In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in. We’re here at 7 pm on Sunday nights.
For this Father’s Day edition of Medium Cool, let’s talk about fictional fathers. I’m reading James Shapiro’s excellent The Year of Lear, which features one of the crappiest fathers in literary history (Shakespeare is full of them), and it has me thinking about how fathers are portrayed in literary history. Let’s include films, TV, art, or wherever else you can find one.
zhena gogolia
Oh, time for dinner. I’ll look forward to seeing the answers. Fyodor Karamazov has to be one of the crappiest fathers I know of in literature. But very funny.
Leslie
On the other end of the spectrum, my favorite fictional father is probably Atticus Finch, perhaps especially the film version.
Baud
D’oh.
Ben Cisco
James Evans was pretty good. Closer to real life than others.
Yutsano
I blame the bumbling dad trope om Homer Simpson. Prove me wrong. The phase of the incompetent dad can die now please.
germy shoemangler
The Beaver’s dad had to spend the end of WWII listening to Benchley ad lib his way through a navy separation scene:
https://youtu.be/JsRyDjfDM10?t=26
prostratedragon
@zhena gogolia: My god yes. In fact he’s over the line where I can still find him funny. He’s as close to TFG as I can think of in literature. There’s a pretty bad one or two in Twin Peaks, though at least one of them seems better camouflaged if one doesn’t have a great detector for that kind of thing. (Speaking of fathers, I have a hereditary distaste for such clownings that I got from him.)
prostratedragon
@germy shoemangler: Maybe that’s why he named his older son Wallace Cleaver. Might be a lot of suppressed anger there.
dmsilev
Anakin Skywalker is probably not a candidate for the Father of the Year award. As a general rule, cutting off your son’s hand with a sword, even a glowy and swooshy-sounding sword, is frowned upon.
Baud
@Yutsano:
Al Bundy? Archie Bunker?
Dorothy A. Winsor
In sci-fi/fantasy, it’s rare to find characters who get along with their fathers. Miles Vorkosigan is a counter example
Ben Cisco
Favorite fictional father: CPT Benjamin Sisko.
dmsilev
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Most SF characters aren’t so fortunate as to have such good people as parents as Miles did.
Edit: Going back earlier in the history of space opera, Kimball Kinnison’s kids adored him.
germy shoemangler
Robert Duvall in The Great Santini
Old Dan and Little Ann
Really sucks about Bill Cosby. He was a good tv 80’s dad.
JWR
@Baud:
I was about to mention good ol’ Al as a write-in candidate. (Hey, at least he’s better than TFG.)
germy shoemangler
Ben Cisco
@JWR: That’s a LOW bar.
Could that show even be made today?
RSA
A memorable father in literature for me is Allie Fox, in The Mosquito Coast—brilliant, destructive, insane.
I don’t know if this is a good example, though. Some of the literary figures I can think of just happen to be the father of the narrator, and the story hardly touches on fatherhood at all.
RSA
QX!
AliceBlue
Sheriff Andy Taylor!
James E Powell
Not THE three favorites, but three favorites:
Mr. Bennett from Pride & Prejudice:
“Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins . . . and I will never see you again if you do.”
Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird:
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”
Ned Stark from Game of Thrones:
“Bran thought about it. ‘Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?’
‘That is the only time a man can be brave,’ his father told him.”
JWR
@Ben Cisco:
Don’t know if it could be made today, but it’s still broadcast daily on FaveTV. (9-11am in the PST zone.)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I always really liked how Benjamin Sisko and his son Jake’s relationship was portrayed on DS9. Especially in “The Visitor”. Made me cry.
featheredsprite
The father in Life is Beautiful.
Phylllis
@AliceBlue: And John Walton. Hoo boy totally dating myself.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Phylllis:
Good night, John Boy!
Spanky
Lucas McCain in The Rifleman. Raising a son as a single father, and
kalakal
C(h)ronos wasn’t exactly the ideal role model of a dad, unless you’re Hannibal Lector
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Spanky:
I’d like to know how many people the Cartwrights killed over their 13 years on the air lol
Like after a certain point, killing that many people would have to affect you mentally even if it was all self-defense
Spanky
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The family that slays together, stays together.
kalakal
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Don’t know how many people they killed but they sure went through a lot of maps
Another Scott
Geppetto?
No good deed goes unpunished.
;-)
The things that parents put up with… It’s kinda amazing the species has survived this long!
On the non-fiction side of things, I still remember being flabbergasted that Crazy Horse’s father (also named Crazy Horse) took the name “Worm” when Crazy Horse got his (adult) name (I read it in “Crazy Horse and Custer”).
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
Pete Postlethwaite as a father in two films
Distant Voices, Still Lives
Postlethwaite is a brutish father in this film. And yet his influence on his family is imbued with depth and melancholy. A very special film.
