June 2005
I’ve got a theory that accounts for the pattern John Tierney notices in a recent Times column. The column complains about dumb dads on TV:
Where did we fathers go wrong? We spend twice as much time with our kids as we did two decades ago, but on television we’re oblivious (”Jimmy Neutron”), troubled (”The Sopranos”), deranged (”Malcolm in the Middle”) and generally incompetent (”Everybody Loves Raymond”). Even if Dad has a good job, like the star of “Home Improvement,” at home he’s forever making messes that must be straightened out by Mom.
There have always been some bumbling fathers like Dagwood Bumstead and Fred Flintstone, but now they’re the norm. A study by the National Fatherhood Initiative found that fathers are eight times more likely than mothers to be portrayed negatively on network television.
Something fishy: the study he cites isn’t mentioned at all on the National Fatherhood Initiative website, so I’m going to assume they’re not too proud of it. One way to explain these dubious results is through demographic trends:
The most obvious [cause of this trend] is that the television audience has splintered along gender lines, and sitcoms are now a female domain. Four out of five viewers of network sitcoms are women, and they apparently like to see Mom smarter than Dad.
Another explanation is the rising number of mothers with paying jobs. Now that they have their own paychecks, the old bread-earning patriarch is less essential and therefore more mockable. And TV writers no longer have an easy stereotype of Mom to work with. Jokes about daffy middle-class housewives like Lucy Ricardo and Edith Bunker seem dated now that so many women work outside the home.
As I understand it, back in the Cleaver days, the idea of questioning authority was pretty much absent from public culture. The dominant frame was that people in positions of authority made it there through being wise and moral, and were therefore supposed to be respected. Well, that story’s been balanced with a different one. Modern TV-watchers are very conscious of the logic of questioning authority. They know why authority should be questioned, and what is supposed to happen when the questioning takes place. That’s a frame–a structure of ideas that we use to interpret the things we experience.
Both frames for authority are out there. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe the second frame makes for better comedy. Dads whose ethics or intelligence aren’t on par with the authority they’re given are funny dads. Maybe TV writers construct their worlds around doofus dads because flouting their traditional moral authority results in more chuckles than putting a cardigan on Homer Simpson.
But if you zoom out and look at the universe of male figures on TV, you’ve got quite a lot of strong patriarch figures. President Bartlet from The West Wing, the guy on 24, the dad on Six Feet Under, and all sorts of guys who aren’t fathers but are still good role models. But these guys are all in dramas, where there’s no incentive to portray them as bumbling.
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Jun 24 2005 11:31 pm |
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» Democrats are doing things the right way with the Prevention First legislation proposed by Harry Reid and Hilary Clinton. When they stick to their principles and present policy that shows their vision, they’re suddenly a party I can get behind. Keep this up, and people won’t be saying we live in a one-party country.
From the press release:
“We can find not only common ground, but common sense in the Prevention First amendment we are offering today” said Reid. “Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, our amendment advances goals we should all share: reducing the number of unintended pregnancies, reducing the number of abortions and improving access to women’s health care.”
“This amendment takes a common sense step towards strengthening access to contraception for women while also reducing healthcare costs borne by taxpayers and employers,” said Senator Clinton. “We should all be able to agree that reducing the number of unintended pregnancies and improving access to women’s health care should be a priority.”
Every dollar spent on family planning services saves three dollars in pregnancy and birth-related costs for Medicaid alone. And although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention included family planning in its published list of the Ten Great Public Health Achievements in the 20th Century, the U.S. still has one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancies among industrialized nations.
The Reid/Clinton amendment would provide $100 million to: increase Title X, the nation’s only program devoted solely to making family planning services available to all women; reducing teen pregnancy; providing equitable insurance coverage for contraception; and increasing awareness about Emergency Contraception.
And a snippet of Reid’s speech via Kos:
“Forty years ago today, the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut that laid the groundwork for widespread access to birth control for all American women.
“Birth control is a basic part of preventive health care for women. Over the past forty years, increased access to birth control has helped to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion and infant mortality.
“While we have made significant advances over the last forty years, we still have a long way to go. The United States has among the highest rates of unintended pregnancies of all industrialized nations. Half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, and nearly half of those end in abortion. Making contraception more accessible and affordable is one crucial step toward reducing unintended pregnancies, reducing abortions and improving women’s health.
I have high hopes for this act and will watch its progress closely. Other liberal legislators would do well to follow Reid’s proactive, well-framed example. I note with amusement that the Family Research Council responded to a NARAL ad promoting the legislation with a Robert A. Heinlein quote: “Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.” If the best rebuttal they can come up with is “altruism is evil”, they’re on shaky ground.
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Jun 20 2005 11:11 pm |
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