Cam on "Modern Family" is just a big old girl, although he'd never admit it. He's a lovable and loving stay-at-home partner to Mitchell Pritchett and devoted parent to adopted Lily. He cooks, cleans, entertains and takes care of their daughter's every need. He can be tough sometimes, but when he gets upset, he slips into bouts of high-pitched girly drama. Cam's just a big old girl, but he's always trying to prove otherwise.
Cam talks about being a farm boy
When Cam's girly attitude starts to show, his masculinity becomes an issue. That's when he talks about Mother Tucker and the macho things he did while growing up on a Missouri farm. In the episode "After the Fire," Jay hurt his back and couldn't drive a truck. Cam volunteered to deliver household goods to their needy neighbor. "It's a big truck," Jay warned him. Cameron took the remark as an insult. Of course he could drive a big truck. He'd operated plenty of farm equipment as a boy, everything from combines to tractors. He even bragged about parallel parking a Bobcat scooter when he drove it to prom.
Cam sometimes brags about being a college football star
As Cam told Alex and Haley, "Gay guys can do everything straight guys can do." He was even good at sports but rarely discussed his college football days. The subject did come up every once in a while, like when he was trying to prove that he wasn't the mom in the relationship. Cam once felt compelled to show off his throwing arm. He hurled a football so hard, it knocked over a man whose only crime was riding his bicycle through the park.
Cam is Fizbo the macho clown
He really is. Cam is so much of a clown at heart, when he's on tranquilizers he "sleep clowns" the way other people "sleep drive or sleepwalk." When Cameron becomes Fizbo the clown, he can be funny or silly, but he can also be so macho it's scary. In the Season 1 episode "Fizbo, " Mitchell wasn't happy when partner Cam donned his clown gear for Luke's party. He was downright embarrassed until a bully threatened him in the gas station. It was a wild-eyed and very serious Fizbo who came to Mitchell's rescue.
Cam's a dad not a mom
Cam likes to think of himself as all man, but his feminine identity issues came to light full force on Mother's Day. He got upset when partner Mitchell brought him breakfast in bed. Cam got upset with all that Mother's Day attention, so Mitchell had to stop daughter Lily from entering their bedroom with Mother's Day balloons. "I'm not the Mother," Cam insisted, although he later posed with the moms for a traditional Mother's Day picnic photo. Cam's been tooting his macho horn ever since.
Has Cam been able to prove that he is both gay and macho? Not quite yet. In the episode "After the Fire" he was still pleading his case with Alex and Haley and everybody else. He didn't do a very good job of that. He had a really hard time controlling that big truck Jay warned him about. It was too big for Cam to get it into a parking space. When he tried to make an adjustment, he ended up stuck in a construction trench. Cam was surprised to learn that Alex and Haley expected him to mess up, but not because he was gay. They knew lots of competent gay guys. They simply lacked confidence in Cam's abilities because he was always messing up something.
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