In O’Donnell’s film, it’s all in the ‘Family’

HBO wasn’t looking for a political film when it asked Rosie O’Donnell to make a documentary about families, but realized in progress that it had one.

“A Family Is a Family Is a Family: A Rosie O’Donnell Celebration,” which debuts tonight at 7, is primarily children talking about their families: adopted children, those with two moms, those with two dads, those taken care of by a grandparent, single parents, multiracial blends.

Oh, and a mother and a father living under the same roof.

All were comfortable with their own families, even if some in society are not comfortable with all the different family configurations.

“All children need to see their own lives reflected in the media and need to be included when there are discussions about family,” said O’Donnell, who has four children.

“To vilify a whole group of people, or children, because of the sexual orientation of their parents, I don’t know if that does anything to help the next generation,” the 47-year-old comedian-actress said.

Producers set out initially to find nontraditional families with the idea of comforting anxieties, showing these children that deep down, families are families.

Seeing them all together made Sheila Nevins, head of HBO’s documentary unit, realize that it was making a political point.

With the effort to be all-inclusive, Nevins said that near the end, she realized they hadn’t talked to enough families with a married mother and father.

“There are no endorsements,” she said. “It’s just kids expressing what it means to be in a family.”

Some animation and music from the likes of Ziggy Marley singing with his mother and sister complement the kids.

Two moms are shown preparing to get married with their children involved, two dads say a prayer at the kitchen table with the daughter they adopted, and three brothers who live with their mother and grandmother mug for the camera.

Even her own children sometimes struggle with issues of family identity, with adoption and test-tube conception, O’Donnell said. She asked all four what would be their ideal family and got four different answers, including one who said a mother and father.

She and Nevins talked about whether O’Donnell and her family should be in the film, particularly as it was being made at a period of transition with O’Donnell and her partner Kelli Carpenter separating.

Ultimately, they decided it would seem strange without them.

“I wanted it to be a stew, a stew with equal portions of everything – a little bit of me, a little carrots, a little celery,” O’Donnell said. “I just wanted to be one of the many vegetables in the pot.”