In the Name of the Father
When I went to see this film, I thought it was just going to be a political courtroom drama about the conflict in Northern Ireland. I was totally unprepared for the wild, intense, moving relationship between Gerry Conlon, played by Daniel Day Lewis and his father Giuseppe, played by Postlethwaite.
Laurence Fishburne as Jason ‘Furious’ Styles Jr. Boyz n the Hood
Fishburne is wonderful as a caring father who is doing his best to raise his kids and keep them safe.
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
Fred Sanford
SiubhanDuinne
@Phylllis:
Was just going to mention John Walton, and Grandpa as well.
zhena gogolia
@kalakal: Hahaha!
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
Vito Corleone and his doppelganger Carmen Sabatini were caring fathers
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Spanky:
@kalakal:
Lol!
Mort Drucker of Mad Magazine fame made some parody comics of Bonanza. A common theme among them is poking fun at how “together” they are all the time.
Bonanza, the Family “Togetherness” Western
You can read the full Drucker comic here as well as a few more Bonanza parodies
MagdaInBlack
@David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch: OMG, I love
“The Freshman.”
( It isn’t father related, but Brando in “Don Juan De Marco” is lots of fun too. )
Phylllis
Jim Rockford’s dad, played by the terrific Noah Beery, Jr. was a good guy.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I had a personal project to read the August Wilson century cycle in decade order. I got as far as “Fences” (1950s). My god, Troy Maxson is a horrible father and person. I really want to see the film with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, because both of them are on my “I’ll watch anything they’re in” list.
But I have a hard time watching movies with horrible people. So I’ve been putting it off.
And yes I know actors love playing horrible people and directors love making movies about them, and horrible people make interesting dramatic stories. But I still hate spending two hours with a bunch of characters I hate.
Almost Retired
I always love/hate the patriarchal Victorian era fathers in sprawling multi-generational novels, who have to struggle with successive generations they cannot control in a world the no longer understand. Like Jolyon in The Forsyth Saga, The Brig in the Cazalet Chronicles or the old German dude in Buddenbrooks. I feel their pain when I no longer recognize the hosts or musical guests on SNL, or when the list of artists performing at Coachella looks like a bunch of random words in a column.
CaseyL
Omigosh – wrong thread. Comment deleted!
James E Powell
@kalakal:
Check out that Ponderosa map. That is one huge piece of property. I don’t see a scale, but if you judge by the distance from Reno to Carson City (~30 miles), it’s clear that in any other show or movie, the Cartwrights would be the evil cattle barons trying to run the whole territory.
eddie blake
@dmsilev: gotta love a good lensman reference.
in the MCU, (and most of the comics) odin is a spectacularly shitty father
gonna second the notion that the best father in fiction is most likely benjamin sisko.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@James E Powell:
Yeah. Sadly, you don’t become that big and successful without having skeletons in your closet
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Leslie: Don’t read the sequel then. I heard Harper Lee did not portray Finch so kindly in the long-awaited sequel “Go Set a Watchman”.
I loved Atticus Finch in the book and film as well, and I have not been very tempted to read the sequel.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I wouldn’t read it because apparently the publisher waited until after Lee and her POA had died to publish it. That and it’s also a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, not a real sequel
lowtechcyclist
@dmsilev:
Reminds me of one of my most favorite t-shirts ever.
TheOtherHank
I like Mr. Jones in Friday. He’s doing his best to raise his kids
CaseyL
In 1960s-era TV shows, I was always struck by how many Dads were widowers. There was never a single Dad by divorce, probably due to societal taboos. (And the few single Moms were also always widows, never divorcees.)
Even as a kid I noticed it, though without any insight into Network Standards. I think it affected how I felt about having kids, if so many moms apparently croaked from the experience.
lowtechcyclist
I’ve never seen the movie, but I’ve read the book, and a couple of others by Pat Conroy. Conroy clearly had a real SOB for a dad.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@SiubhanDuinne: Before there was The Waltons, there was Spencer’s Mountain, earlier iterations of pretty much the same family. Henry Fonda played the dad (Clay Spencer).
eachother
See all those little jars of consciousness altering hobby substances? Not even including the glue. June looks like she’s had some. Ward looks harsh. There are three models in picture. I mean the plastic ones. Wait, not the flesh ones. That’s an engaged family. Just not with each other.
Happy Father’s Day
zhena gogolia
Old Jolyon is a great character, beautifully played by Corin Redgrave on tv@Almost Retired:
zhena gogolia
I have to constantly remember to refresh my comment box. It’s a pain
columbusqueen
I love Ben Sisko too, but my favorite TV dad is Martin Crane in Frasier. No matter how tart he is, one can always see the love he has for his two very different sons.
columbusqueen
BTW, did anyone hear that IRL, Eddie Murphy’s son & Martin Lawrence’s daughter are now a couple?
Almost Retired
@zhena gogolia: Redgrave was magnificent in the 2002,version. I can imagine Galsworthy watching it and saying “Yup, that’s exactly what I had in mind.” Although Galsworthy probably wouldn’t say “yup.”
