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HBO's Six Feet Under shows the funeral industry in a new light, and for the most part, three bay area funeral directors think it's great.
By TOM ZUCCO
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 19, 2001
When HBO first began airing Six Feet Under, its hit drama about a dysfunctional Los Angeles family that runs an independent funeral home, the National Funeral Directors Association fired off an e-mail to its members saying they were trying to contact HBO "to discuss the contents of the program."
In one episode, for instance, a severed foot was lost in the mortuary room. In another, a funeral home worker used cans of cat food to prop up the breasts of a dead porn star so she would look "more natural" for her viewing.
That e-mail turned out to be one of the best pieces of advertising the network could've asked for.
Because if you want to get people to watch a TV show, hint that maybe they shouldn't.
Especially the people who do this for a living.
"I would've never known about the show if it wasn't for the e-mail," said John McQueen, vice president at Anderson-McQueen Funeral Home in St. Petersburg and a past president of the Florida Funeral Directors Association. "So I went to HBO's Web site to read all about it.
"I thought it was so good, I sent HBO an e-mail commending them on doing the show -- and I hadn't even seen it yet. And I told them that if ever needed stuff for the show, feel free to call me because, like the family in the show, I grew up with two siblings in the business."
McQueen became an SFU fan, as are many other funeral directors.
But how accurate is Six Feet Under? And what exactly is it? A perfect vehicle for the dark humor of writer/producer Alan Ball, the man who gave us American Beauty? Or Hollywood's latest attempt to push the envelope by going somewhere it has never gone before -- inside a funeral home? (Sorry . . . The Munsters had only passing references to Herman's job at Gateman, Goodbury & Graves.)
"If people watch the series," Ball said in an interview in May, "they'll realize it's not a show about death.
"It's a show about life in the presence of death."
Last week, we invited three funeral directors to watch the first episode and tell us what they think of it, from its portrayal of the embalming procedure to the delicate issue of what happens when a person upstairs is breaking dishes while a viewing is being held downstairs.
Six Feet Under, which airs Sunday nights (the final two episodes of the season air tonight beginning at 9) with repeats during the week, has done well in the ratings. It is to the funeral industry what The Sopranos is to the Mafia.
The four members of the Fisher family live in an old-fashioned funeral home -- the business is downstairs and the living quarters upstairs. The patriarch of the family dies in the first episode, leaving his two sons to run the business. The man's widow and teenage daughter round out the cast.
For McQueen, that setup sounded uncannily familiar. He took over Anderson-McQueen when his father died, and, as in the show, his brother returned to help him.
"I really enjoy it because, although they take things to the extreme, that's what makes it funny," McQueen said. "It's a good representation of what a family-owned funeral home goes through. The family problems, the intricacies of trying to work together. I got a big chuckle of the older son coming back into the business.
"When my dad died, my brother (Bill) was going off to be an attorney and I was the one in the business.
"But some of the things that aren't accurate are the daughter driving around in an old hearse. My father would never let us drive around in an old hearse. We were always trained that if the hearse breaks down, the first thing you do is get the signs out of the window because you don't want some reporter driving by and taking a picture of a hearse broken down on the side of the road.
"And I never lived in a funeral home -- our house was next door -- but I remember, as late as 1990, sleeping in the funeral home. There was somebody in that building 24 hours a day. We took turns sleeping there.
"But I also have a lot of friends who did grow up in a funeral home, just like in the show, and they remembered being told to be quiet because there was a viewing that night."
There are other inaccuracies, but most are so minor that only someone in the business would notice.
"The prep room (on the show) was very dark and dim," said Dwayne Matt, owner of Zion Hill Mortuary in St. Petersburg. "You can't work like that. It's normally like an operating room. You need bright lights to see what you're doing.
"And you're not back there smoking with an ashtray on the (corpse)."
Matt also noticed workers using surgical instruments in the wrong order, and dials on embalming tanks set far too high.
As for the family living at the funeral home: "I presented that to my wife and she almost divorced me.
"But it did hit home," he added. "It's very accurate, and I liked the personal aspects of each character. We're still normal people. We have normal lives. But funeral directors give a lot of their time to doing what everyone else wants them to do. Like the removal (of a body). And the wife complained (in the show) that the father couldn't leave the business. I've felt that so many times. You can't get away. You're always on duty."
The funeral directors agreed the show humanizes a profession that has always been shrouded in mystery. "It does show funeral directors are human, that they have personal problems," McQueen said. "Just as soon as the phone rings or when the family (of the deceased) is ready to walk in the door, my personal life gets put on hold. That's tough on funeral directors and their wives and families."
One of the central characters is a young restorative artist -- the person who applies makeup and sometimes putty to the faces of dead people so that they're presentable for a viewing. Occasionally, as the show points out, this involves severely disfigured victims, and requires all the skill the artist can muster.
"I have friends who saw the part about restorations and they asked me, "You really do stuff like that?'
"And I said, "Yeah. Someone's got to put them back together.' "
While there seems to be general acceptance, at least among funeral directors, of a show about a funeral home, it depends on whom you ask. Many older funeral directors think the show is a sensationalized and inaccurate portrayal of the business.
"My father doesn't like it," said Stacy Adams, vice president of Adams and Jennings Funeral Home in Tampa and one of the few female funeral directors in the state. "He's been in the business 35 years and has utmost respect and dignity -- not that I don't -- but that's how he wants everyone to see funeral homes and funeral directors.
"He doesn't like anybody to think a funeral director wouldn't do their job right. And that's why he's afraid of this show. It's just one more misconception about the funeral business. Is that how you treat people? Do you really act that way?
"It's good if people watch it and don't take it for everything it is," Adams added. "Not every funeral home is like that, of course."
So you can, as one of the pretend ads in the first episode explained, put the fun back in funeral? At least on television?
"I think so," Adams answered. "I probably wouldn't still be in the business because all you deal with every day is death. Regardless of how we do it, or what type of service we're doing, the bottom line is, someone died.
"And if you don't bring in things to make it, not so much fun, but a little easier . . . it can help you do your job a little better."
Adams mentioned one other TV show that might have made passing references to the funeral industry. The Addams Family.
"I was called "Wednesday' for a long time," she said. "Now my friends call me Morticia."
Somebody used the same name to ridicule the teenage girl on the show.
But it was McQueen who may have the best material for a Six Feet Under episode.
"For every visitation, we give the family a little disposable camera because a lot of times, funerals are the only times families come together. But one of our secretaries pointed out to us that on the camera, it said they were "Fun Savers.'
"She said, "You might want to cut this part off.' "