[August 11th
marked the birthday of AmericanStudier pére, as well as one of the very best digital
humanists, scholarly writers,
and grandfathers I know, Steve Railton. In his honor, a series on some
noteworthy cultural and historical American fathers! Share your paternal
responses and reflections for the father of all crowd-sourced posts!]
AmericanStudying
the clichéd extremes of sitcom dads, and the men in the middle.
1)
The Wise Men: It’s no coincidence that one of
the first popular TV sitcoms was entitled Father Knows Best (1954-60, based on
the 1949-54
radio show). A central thread throughout the genre’s history has been the trope
of the wise father responding to his family’s problems and issues, from Father’s Jim Warren (Robert Young) and Leave It to Beaver’s Ward Cleaver (Hugh Beaumont, proving
in that clip that father most definitely did not always know best) to The Cosby Show’s Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby, now
ironically but nevertheless) and Growing Pains’ Jason Seaver (Alan Thicke), among
countless others. It’s difficult to separate this trope from 50s stereotypes of
gender and family roles (especially after seeing that hyperlinked Leave It to Beaver moment), but at the
same time the trope’s endurance long after that decade reflects its continued
cultural resonance. If sitcoms often reflect exaggerated versions of our
idealized social structures, then there’s something about that paternalistic
wise man that has remained a powerful American idea.
2)
The Fools: Yet at the same time that the TV
version of Father Knows Best was
taking off, Jackie
Gleason’s The Honeymooners (1955-56,
based on a recurring comedy sketch) was experiencing its own brief
but striking success. I’m not sure whether Gleason’s foolish, angry husband
(not yet a father in Gleason’s case) character was a direct response to wise
characters or just the natural yang to that yin; but in any case such foolish
fathers have likewise continued to be a sitcom staple in the decades since,
with Married with Children’s Al Bundy (Ed O’Neill) and The Simpsons’ Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan
Castellaneta) representing two particularly exaggerated end of the century
versions of the type. Yet also two significantly distinct versions—Al Bundy consistently
desires to escape from his wife and family (putting him in the American
tradition of characters like Rip Van Winkle), while Homer is a macho stereotype
who loves his beer and donuts but also mostly loves his family. To paraphrase Tolstoy’s
famous quote, each foolish sitcom father is foolish in his own way.
3)
The Middle Men: Because these two extremes have
been so prevalent in sitcom history, it’s easy to put each and every sitcom
father into one or the other of these categories. But I think doing so would be
a disservice to (among others) those sitcom dads who might superficially seem
like caricatured fools, but whose characters included complexities and depths
beyond that stereotype. I’d say that’s especially the case for a few 1970s
dads: All in the Family’s Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), The Jeffersons’ George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley,
who first appeared as the character on All),
and Sanford and Son’s Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx). Each of
those fathers could be as foolish and angry as any, but to stop there would be
to miss much of what made them and their sitcoms memorable: partly the
willingness to engage with social and political issues such as race and class;
but also and just as importantly the messy, dynamic humanity each character and
actor captured, all without losing an ounce of their comic timing and success.
Few fathers are purely wise or foolish, after all, and these dads in the middle
help remind us of the full spectrum of paternal possibilities.
Crowd-sourced
post this weekend,
Ben
PS. So one more
time: what do you think? Fatherly texts or figures you’d highlight?
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