Fathers and the media: introduction to the special issue.

Since the 1970s, there has been an increased scholarly interest in fatherhood. There have been fundamental shifts in family life, gender relations, declining wage of male earners, increases in female labor force participation and in men's involvement as the primary non-maternal care provider. These cultural shifts have been mirrored in popular culture (films, television, music, and literature). This essay examines the culture of fatherhood as portrayed in four types of influential media: television, children's literature, scholarly journals, and film. Each of the authors uses a unique approach to exploring the culture of fatherhood in each medium.

Keywords: fatherhood, fathers, media, family sitcoms, children's literature, roles of fathers

**********

Glennon and Butsch (1982) pioneered the content analysis of family sitcoms. The three-decade span (1946-1976) they studied saw a marked shift in the family with the advent of second-wave feminism and the increasing presence of working mothers. The traditional family structure with a breadwinner father and homemaker mother was not only being replaced by a culture of dual-earner households, but there was also greater awareness of single-parent families, blended families, and extended families. And what of the culture of fatherhood? How has it been evolving in the popular and professional media into the 21st century?

This issue is dedicated to the culture of fatherhood as portrayed in four types of influential media. Each of the authors uses a unique approach to exploring the culture of fatherhood in each respective medium. Television is firmly entrenched in American culture, and Pehlke, Hennon, Radina, and Kuvalanka address the question "Does Father Still Know Best?" in an inductive thematic analysis of 12 episodes of popular television sitcoms. Flannery Quinn builds on her previous examinations of the culture of fatherhood in children's literature via a hybrid semiotic analysis. Over the course of the 20th century, child and family psychology evolved as sophisticated independent but interrelated disciplines, and conceptions of fatherhood became less one-dimensional and more complex; Goldberg, Tan, and Thorsen examine this trajectory. Finally, Jordan analyzes the moral conflict between the good father, Carl Fox, and the bad father, Gordon Gekko, in fledgling stockbroker Bud Fox's journey toward manhood.

Fathers on the Small Screen

It might surprise many Americans to find out that those television icons of the "ideal" family of the 1950s, Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver, were not actually family favorites when they first aired on the small screen (Father Knows Best managed to make the Nielsen Top 10 but only for one season). Yet LaRossa (2004) explored how television sitcoms influenced the culture of fatherhood in the decade that the TV set first became a staple in the American home. The author argued that it was through cable reruns that the shows gained their status, creating a revisionist history of what family life was like in the Eisenhower era. The programs promoted fathers' involvement in families, to a point. Morn was still the one in the apron. Dad was the go-to guy for advice but it was not his role to be heavily involved in raising the children.

On the other hand, Pehlke and colleagues point out that this idea was more prevalent in the mid and late 1950s than earlier in the era. In the early 1950s, television images of fatherhood were actually less conforming and patriarchal. This fluctuation within the first decade of television's reign was curiously predictive of future portrayals of TV dads. Olson and Douglas (1997) observed that the family sitcom has an established history of portraying the idiosyncratic nature of the American family and bringing it into viewers' homes. Pehlke et al. surmise that television probably surpasses any other genre in this capacity. For their analysis, the authors focused on family sitcoms depicting a two-parent family with at least one child under 18. While acknowledging that this may not be the predominant family situation, they note that most Americans still see it as the ideal. Indeed, this was the opinion of 701 fathers who responded to a Pop's Culture Survey of Dad's Attitudes on Fathering (2006), virtually all agreed that, "being a father was a very important part of who they are." The fathers' thoughts on their own role as fathers is aligned with their perceptions of fathers on film.

The authors discerned three major themes: "Father-Child Interactions," "Racial-Ethnic and Socioeconomic Themes in Fathering," and "Negative Messages about Fatherhood." A notable feature of the analysis was that the shows appeared to place more emphasis on fathers' active involvement with their children and emotional bonds than previous studies disclosed. "Quality time" is an important issue for the new generation of TV dads. Even in mundane activities the fathers displayed playfulness and support. Positive shows of support outweighed actions deemed unsupportive or manipulative.

