Finally, a Smart TV Dad

I have seen the show, Billy Ray is a fair actor. A lot of singer are just that great singers, but not good actors. Yes it does portray this tv dad in a positive light. It is not Father Knows Best, but it is a good start at portraying father in a more positive light. I just hope this idea catches on! I would like to see alot more shows where fathers and men are portrayed as intelligent and honorable.

Dang! \
From the title link I thought this was going to be about the
recent interview with Dr. Huxtable.

I agree in part with the assessment; the show is a positive father representation. Where I will depart with speaking affirmatively about the show is the representation of the son, and other young male characters on the show. The son in particular is a shown as a lazy, incapable lout who does not receive kind supportive or fatherly treatment from Billy Ray’s character. He is for all intensive purposes the “boys are stupid throw rocks at them” poster child. Another problem with the show is the typical doofus boy supporting characters, and the commom occurrence of either Hannah or her friends grabbing, punching, pushing male characters on the show. It is a show where dad is good (to his daughter). Dad is not great to his son, and the physical acts, while some may find them innocuous, you can be sure are directed only at boys, by girls. Ultimately, this show, like pretty much all Disney or Nickelodeon shows are definitely not boy friendly and I encourage parents to really address this problem with their youngsters.

Do note that by bumping off mom, they make it all ‘ok’ that he has his kids. so while he IS competent and loveing and that IS an improvement. the hidden message is men only get the kids in what circumstance?

just as a single mom who’s kids are now adults, asked me once why her sons are not interested in certain things. she said “i raised them well, i taught them well. I showed them that you can make it on your own”. To that i said that she probably did raise them well, and you probably did teach them well, but that you taught them something else too. Since their boys and your a single mom who made it, your whole existence shows them that they are not needed and amount to a 5th wheel.

to let mary poppins explain it:

“a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down in the most delightful way”

the sugar of the dad being ok and a good example is overhadowed by the fact that dads who have their kids on tv, tend to have them only because of some death.

THIS ‘custom’ goes all the way back to the new sitcoms of the 50s, and forward.

Father knows best got his kids how? The Brady Bunches exes were never brought up. (fathers who have dead wives and children do not visit the graves or mention the mothers except in conflict). Jody and Cissy, Uncle Bill and Mr. French, all living in that great apartment (though to be fair, they bumped off both parents to allow bill to have the kids).

now to me this is a sign that writers are trapped. they cant explain why the dad would have the kids if a mom existed. That for a childrens show, they are showing that moms die. but they are backed into a corner because they cant explain that mom chose not to be with her kids, or is a problem person, or doesnt care.

so rather than this be an effort to make a father into a good dad, this is the end result when they want to write a positive show, that isnt goofie and they HAVE to write it for a single dad.

not enough dead moms to make my point?

”Raising Dad,” about TV show about a widower raising two children, with the help of his live-in dad.

Magazine publisher Tom Corbett (Bill Bixby) was a widower in “the courtship of eddies father”.

and a funny one? Ben Cartwright raised some fine boys on the Ponderosa Ranch with Hop Sing, and no mom.

Phil Drummond who too Willis and Kimberly, and Arnold… He was a widower too.

on Eight is enough Tom writing columnist for a paper, and he was a widower. though to be fair, the actress that played the mom died. and rather than replace her like they did the darens in bewitched, they just wrote her out.

just to be fair, they do it to women too, but not as much, and only in the era when divorce was still a not too good thing. So alice of restaurant fame (kind of the same starter plot for karate kid), and the Doris Day show, and as i mentioned both parents are widowers in the brady bunch.

to excertp from Television and the American Family, by bryant.

“across all decades on television, widows and widowers are the most frequent reason for single parenthood. when compared to the census data, the contrast is even greater. during the 50s 60% of the time single parenthood was due to the deaht of a spouse. the sensus for 1960 indicated that such was the case for 26% of single families in america, the highest decade in the study.”

“as television moved though the 70s, widows and widowers accounted for 70% of single families, the census reported 12%”

just to let you in. the divorce rate went up so high that it changed this dynamic of widower in the general population.

“in the 80s televisions families were headed by a modest 37% widows and widowers. while the 1990 census the percentage of widows and widowers dwindled to 7%.”

and lastly “it is interesting to note that only 4.3% of US homes were headed by widows and widowers”

“Given the trends over the last 40 years, the data suggest that fictional television clearly prefers the death of a spouse as the predominant rationale for single parenthood. even for the decade of the 80s, with greater acceptance of divorce and single motherhood, the majority of single familes on television were for reasons other than divorce, separation, ro single mother hood.”

a simple mental transposition of the most common on tv reletivated with the most common in peoples experience.