is about. To me, it is a story about a dysfunctional family in America that just happens to live in a funeral home. I think the producers of the show have been very good about not linking the dysfunctional aspects of the family unit with any strange or spooky things that happen in a funeral home.
I raised my family in a funeral home, and it was just like living in a home, except it happened to be a funeral home. You could have had a dysfunctional family of physicians, or lawyers. The show portrays the family’s joys and sorrows and ups and downs, but they just happen to be in a funeral home. The characters in “Six Feet Under” are decent human beings concerned about their families. They are very attentive to their responsibilities. They also have a social life; they get out of the funeral home. The only thing that bugs me is that I don’t think they have portrayed the physical facilities of the funeral parlor accurately. It didn’t look very realistic. The lay-out and the really, really old stuff–even old funeral homes are much more modernized.
Before “Six Feet Under,” how were most funeral directors portrayed on the screen?
On TV and in movies, they’ve usually portrayed funeral directors as these creeps. They were always played by Vincent Price or someone like that. The media does it too. They have these “investigative reports” into the funeral industry. First of all, it’s not an industry, it’s a profession. We’re not making cars. We’re serving families, and we’re serving them at a time when most people don’t even want to talk to them. There was one investigative reporter, this glamorous reporter, who said she was going to rip the lid off the corruption in the funeral profession. They went out and interviewed 50 or 60 directors but picked out the most awkward one they could find, and that’s the one who gets on TV.
So, what’s changed now?
I think they are running out of material. You’ve had 60 years of trying to put everything on the medium that could possibly sell. So somebody says: “OK, let’s try this one out.” Still, I can’t imagine that people were running down the hallways at HBO saying, “Look at my assignment! I get to work with the undertakers!” I imagine there were a lot of jokes when the show started, like “People are dying to get on the set.” If I had a dime for every time I heard that line, I wouldn’t be working anymore. I’d be a rich man.
Do you find yourself relating to the characters or scenarios on the show, or shaking your head?
Sometimes, I say “been there, done that.” Each episode starts with someone dying, and how they die. Every time it starts up, I know I’m going to well up because I remember a call that I went to help a family on. The beginning of the program provides absolutely wonderful insight into the raw data work that funeral homes run into. Some of my friends and colleagues have even said to me after seeing the show that they didn’t realize death comes in so many shapes and packages. There’s one way to be born but a million and one ways to die. “Six Feet Under” will never capture them all but they do a sensitive treatise on how people leave this earth.
The show’s deaths have included decapitation by a cherry picker, choking to death on a hot dog and a porn star who was electrocuted in her bathtub by her cat–are these scenarios as outlandish as they sound?
These are not strange at all. Those are pretty mild, in fact. I’ll tell you, I have had cases that would rip your heart out. I can’t disclose details; those are confidential. If I give an example and a family member sees it in print, well, it’s too close to home. But I’ll tell you, with some of these cases, you walk away shaking your head. You wonder about the human condition.
How did you get into the profession?
Someone once came up to me and said, “I don’t understand how someone who is 18 decides they want to be a funeral director. I mean, what happened to them?” I didn’t tell her that I’d wanted to be a funeral director since I was five. I went to a funeral and it was gentle, beautiful, pastoral and full of wisdom. I knew the woman. My grandmother had served as her nurse. I asked why Mrs. Norton was in a treasure chest. She just looked beautiful. The family was there and the community was there to give them support. And I remember the funeral director was there to help them out, make sure everything went all right.
Have you ever offered your expertise to the producers of “Six Feet Under” or other shows?
Not with “Six Feet Under,” though it seems like they’ve got someone advising them. I did consulting on the Martin Scorsese film, “The Gangs of New York,” and I served as an expert witness when the singer Selena was shot.
How realistic are other shows that center around dead people, like “CSI” and “Crossing Jordan?”
I think “Six Feet Under” has a more realistic grasp than the other ones do. I’m not sure if that’s because they have a bigger budget. I’ve worked with the coroner’s office over the years. It’s not as dramatic and as fascinating as it is portrayed in “CSI” and “Crossing Jordan.” Not every week do they have a case that Agatha Christie could have written.