In his continuing exploration of sitcoms, Butsch (1992) has consistently documented the perpetuation of the stereotype of working class fathers as ineffective buffoons. Pehlke et al. confirmed that working class fathers are far less competent than their middle-class counterparts, and in particular, far less likely to be sources of emotional support for their children. An intriguing point is the intersection of ethnicity and socioeconomic class. The two African-American fathers (My Wife and Kids and All of Us) and one Latino father (George Lopez) were all middle-class in occupational status and fathering behaviors. Moreover, they emerged as the most supportive, enlightened fathers of all the sitcom dads. Whether this is representative of a point in time (or the shows' writers) or symbolic of a trend is an interesting question for future analysis.

The negative messages were embodied in scenes where the father was shown as immature, foolish, or the butt of others' jokes. The authors emphasize that by definition, situation comedies are built on humor. They add, however, that these scenes do not do much to counteract cultural attitudes toward fathers as rather incompetent in their family roles. Whether scenes designed to produce laughter at the expense of Dad's incompetence are a factor in the national survey on attitudes about fatherhood, fathers' uncertainty of their own competence is a legitimate question. The authors place their study within the context of an ongoing body of research into the "mystery of fatherhood."

Fathers in Popular Picture Books

Children's books are widely recognized as a reflection of cultural conceptions of gender roles, parenting, and family relationships. In previous work, Flannery Quinn explored the culture of fatherhood in award-winning children's picture books from 1938-2002. Not unexpectedly, fathers in Caldecott books published after the 1960s were more involved with their children than fathers in previous generations of books. In fact, the fictional fathers of children's literature seemed to surpass estimates of the time actual fathers spend with their children in real life. In the present study, Flannery Quinn focuses on fathers in best-selling children's books.

For the initial analysis, Flannery Quinn examines the presence of fathers in bestselling children's picture books featuring one protagonist parent. Among books that meet the selection criteria, fathers are the prominent parent in four books; in contrast, mothers are the prominent parent in 10. In fact, only a scant proportion of books portrays fathers as characters, either independently or with the mother in the story. The semiotic analysis focuses on the two top sellers: Just Me and My Dad (1975), and Guess How Much I Love You (1994).

While it is tempting to say that the traditionally masculine themes and father role pervading Just Me and My Dad reflect its being written 30 years ago, the 1970s marked a distinct shift away from traditional gender roles. A depiction of a father and son camping and fishing trip exalts conventional notions of masculinity in an era of androgyny. Flannery Quinn uses the term "(pseudo) survival activities" to describe the activities that take place in the woods. As the day turns to night, the father shows he is patient, protective, and brave as he interacts with his naive and vulnerable young son. Flannery Quinn uses select scenes to illustrate the relationship between father and son: close and loving but constrained by cultural expectations of how a father should act.

In Guess How Much I Love You, the father and son are "Big Nutbrown Hare" and "Little Nutbrown Hare." As Flannery Quinn points out, the names carry the cultural connotation that "the child is a copy of the parent," a feature imbued with special significance in that the gender of the parent and child is not revealed until the reader has gone through several pages. The story line is a playful competition between the son who aspires to be like his father and the father who clearly enjoys his relationship with his son (and perhaps exults in the child's desire to be just like him). The entire story, and as Flannery Quinn observes, the cultural knowledge embedded within it, unfolds in the brief span of time that the father helps the child get ready for bed. Traditionally, the night is when a working father has time to be with his child. Not so traditionally, Big Nutbrown Hare affectionately kisses his son good night. Flannery Quinn construes this as symbolic of the "new father" who is not afraid to openly express affection. It is interesting that the kiss--and the implicit message that "it is acceptable for a masculine father to display affection to his child"--should come from an anthropomorphic hare rather than a human father.

An intriguing feature of both books (in fact, of all four best-selling books with prominent fathers) is the presence of the moon. While admitting there might be no symbolic meaning, Flannery Quinn highlights two unique features of the moon. The moon illuminates the darkness. And although it changes in shape and is not always visible, it is always with us, a reliable presence less distant and more accessible than other objects in the sky. From a child's vantage point, that might be how a father appears. Flannery Quinn's thoughtful analysis elucidates similarities and differences in the two conceptions of fatherhood in the popular books. Perhaps the most striking similarity is that these books stand out as among very few children's books that give fathers a central role.

Fathers in Scholarly Journals

Goldberg et al. preface their study of trends in academic attention to fathers by noting that within the last three decades there has been an upsurge of interest by social scientists and policymakers in the role fathers play in their children's lives. Fatherhood has been investigated in scholarly research in a number of contexts. Beyond the role of parenting children, fatherhood has been studied in terms of men's development and interactions with others, psychosocial effects of the transition to fatherhood, the stress of carrying out multiple roles, household and childcare tasks, marital quality, and intergenerational family relationships.

