The Devolution of Dads (and Other Men, Too)

Ward Cleaver. Andy Taylor. Cliff Huxtable. You know the names. They’re all TV dads who stand out as father figures that sat tall in the saddle, gave solid, sensible advice and were even able to chuckle at their own foibles from time to time.

Quick, now. Toss out a comparable character among today’s crop of prime-time dads. D’oh! Not so easy, is it?

I just finished reviewing the first two episodes of a new Fox show called Sons of Tucson. It centers around a trio of boys who’s real father is in jail for a Ponzi scheme. So they go out and hire a loser stand-in who sleeps in a shed in the backyard. Now there’s a father the kids can look up to.

In the course of the review I was reminded of a recent George Will article that spoke of the general changing roles of men in our society. Will quotes Gary Cross, author of the book Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity. In the book, the author spells out how men, in general, are changing and how society now perceives them. And he illustrates that change in media terms. “If you wonder what has become of manliness,” Will quotes the author as saying, “note the differences between Cary Grant and Hugh Grant, the former, dapper and debonair, the latter, a perpetually befuddled boy.”

Sure, that’s just an anecdotal comparison. But doesn’t it ring true? In TV and movies, male roles seem to be slipping from nice-guy hero and sincerely caring dad to a complete brain-dead loser out of The Hangover or a know-nothing punch line from  Two and a Half Men.

So is it our changing society being reflected in our media? Or is this something closer to a self-fulfilling prophecy? Neither conclusion sits well. There’s no denying, however, that media images stay with you. It’s been quite a while since I saw some of my old favorites, but I still remember Ward Cleaver’s lessons to the Beav and Rob Petrie’s hair-ruffling encouragements to his (rather grating) son Ritchie.

And I cringe at the thought that today’s boys will somehow be shaped by the media’s buffoonish examples of guyness. Or as a blogger I read once put it, being “hard-wired for ineptness.”