Almost Retired
@zhena gogolia: Redgrave was magnificent in the 2002,version. I can imagine Galsworthy watching it and saying “Yup, that’s exactly what I had in mind.” Although Galsworthy probably wouldn’t say “yup.”
kalakal
P.G. Wodehouse put it well
“Unlike the male codfish which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons.”
debbie
Updike’s Rabbit was the worst father ever.
NotMax
‘@kalakal
The best already prepared tidbit re: Bonanza, straight (as it were) from the horse’s mouth.
:)
kalakal
@NotMax: ,
prostratedragon
Bill Cobbs as Lilly Harper’s (Regina Taylor) father in I’ll Fly Away. A good father under pressure, played by one of the most audacious scene-stealers out there. Sam Waterston’s Forrest Bedford in that series is a good father in the mode of Atticus Finch.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: @kalakal:
Barry Levinson (et al) beat them to it by a couple of years. (Tin Men, 1987)
eddie blake
in the man of steel, kevin costner’s jonathan kent is also in the running for world’s worst dad.
zhena gogolia
I agree!@Almost Retired:
prostratedragon
Levinson reference reminds me of the fathers in Avalon, two generations of them. They seemed like good dads, especially grandfather.
NotMax
I’d place Zeus very high up in the pantheon of crappy dads.
;)
kalakal
@NotMax: I blame the parents. When your dad eats your siblings you’re liable to grow up strange
kalakal
I always thought Spike was a pretty good dad to Tyke
NotMax
‘@kalakal
“Just wait ’til your father gets home, young man!”
:)
MomSense
JK Simmons in The Music Never Stopped. Beautiful character arc and father son relationship, great music, and guaranteed tears.
SiubhanDuinne
As is my wont, I turn to Dorothy L. Sayers at the sight of a BGinChi prompt. There are relatively few fathers (qua fathers) in the DLS canon, but there’s an interesting passage in Gaudy Night in which Harriet Vane, visiting Shrewsbury College, her alma mater, muses on the roles of fathers and husbands in the lives of distinguished women:
CarolPW
Willie Nelson: Just breathe
HumboldtBlue
@Leslie:
That was my first thought. Unforgettable character, performed in a way that could never be duplicated by another.
PaulB
How about father figures in addition to fathers? I submit for your consideration: Mr. Rogers as perhaps the quintessential example.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia:
What does that mean?
PaulB
Will Smith as Chris Gardner in “The Pursuit of Happyness” for a portrayal of a father doing his best for his son under trying circumstances. Going back a bit farther, Dustin Hoffman as Ted Kramer in “Kramer vs. Kramer,” ditto.
divF
J.K. Simmons in Juno, as Juno’s father.
Paul Scofield as Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons, in his relationship with his highly intelligent and literate daughter Meg and her future husband William Roper.
O. Felix Culpa
@CarolPW:
Lovely.
UncleEbeneezer
@Brachiator: John Singleton also created a great father character, Alton, in his tv series Snowfall. A former Black Panther in South Central LA, trying to deal with his son being a drug lord.
Geminid
As Old Man Clanton, Walter Brennan plays a very memorable father in My Darling Clementine (1946). Especially when he slugs his big son Ike in the jaw and tells him, “You pull a gun on a man you kill ‘im!” His other two sons just cower.
eddie blake
great father figure? yondu udonta from the guardians of the galaxy movies.
pajaro
@prostratedragon:
Armad Mueller Stahl (sp?) was the grandfather; Stahl then went on to play a hideous father in Shine.
I love the fathers in immigrant stories, who not only are dealing with children moving away, but with children assimilating to a different culture. South Asian dads are their own wonderful special sub-category, sometimes the butt of humor, sometimes touching, and sometimes both.
Tehanu
@Almost Retired:
I love Soames Forsyte, who starts out as the villain of the piece and ends up redeemed by his love for his daughter Fleur. And Master Nathaniel Chanticleer, the mayor of Lud-in-the-Mist, who blows off his respectable reputation to save his son Ranulph, and ends up saving not only the kid but himself and his city.
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
James Cromwell in “Babe” for his father like relationship with his dog and pig
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: On my phone, the comment box always needs to be refreshed in order to work correctly. I.e., if I reply to someone, their nym appears only at the end of my comment. I have to remember to refresh the box before making a comment, and I keep forgetting.
JML
Walter Bishop on Fringe: now there’s a complicated father, and father-son relationship! (Great show)
UncleEbeneezer
I thought Phillip in The Americans was a great/complex father character.
Cowgirl in the Sandi
I loved Calvin’s dad in Calvin and Hobbes. Also, I thought Sean Connery was perfect as Indiana Jones’ father. Maybe not great Dads – but worked for me.
prostratedragon
Wink in Beasts of the Southern Wild as a good dad with a tough job. Remarkably, Dwight Henry is not a professional actor.