Fifteen years ago, Atkinson and Blackwelder (1993), questioned whether there really had been a proliferation of scholarly writing on fathers. The assertion is common but without hard evidence to support it. Goldberg et al. seek to clarify the issue through an ambitious analysis of articles in prominent child development and family journals spanning three-quarters of a century.

Goldberg et al. place their study within the context of changing conceptions of fatherhood over the years. The authors draw on Jesse Bernard's classic 1981 article, "The Good Provider Role: Its Rise and Fall." The extremely circumscribed gender roles of "provider" and "head of household" give precedence to men's work roles above all else and leave no room for a warm, nurturing aspect of fatherhood or involvement in family labor. Fathers' roles have since become far more complex and multifaceted. Numerous social forces including preferences for later parenthood and smaller families as well as the rise of dual earner household and increases in divorce rates and single parenthood have contributed to the metamorphosis of fathering roles. Theoretically, dramatic changes in the roles of fathers should provoke heightened academic interest. Goldberg et al. investigates this question in five select journals deemed most likely to profile men in parenting roles: Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Journal of Family Psychology, Family Relations, and the Journal of Marriage and Family.

The study yields 1,115 articles. Overall, Goldberg et al. find that attention to fathers did increase over the 20th century. The 1990s represented the peak era for fathers in scholarly journals. Especially interesting are the trends for individual journals, which vary considerably. In particular, while the two most venerable journals, Family Relations and Journal of Marriage and Family demonstrates a small but significant increase in interest in fathers, the Journal of Family Psychology, dating back only to 1987, shows a sharp rise in interest in fathers followed by a recent decline. The authors acknowledge that there are many factors that could influence patterns of publication including changing editors and increasing availability of national data.

The most promising finding is that current conceptions of fatherhood multifaceted and place fatherhood within an ecological perspective. The overall conclusion of Goldberg et al. is that the "culture of fatherhood" is "alive and well" in scholarly journals. This special issue is designed to uphold and advance that trend for greater understanding of fatherhood in the 21st century.

Wall Street: The Good Father versus the Bad Father

Perhaps it is especially fitting (or ironic) that the publication of Jordan's exploration of good and bad fathers in Wall Street should appear in the wake of the bailout crisis. As Jordan points out, Gordon Gekko has come to symbolize every white-collar criminal to make the headlines. In the post-Enron era, Gekko's classic line "Greed ... is good" is far more frightening than Darth Vader telling the impressionable young Jedi Luke Skywalker, "I am your father."

Yet despite what Gordon Gekko has come to stand for in the public eye, Jordan clearly shows that Wall Street is not about greed as its dominant theme. As Jordan observes, Oliver Stone has never been noted for subtlety. Bud Fox, the aspiring Wall Street baron, and his blue-collar father are played by real life son and father Charlie and Martin Sheen. Gekko's toddler son, in Jordan's apt description, "more of an accoutrement to Gekko than a son" (and raised by the nanny), is played by Stone's son, Rudy. As the closing image of Bud walking up the steps of the courthouse to "be a man" fades out, the audience sees the dedication to Louis Stone, Oliver's stockbroker father. It is also noteworthy that Stone named Hal Holbrook's fatherly character Lou.

Jordan notes that Wall Street has numerous themes but all are played out within the main scenario of a "family melodrama" in which the father-son dynamic occupies the central role. Especially astute is Jordan's point that, "Wall Street is a moral fable about the influences of villainy and virtue of young men in the modern world, instructing audiences not only about what distinguishes 'good' fathers from 'bad,' but also providing them with a means for understanding why such distinctions matter." In Jordan's perspective, the defining element of the film is how the defeat of Gordon Gekko allows the audience to exalt the good father Carl Fox.

Wall Street is the product of a director who invariably chooses a theme with obvious social significance. In Jordan's analysis, the central theme is the concept of paternalistic masculinity. He views films as a medium especially conducive to conveying messages about fathers, sons, and masculinity in contemporary society. In Wall Street the two father figures symbolize conflicting ideologies for a young man struggling to forge an adult male identity. As another popular example of the genre, Jordan invokes the Star Wars prequels where we learn how Anakin Skywalker was transformed into Darth Vader. Seduced by the lure of the Dark Side, Anakin rejected the "good father," Obi Wan Kenobi for the "bad father," Emperor Palpatine.

