Toward a definition of Dad TV
Last December Joshua Rivera wrote a piece for Slate called “Why ‘Dad TV’ Shows Are So Popular—and Why It’s Time to Stop Calling Them That.” The tone is all over the place and the result is a mess. The author is both outraged and unmoved by the plethora of Dad TV shows and the ensuing discourse about them. Sure, they’re bad; but they’re also watchable; but they do have bad politics; but then, they go down easy.
Rivera asks at one point: “here’s my problem with calling it ‘Dad TV’: What does that even mean?” He half-heartedly gives some possible answers, but they’re so enraging he moves on. It’s impossible to define! Not for him tongue-in-cheek taxonomies like this one by Hillary Busis in Vanity Fair. At the same time, he writes, “I have no issue with these shows or the people who watch them. Frankly, who cares!” Ah, yes, the culture critic writing with passion about the thing he cares nothing about. Paging Dr. Freddie.
In any case, Rivera’s question got me thinking. Dad TV is a thing—we know it when we see it—and it is, somewhat to my surprise, a pretty relaxed topic. Most critics appear to have stopped worrying and embraced Dad TV. At least, they no longer scold viewers for their simple (“conservative”) pleasures. Maybe it’s the poptimist period in TV criticism. Whatever it is, Dad TV isn’t embarrassed about itself and critics refer to it with a kind of gentle affection, as though they’re writing about their own dads’ actual viewing habits.
So what is Dad TV? Sure, it’s a mood, a vibe, a set of recurring epochs, subjects, and themes. There’s a clear family resemblance among the shows in question, even if not a set of necessary and sufficient conditions to meet. Let’s say that, in the world of Dad TV, there are certain premises that either never go questioned or, when questioned, are always upheld. Here, in no particular order, is an incomplete list of these givens; if they emerge as the invisible motor of a show you’ve watching, then you’re probably watching Dad TV:
Men are protagonists of history and society: they are necessary agents who solve problems. It is desirable for men to fulfill these roles.
The world is full of problems, some of which are perennial, others intractable.
The world contains ineradicable evil, which manifests in evil men.
Evil men cannot be thwarted except by good men willing and able to do what is necessary.
Evil as such is never fully or finally defeated.
That said, enemies are defeated, not conciliated or forgiven.
Physical strength, a firm will, and decisive action are virtues when used to protect the innocent and the weak.
Actions is preferable to words; words are liable to be impotent, ineffective, or a means of excusing or explaining away evil.
Forces of law and order, however imperfect, are necessary.
When just, law and order are to be praised, held in honor, and participated in.
When unjust, law and order call for emergency exceptions that restore them to their proper just place and purpose.
Men are the primary, if not the unique, instruments of law and order.
Punishment is necessary and just. The fundamental question is the balance to be struck between (societal) justice and (personal) vengeance, granting that retributive punishment must play a role in both, not just the latter.
Suffering is acceptable, necessary, and even good when it benefits others; it is not good in itself, except as purgation or self-improvement.
The behaviors and virtues worthy of pursuit and exemplification are not: empathy, politesse, social decorum, interpersonal subtlety, moral gray, both-sides-ism, intuition, asking permission.
Instead, the behaviors and virtues worthy of pursuit and exemplification are: honor, duty, courage, loyalty, sacrifice, truth-telling, brotherhood, stoicism, hierarchy, rationality, skilled excellence, hard work, and getting the job done regardless of the risk, pain, or obstacles.
Although (at a meta level) the viewer is a sedentary consumer, the show in question does not glorify but ridicules the easy consumerist pleasures of passive, sedentary, inactive men. It holds all of bourgeois society in contempt.
What then is good? The family is good.
Protection, provision, and procreation are good.
Religion, at least in the sense of religio or piety, is in general good.
Tradition, if just and time-honored, is good.
Friendship with other men is good.
Men who are live on the outside of these goods—who, for example, have neither wife nor children or who lack faith or friends—nevertheless are called to serve and protect them, sometimes to seek them in their absence.
It is pleasing, to men and women alike, to tell, read, and watch stories that confirm any and all of the above.
In fact, it is wholesome to enjoy such stories and what they celebrate; to do so is, in a way, a ballast to society.
Human society is, among other things, one continuous if often failed attempt to bind fathers to sons and sons to fathers and, in turn, to their own (eventual) children. When successful, everyone benefits; when unsuccessful, everyone suffers.
Hence, failed versus faithful fatherhood is at the heart of all Dad TV. Every man at the center of such stories is a son who either has a good father or, lacking one, is looking for a surrogate.
Likewise, every man in such stories is an actual or would-be father to others, and the crux of the drama is the test of his fatherhood, if only metaphorical.
Likewise, and therefore, every man in such stories is on a journey bound for home in whatever form; if not—if a rōnin or a wanderer—his business is entirely helping others finding theirs, usually by removing obstacles in their path.
In a word, Dad TV is nothing more than a set of variations on The Odyssey. Which suggests that Christopher Nolan, currently adapting Homer’s epic into a film, is the chief auteur of Dad Content for our time.
