June 18, 2005

Retread at the NYT

Oh, for cryin' out loud. Tierney hasn't even been at the NYT for two months, and already he's writing that familiar conservative column about how men are portrayed on television? Recycling this material? Look at the date of the second article. Any plagiarism here? Or did he and the author of that one just get together and discuss what to write?

I just did a google search for "bumbling fathers on tv" (sans quotes) and got 29,000 hits. Here's one. Here's another. Here's a third. Here's probably the most notorious of them all: Kim du Toit's screed of November 3, 2003.

Notice anything about these articles? Right. With the exception of MSNBC, they're all from a conservative viewpoint. This has been a talking point for a long time for that crowd. Men are portrayed as wusses on tv, and it's got to stop!

Of course, the subtext of all these is that it was all much better in the Fifties when Ward Cleaver went off to work every day, June stayed home to clean and cook, and why can't we go back to that?

I wonder if any of these authors has ever asked his mother whether she'd like to go back to that.

Posted by Linkmeister at June 18, 2005 12:01 AM
Comments

Even "Father knows best" added a '?' to the title in later seasons.

Posted by: NTodd at June 19, 2005 12:49 PM

Two words. Chester Riley.

The 50s were not the patriarchal paradise conservatives imagine it to have been.

Is there anybody on TV sitcoms who isn't portrayed as a buffoon? Isn't that the nature of TV sitcoms?

As far as it goes though, there aren't a lot of great dads on TV right now because most TV is either about cops and robbers or about chicks. The male heroes of the cops and robbers shows and the chick heroines of the chick heroines are always unattached because it's important to the dynamic of the shows that the heroes and heroines get laid a lot, which they can't do if they are happily married. People watch TV to watch the beautiful heroes and heroines get laid.

It's another case of a supposed conservative not understanding the market forces that are driving a trend he deplores.

But in the name of Father's Day let me say Happy Father's Day to Jonathan Kent on Smallville. Best TV dad since Fred MacMurray.


Posted by: Lance Mannion at June 19, 2005 01:23 PM