There is one notable distinction between Star Wars and Wall Street. Ultimately, Darth Vader redeems himself by saving his son from the evil emperor. Gordon Gekko has no use for such noble acts. In the climactic scene, Gekko (furious in his defeat) punches his former protege Bud (wearing a wire to expose Gekko committing a crime) sending him sprawling, and delivers the verbal shot, "I gave you Darien. I gave you your manhood. I gave you everything!" But he sets himself up by adding, "You could have been one of the great ones, Buddy. I look at you, and I see myself. Why?" As Jordan notes, Bud's response captures the film's moral lesson: "I guess I realized that I'm just Bud Fox. As much as I wanted to be Gordon Gekko, I'll always be Bud Fox."

Jordan describes the scene as a "dual" between the "false father" and the "true son." Having reconciled with his own father, Bud accepts his natural identity, and ultimately, the consequences he has to face for his initial choice of the bad father over the good.

In her 1994 book, Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era, Jeffords concluded that in the genre of masculine cinema, the triumph of good over evil was completely contingent on a son's "dedication to a father and all he represents" (p. 88). Jordan invokes this in asserting that the key to the moral of Wall Street lies in the audience's understanding of why Bud became recommitted to his real ("good") father and his ideals.

Jordan critiques the Wall Street on one particular aspect. Gordon Gekko is unquestionably the film's dominant character in terms of his screen time and the attention to portraying him as the embodiment of evil. Much less attention is given to what makes Carl actually "good." Jordan points out that Carl's goodness is mostly drawn from his antithetical position to Gekko. In Jordan's conception, the audience has a "much clearer understanding of what Carl's good fathering is not than what it is." Carl is still patriarchal. Even though he wants his son to become and independent person, he still embraces the core concept of traditional patriarchal ideology.

Jordan recognizes that this issue is not so much whether Carl is an ideal father but rather reflects the reality that "it is easier to vilify a man as a bad father than it is to understand what makes a good father." Regardless of media or context, goodness is notoriously more difficult to define, understand, and depict than evil. One outstanding exception in terms of film fathers is Gregory Peck's award-winning portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. In Bringing Up Daddy, Bruzzi saw Atticus as the good side of patriarchy, where fathers provide their children with safety and stability. Furthermore, the nurturing Atticus, strongly committed to social justice, and unbeknownst to his children, the best shot in the county, was far ahead of the cinema of the time as a complex, multifaceted, caring father.

Jordan notes that the unrelenting popularity of Wall Street has led to speculation of a sequel. One supposed plotline features Gekko attempting to reconcile with his own estranged son, therefore extending the father-son dynamic from the original film. Whether or not the film materializes seems to be questionable. Perhaps the only certainty is that the culture of fatherhood is flourishing in the media--popular and professional. This issue elaborates the portrayal of fathers in four disparate channels for the cultural communication of fatherhood.

References

Atkinson, M. P., & Blackwelder, S. P. (1993). Fathering in the 20th century. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 975-986.

Bernard, J. (1981). The good provider role: Its rise and fall. American Psychologist, 36, 1-12.

Butsch, R. (1992). Class and gender in four decades of television situation comedy; Plus ca change. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 9, 387-399.

Glennon, L., & Butsch, R. (1982). The family as portrayed on television, 1946-1978. In D. Pearl, L. Bouthilet, & J. Lazar (Eds.), Television behavior. Technical Reviews (Vol. 2, pp. 264-271) Washington, DC: United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Jeffords, S. (1994). Hard bodies: Hollywood masculinity in the Reagan era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

LaRossa, R. (2004). The culture of fatherhood in the fifties: A closer look. Journal of Family History, 29, 47-70.

McBratney, S. (Author), & Jeram, A. (Illustrator). (1994). Guess how much I love you. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

Mayer, M. (1975). Just me and my dad. New York: Golden Books.

National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI). (2006). Pop's culture: A national survey of dad's attitudes on fathering. Washington, DC.: NFI.

Olsen, B., & Douglas, W. (1997). The family on television: Evaluation of gender roles in situation comedy. Sex Roles, 36, 409-427.

JANICE KELLY

Molloy College

Janice Kelly, Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, Molloy College.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Janice Kelly, Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, 1000 Hempstead Avenue, P.O. Box 5002, Rockville Centre, New York 11571-5002, Electronic mail: [e-mail]