For TV dads, 2014 was a grim year: From the accusations against Bill Cosby to the child molestation confessions of 7th Heaven’s Stephen Collins, the besweatered benevolences of our childhood are proving to be predatory, leaving more than a few of us in the mood for self-reflection. Were we so taken with Cosby and Collins’ paterfamilial fantasies that we were inclined to turn a blind eye even as, in the case of Jell-O’s famous endorser, damning testimonies were mounting? And why are we still so reverential about fathers, anyway?
Mothers, after all, have undergone a scrubbing on the small screen, their glamour washed off and replaced with a more workaday sensibility. The short-tempered Lois on Malcolm in the Middle; the insecure Claire on Modern Family; the barbed Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond; the homicidal Cersei on Game of Thrones; the combustible Betty on Mad Men: For every Carol Brady we’ve a phalanx of female characters that are fundamentally flawed, and thoroughly interesting, because of how not-too-dissimilar they are from real-life people with real-life depths. But look on the other side of the marital bed, and father, it seems, still knows best. He can be a big-hearted Everyman (Roseanne’s Dan Conner), a lovable oaf (Modern Family’s Phil Dunphy), or even the head of a crime family or a crystal meth operation, but his credentials as the defender of his family are rarely in question. It’s hardly a coincidence that Walter White’s transformation from beleaguered teacher to bald menace begins when he stands up to bullies who torment his cerebral palsy-stricken son. When it comes to dads, we ask for nothing less than perfection.
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