There are plenty of bad fathers in literature, such as Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich, who are directly cruel or withdraw from family life. There are also many nurturing types, none so kind and gentle as Cather’s Anton Rosicky, whose daughter-in-law pays him the ultimate compliment of trusting him with her pregnancy before anyone else knows.
Thanks for posting this again, reworked. Nice. The only advice my father ever gave to me about being a father was not to make the mistakes he did. It was good advice, and I don't think I did.
Thanks for reading, Bob. That must have required some humility on your dad's part. Too often sons repeat their father's mistakes, in part, because they're never acknowledged as mistakes. Lots of grown men still chasing after an absent father's approval. I'm sure I'm making plenty of my own mistakes. But I try to keep the communication channels open and keep showing up.
Great piece, Joshua. I’m glad you reshared, as I didn’t see it the first time. The reimagining of father’s roles in media an important piece of reshaping the world.
Who says? My kids laugh at me. I laugh at my mother.
I am the clown in my family, I guess? But I am actually trying to BE a clown. There's no shame or contradiction in being a clown. Are we supposed to assume only a certain hegemonic role is valuable where authority would be abrogated by humor? But moral authority is not destroyed by humor, only authority of fear and domination.
Moral authority comes from widom, and moral strength. A funny person can have those.
Better not laugh at your mother too much : ) I'm speaking broadly, culturally. In popular entertainment we laugh at fathers, and sympathize with mothers, who often play the straight man. Why is this? I stand by my statement.
In ‘I Love Lucy’ the wife is the funny one and some of the humor comes from fear of her stern (but not too scary) husband. I think this is also a trope in ‘Modern Family’ (with one couple). And ‘All in the Family.’ I suppose ‘That Seventies Show’ is a bit like this.
In some others, both in the couple are funny—like ‘Malcolm in the Middle,’ and one couple of ‘Modern Family’ —also ‘The Addams Family’ and ‘Bobs Burgers.’ Both are hapless in some ways. ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘Fresh Prince’ have this set-up.
Then in some, I suppose the father is the hapless and funny one—like ‘The Simpsons’ and the mother is not as funny.
But a zany mother/stern father is also a trope as zany father/stern mother. Then there are ones where both father and mother have some sort of foible that has to be accommodated by the other spouse or the children.
There’s probably an internet site where someone has broken this down somewhere. Or people used to do this on the internet a lot—analyze sitcom dynamics.
Ro, you're right. The spectrum is so broad. This little subset of our thread is only about the comic type, and you're right that zaniness can cut both ways. It's probably true that shows explicitly billed as comedies are going to show everyone in that light.
It's possible that I'm reacting mainly to the examples that I'm most familiar with in TV dramas (my preferred genre). But I wonder if zaniness and incompetence might go with dads moreso than with moms (although now you're making me wonder about the zany moms who are nervous wrecks). Red Forman, in That 70s Show, is comical because he's an inept alpha -- maybe competent as an earner, but not much else.
I should do a separate post on children's books, where fathers are often completely omitted or where you have figures like Papa in Berenstain Bears who are essentially overgrown children. It's not a coincidence, is it, that the kids going on a bear hunt, finding the bear, and then racing away to hide under the covers are accompanied by a solo dad?
I don't mean to be humorless about it, but the point I'm trying to make here is that popular culture reveals abiding attitudes about fathers that deserve some scrutiny, perhaps some updating. This is perhaps why teachers and camp counselors default to contacting my ex instead of me, even when it's my custody week with the kids. A few more characters like Henry McCord -- or solo dads who aren't a hot mess -- would be welcome!
You can't have any comedy without foibles. All humans have them.
As with sitcoms, I am sure there are many different tropes in fiction and in drama.
However, if you are looking for some masculine ideal, and suspect America of abandoning it recently, you may want to take a peek at Shakespeare.
Fictional human males with flaws are not some recent nefarious invention of the libs to destroy our moral fabric, etc.
Perhaps the most beautiful father son depiction in film might bev'Pelle the Conqueror.' Fatherly love is tender in many of the best fictional depictions of fathers and children.
There's a lot we agree on! The academic in me is wanting to snap our focus back to TV examples, because you're right that literature has a much more nuanced spectrum. It's probably my fault for confusing things with allusions to children's literature! But I think to reason our way toward clarity, we need the initial framing.
Here are a few of my core points, which I think we're losing:
* TV character types are more binary than literary types.
* Pop culture representations of fathers are reflections of contemporary attitudes, to some degree. There's a split between what we say we expect of fathers and what we see on TV. Worth interrogating.
* TV types largely fall into the alpha (traditional patriarch) or buffoon binaries.
* The buffoon type is almost always cast as incompetent, not an otherwise dependable parent with a zany side.
