Where Are All the Dads?

I recently had an odd conversation about who I’d like to have as a replacement dad. It could have been anyone in the world but my brain of course went directly towards television. And I came up with Walter Bishop from Fringe. Who is not a very good dad. In fact, he was quite the horrible dad until some spoilerific things happened to him where he became a moderately better but crazier person. So probably not a good example.

Then I thought of all the shows I currently watch: Scandal-murderer; Revenge-one is evil and dead, the other is supposed to be dead but may also be up to something kinda bad; Grey’s-Alcoholic, also dead; The Good Wife-I’ve never seen Peter talk to his kids; Once Upon a Time-not around for the childhood and now sorta the same age as his kid; Arrow-pretty naughty till he did that thing in the first episode (I can sort of respect the spoiler code); Bones-thief and murderer; Community, Elementary all have absentee dads and lets not even get started on Game of Thrones.

So then I reverted to old shows: Veronica Mars and The West Wing. There are plenty of your not so good variety as the above but there’s also plenty of the really good. Keith Mars, President Bartlett and both CJ and Josh’s dads were held in great respect by their kids.

Has our generation just had so many daddy issues that it’s a go to backstory?

Would it hurt the TV world to have a few more Keith Mars’s and even Walter Bishops’s? Actually would it hurt to just have Keith Mars and Walter Bishop together on the same billing? Now that would make a good buddy cop show… There’s plenty of films all about relationships between kids and dads; Intersteller; How to Train Your Dragon 2; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (that one’s even other species!) and….well maybe not so many.

I remember in the late 80s and 90s plenty of shows with positive father figures. It was also a time where men were being shown as actual dads, not just stern, tough men who brought home the money and disciplined the kids when necessary. Full House for all its bad hair and clothes, was quite revolutionary; three men raising three girls, discussing emotional issues and giving out plenty of hugs. 90210, Family Ties, Different Strokes, Who’s the Boss, Family Matters, these were all men with whom their daughters (and even sons) could lean on in a tough, emotionally wrought situations.

And maybe from this more emotional side we saw of fathers in the 90s on TV, was born this new theme of flawed fathers. Because if men can be emotional fathers, stepping away from the stereotypes, then we can also start talking about how they can be deeply flawed fathers too.

Today Television takes normal, stereotypical roles and turns them into complex, three dimensional human beings such as in Modern Family, Brooklyn Nine Nine, Transgender, Orange is the New Black, Parks & Rec or Happy Endings. Maybe it’s not just our TV dads who are flawed but all of our characters on TV. That’s why television has gotten so good, it has the time (as opposed to films) to [investigate] all sides of a human character, negating their job, race, sexual orientation, gender, hair colour…the list goes on.

So yes I’d love a few more positive dad characters on TV but maybe I’m speaking too soon because what I think we’re all watching for, is the redemption of those characters. We want to see our evil fathers turn good because of their interaction with the characters we love-their kids.

Originally posted - December 13, 2014