def METHOD_NAME(self, family):
    """ Change the font family.
    May be either an alias (generic name is CSS parlance), such as:
    'serif', 'sans-serif', 'cursive', 'fantasy', or 'monospace', or
    a real font name.
    """
    if family is None:
        self._family = None
    else:
        if isinstance(family, bytes):
            family = [family.decode("utf8")]
        elif isinstance(family, str):
            family = [family]
        self._family = family