Papa Bear is an endearing character in many ways, but he is not a responsible adult, and in that way he is perpetually cast as an inferior parent, always losing his temper, parenting by the seat of his pants. I mention his character not to open up the can of worms of all literary character types for fathers so much as to suggest that he fits the Homer Simpson mold, and that this is one of two fairly binary types for fathers that we see in recent television (last 10-15 years) in America.
Pelle the Conqueror looks great -- I'll check it out! How fathers come off in international TV series is a separate question, and a worthy one :)
I think the farther back we go, the more we need a different framing. This is probably the fault of my own framing here. I should clarify that TV types for mothers have evolved quite a lot to show women in powerful roles, as alphas themselves, etc. But TV character types for fathers have remained mired in older models.
If we go back before feminism began to significantly influence TV characters, then the types are much more predictable reflections of sexism. Fathers as stable, stoic providers, mothers as nurturing angels or histrionic wrecks. That essay has been written a hundred times over. The fact that it seems so difficult to say something new about fathers is interesting in its own right!
It's extremely complicated because the parent's actions are driven by circumstances, and the heroic fathers are all in heavy dramas --like Ned Stark, the dads on several zombie shows--Pedro Paschal and the sheriff in The Walking Dead, the dad in This is Us, the sheriff in Stranger Things--there are a number of these dads.
Maybe the idea of Alpha is what I don't get. These males are what I would assume would really fit the mold of a leader who is trusted, because he is good, he cares for others, he is willing to sacrifice himself for them, and they all look to him for guidance.
But he is not obeyed without question. There's no obedience by role--he has moral authority via the trust he engenders, and it is not absolute.
Maybe this is more realistic? How else would one get authority organically except by being the person everyone knows is well-motivated, reliable, benevolent, and brave?
There's redemptive value in humor, and some moms that embrace it. I'm thinking of CK Steefel. I suppose the jokes wear thin if a mom feels she's been picking up dirty socks for 20 years? Fair enough. As a single dad, I also want to be more than the wisecrack, though I don't want to be too deadly serious about it :)
Yes I follow Ms. Steefel's excellent posts. To speculate further, humor is dependent on culpability. Due to their perceived power and range of options, fathers are culpable, or responsible, or liable for their pratfalls in ways mothers are not.
I think there are still a lot of absent fathers portrayed. And sometimes, when the father is off screen or off the page, his presence is felt by his absence.
It's funny how old tropes get coded into idioms. My eldest daughter is my spitting image, and I was always befuddled by jokes like "There's no denying that baby!" As if I'd ever want to. But I guess there was a time when dads were expected to run away.
I cut this from the post, but Walter White's character is an interesting confluence of two roles that Hollywood doesn't know what to do with: the father and the teacher. Just as most classroom scenes in film take place just before the bell, fathers are typically parachuting in or out of family life. The detective apologizing yet again for the late-night call. The businessman who catches his son's last at-bat (or shows up too late). I don't think most men look to TV for actual role models, but those character types are interesting mirror of how we perceive fatherhood collectively.
How many divorce scenes have you seen where the mother moves out? The father is assumed to be the more disposable parent, assuredly because many men have cast themselves in that role. It would be refreshing to see TV dads making more meals, caring for sick kids, just being the foundation of family life.
Josh, I offer this as anecdotal example from a man who isn't a father but was a son. It's not meant as prescription, though I've been made to think recently, regarding a lot of matters, not specifically fatherhood, how much modern self-consciousness about behavior and roles and social context influences our lives in whole new ways.
My father for a variety of both historically and socially contextual and personal reasons was not someone to have conceived an idea of fatherhood or masculinity. Or if he did, not one who would or could ever articulate either. As it was, he developed from the particulars of his life into someone with an extraordinary work ethic and powerful, loving devotion to family. One knew this only from observing him live. (The same was true of my mother in relation to motherhood and femininity, even though she was far more articulate than my father.) My parents offered no articulated instruction in living to their children. They simply served -- their children all concluded after the fact -- as examples, by the way they lived. My mother was a strong, articulate woman in relation to a less outspoken husband. In midlife she pursued a career. My father, quite extraordinarily given his background, shared in all household chores, from cleaning to cooking to caring for children -- less, of course, while he was source of the sole income, more equally later. All of this we children simply witnessed living as their offspring.
I've discussed this with my siblings.
Certainly, my notions of masculinity and fatherhood were influenced by the general culture around me, and I had developmentally to negotiate them on my own for the reasons I give. I managed to, fairly successfully, without having to employ my ideas of fatherhood, though I know I would surely have been a more instructional father than my own.
Still, I think it's worth noting how things can work out under different conditions.
Thanks for posting this again, reworked. Nice. The only advice my father ever gave to me about being a father was not to make the mistakes he did. It was good advice, and I don't think I did.
Thanks for reading, Bob. That must have required some humility on your dad's part. Too often sons repeat their father's mistakes, in part, because they're never acknowledged as mistakes. Lots of grown men still chasing after an absent father's approval. I'm sure I'm making plenty of my own mistakes. But I try to keep the communication channels open and keep showing up.
Great piece, Joshua. I’m glad you reshared, as I didn’t see it the first time. The reimagining of father’s roles in media an important piece of reshaping the world.
Thanks for reading!
Fathers are funny. You can laugh at them, but not at your mother. Why is this?
Who says? My kids laugh at me. I laugh at my mother.
I am the clown in my family, I guess? But I am actually trying to BE a clown. There's no shame or contradiction in being a clown. Are we supposed to assume only a certain hegemonic role is valuable where authority would be abrogated by humor? But moral authority is not destroyed by humor, only authority of fear and domination.
Moral authority comes from widom, and moral strength. A funny person can have those.
Better not laugh at your mother too much : ) I'm speaking broadly, culturally. In popular entertainment we laugh at fathers, and sympathize with mothers, who often play the straight man. Why is this? I stand by my statement.
There are so many tropes though.
In ‘I Love Lucy’ the wife is the funny one and some of the humor comes from fear of her stern (but not too scary) husband. I think this is also a trope in ‘Modern Family’ (with one couple). And ‘All in the Family.’ I suppose ‘That Seventies Show’ is a bit like this.
In some others, both in the couple are funny—like ‘Malcolm in the Middle,’ and one couple of ‘Modern Family’ —also ‘The Addams Family’ and ‘Bobs Burgers.’ Both are hapless in some ways. ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘Fresh Prince’ have this set-up.
Then in some, I suppose the father is the hapless and funny one—like ‘The Simpsons’ and the mother is not as funny.
But a zany mother/stern father is also a trope as zany father/stern mother. Then there are ones where both father and mother have some sort of foible that has to be accommodated by the other spouse or the children.
There’s probably an internet site where someone has broken this down somewhere. Or people used to do this on the internet a lot—analyze sitcom dynamics.
Ro, you're right. The spectrum is so broad. This little subset of our thread is only about the comic type, and you're right that zaniness can cut both ways. It's probably true that shows explicitly billed as comedies are going to show everyone in that light.
It's possible that I'm reacting mainly to the examples that I'm most familiar with in TV dramas (my preferred genre). But I wonder if zaniness and incompetence might go with dads moreso than with moms (although now you're making me wonder about the zany moms who are nervous wrecks). Red Forman, in That 70s Show, is comical because he's an inept alpha -- maybe competent as an earner, but not much else.
I should do a separate post on children's books, where fathers are often completely omitted or where you have figures like Papa in Berenstain Bears who are essentially overgrown children. It's not a coincidence, is it, that the kids going on a bear hunt, finding the bear, and then racing away to hide under the covers are accompanied by a solo dad?
I don't mean to be humorless about it, but the point I'm trying to make here is that popular culture reveals abiding attitudes about fathers that deserve some scrutiny, perhaps some updating. This is perhaps why teachers and camp counselors default to contacting my ex instead of me, even when it's my custody week with the kids. A few more characters like Henry McCord -- or solo dads who aren't a hot mess -- would be welcome!
The Papa in Berenstain Bears is a great father.
You can't have any comedy without foibles. All humans have them.
As with sitcoms, I am sure there are many different tropes in fiction and in drama.
However, if you are looking for some masculine ideal, and suspect America of abandoning it recently, you may want to take a peek at Shakespeare.
Fictional human males with flaws are not some recent nefarious invention of the libs to destroy our moral fabric, etc.
Perhaps the most beautiful father son depiction in film might bev'Pelle the Conqueror.' Fatherly love is tender in many of the best fictional depictions of fathers and children.
There's a lot we agree on! The academic in me is wanting to snap our focus back to TV examples, because you're right that literature has a much more nuanced spectrum. It's probably my fault for confusing things with allusions to children's literature! But I think to reason our way toward clarity, we need the initial framing.
Here are a few of my core points, which I think we're losing:
* TV character types are more binary than literary types.
* Pop culture representations of fathers are reflections of contemporary attitudes, to some degree. There's a split between what we say we expect of fathers and what we see on TV. Worth interrogating.
* TV types largely fall into the alpha (traditional patriarch) or buffoon binaries.
* The buffoon type is almost always cast as incompetent, not an otherwise dependable parent with a zany side.
Papa Bear is an endearing character in many ways, but he is not a responsible adult, and in that way he is perpetually cast as an inferior parent, always losing his temper, parenting by the seat of his pants. I mention his character not to open up the can of worms of all literary character types for fathers so much as to suggest that he fits the Homer Simpson mold, and that this is one of two fairly binary types for fathers that we see in recent television (last 10-15 years) in America.
Pelle the Conqueror looks great -- I'll check it out! How fathers come off in international TV series is a separate question, and a worthy one :)
Yes. Good countering examples, especially Lucy.
I think the farther back we go, the more we need a different framing. This is probably the fault of my own framing here. I should clarify that TV types for mothers have evolved quite a lot to show women in powerful roles, as alphas themselves, etc. But TV character types for fathers have remained mired in older models.
If we go back before feminism began to significantly influence TV characters, then the types are much more predictable reflections of sexism. Fathers as stable, stoic providers, mothers as nurturing angels or histrionic wrecks. That essay has been written a hundred times over. The fact that it seems so difficult to say something new about fathers is interesting in its own right!
It's extremely complicated because the parent's actions are driven by circumstances, and the heroic fathers are all in heavy dramas --like Ned Stark, the dads on several zombie shows--Pedro Paschal and the sheriff in The Walking Dead, the dad in This is Us, the sheriff in Stranger Things--there are a number of these dads.
Maybe the idea of Alpha is what I don't get. These males are what I would assume would really fit the mold of a leader who is trusted, because he is good, he cares for others, he is willing to sacrifice himself for them, and they all look to him for guidance.
But he is not obeyed without question. There's no obedience by role--he has moral authority via the trust he engenders, and it is not absolute.
Maybe this is more realistic? How else would one get authority organically except by being the person everyone knows is well-motivated, reliable, benevolent, and brave?
There's redemptive value in humor, and some moms that embrace it. I'm thinking of CK Steefel. I suppose the jokes wear thin if a mom feels she's been picking up dirty socks for 20 years? Fair enough. As a single dad, I also want to be more than the wisecrack, though I don't want to be too deadly serious about it :)
https://substack.com/@csteefel
Yes I follow Ms. Steefel's excellent posts. To speculate further, humor is dependent on culpability. Due to their perceived power and range of options, fathers are culpable, or responsible, or liable for their pratfalls in ways mothers are not.
Power has a lot to do with it! I suppose beards, body hair, and balding pates also set dads up for caricature 😊
I think there are still a lot of absent fathers portrayed. And sometimes, when the father is off screen or off the page, his presence is felt by his absence.
It's funny how old tropes get coded into idioms. My eldest daughter is my spitting image, and I was always befuddled by jokes like "There's no denying that baby!" As if I'd ever want to. But I guess there was a time when dads were expected to run away.
I cut this from the post, but Walter White's character is an interesting confluence of two roles that Hollywood doesn't know what to do with: the father and the teacher. Just as most classroom scenes in film take place just before the bell, fathers are typically parachuting in or out of family life. The detective apologizing yet again for the late-night call. The businessman who catches his son's last at-bat (or shows up too late). I don't think most men look to TV for actual role models, but those character types are interesting mirror of how we perceive fatherhood collectively.
How many divorce scenes have you seen where the mother moves out? The father is assumed to be the more disposable parent, assuredly because many men have cast themselves in that role. It would be refreshing to see TV dads making more meals, caring for sick kids, just being the foundation of family life.
Josh, I offer this as anecdotal example from a man who isn't a father but was a son. It's not meant as prescription, though I've been made to think recently, regarding a lot of matters, not specifically fatherhood, how much modern self-consciousness about behavior and roles and social context influences our lives in whole new ways.
My father for a variety of both historically and socially contextual and personal reasons was not someone to have conceived an idea of fatherhood or masculinity. Or if he did, not one who would or could ever articulate either. As it was, he developed from the particulars of his life into someone with an extraordinary work ethic and powerful, loving devotion to family. One knew this only from observing him live. (The same was true of my mother in relation to motherhood and femininity, even though she was far more articulate than my father.) My parents offered no articulated instruction in living to their children. They simply served -- their children all concluded after the fact -- as examples, by the way they lived. My mother was a strong, articulate woman in relation to a less outspoken husband. In midlife she pursued a career. My father, quite extraordinarily given his background, shared in all household chores, from cleaning to cooking to caring for children -- less, of course, while he was source of the sole income, more equally later. All of this we children simply witnessed living as their offspring.
I've discussed this with my siblings.
Certainly, my notions of masculinity and fatherhood were influenced by the general culture around me, and I had developmentally to negotiate them on my own for the reasons I give. I managed to, fairly successfully, without having to employ my ideas of fatherhood, though I know I would surely have been a more instructional father than my own.
Still, I think it's worth noting how things can work out under different conditions.