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If you could have a fictional character as your dad, or be a dad like a fictional character, who would you choose?
You know what, let’s not leave that gender specific – let’s go with parent so everyone can play. And let’s widen it a bit. Okay, a lot. Spouse, friend, sister, brother, boss, employee. What characters are the aspirational you or others in your life?
Books, TV, movies, opera, music – anything related to culture is fair game.
J R – No Kings – Orlando, FL
bbleh
Fantasies aside, I’d probably be Robin Williams in the Birdcage.
WaterGirl
@bbleh: I loved that movie and all the main characters.
They Call Me Noni
I think at this moment in time I would pick Abigail Adams.
Suzanne
I joke that Mr. Suzanne is Sally Albright, and I’m probably Harry Burns. Maybe that’s why we make a good pair.
sab
Ferros Buellers? ( I was a younger sister of an allegedly perfect sibling so I am biased against.)
sab
Little House Ingles ( if you ignore Mom’s extreme racism.)
kalakal
No love for Darth Vader?
sab
@kalakal: Just being a Dad doesn’t make you a good Dad.
sab
Lots of perfect parents on tv. I remember lots less in movies.
ETA I know there are good parents in movies. Maddening that I can’t remember any of them.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@sab: Didn’t watch a lot of disney?
Tim C.
As imperfect as my parents are and as imperfect as I am as a parent, this question made me reflect on how lucky I have been to both be loved by my parents and my children. There is pain, strife, mistakes and unhappiness from time to time, but I wouldn’t change it.
But throw that aside? Hmm… I would go for the farmer couple in Babe (yes the pig movie from the 90s). Those were two loving people. Runner up to an alternate universe where the couple from “up” got to be parents.
kalakal
ZZ Top in their videos were the ultimate Fairy Godmothers – you’d have a someone (or someones) whose live was being made miserable by bullying jerks, the Top would breeze in, hand over the magic car keys, and it was Happy Ever After
funlady75
The good men characters in films
Bogart in Key Largo
G. Peck in The Big Country
Tyrone Power in The razors edge
Jimmy Stewart in all of his films…..
Rachel Bakes
Queen Miranda from Sophia the First for mom. Toby Walton from the Moosepath League books as dad. Sundry Moss (from same books) as brother.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
I kinda like this version of Darth Vader as dad.
(yes, I own and wear that t-shirt!)
Another Scott
I’ve only seen it once, but the father in Tim Burton’s “Big Fish” was someone who would have been interesting to hang out with. He probably would have driven me nuts too! (Or even more nuts??)
Official Trailer #1 on YouTube
Best wishes,
Scott.
sab
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Their parents were offscreen and on vacation or business trips.
Maybe the historicals: Tomasina and such. Their modern parents had all the kids off in other institutions where parents were unaware. That alone disqualifies them for me.
BellaPea
I had a terrible childhood with a father who was a chronic alcoholic. Every time I see To Kill A Mockingbird, I get tears in my eyes wishing I’d had a father who was like Atticus. Also wanted to grow up to be like Emma Peel in The Avengers TV show, she was something–beautiful, smart, and tough.
sab
I admit I never saw the Harry Potter movies. Some of his friends seemed to have decent parents even under duress.
lowtechcyclist
Not sure whether it says more about me or about the family I grew up in, but the first two movie dads that came to mind were Henry II in The Lion in Winter and Henry Stamper in Sometimes a Great Notion.
pajaro
I loved Donald Sutherland’s portrayal of Mr. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice.
NotMax
Wouldn’t pooh-pooh having either one of the Cheeryble brothers from Dickens as a father.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Henri II had bad kids. He tried. I love that scenery chewing movie.
Made up for the abomination that was Beckett, French writer successfully smearing an important English king. Henri wanted to establish a semblance of law. Beckett wanted to make the Chiurch supreme and unquestionned. We know how that turned. out.
Stamper is another interesting choice. He also tried.
pacem appellant
@Tim C.: I can’t think of single movie dad that would want, mostly because in my film-watching history, all the dads were bad for plot reasons or irrelevant to the plot so they were immemorable.
I am also reminded apropos of “Up” of a new term I recently learned to describe when wives/girlfriends of the protagonist get injured or killed to motivate the protagonist: “Ffridged”. And now I can’t not think of how many movies use this trope lazily to jump-start the story.
Craig
@funlady75: Bogart in Casablanca. Victor Laszlo is the real hero, but Rick makes the journey to help Laszlo when he could just keep keeping on. Which I guess is the whole point of why Rick is the hero
sab
@pajaro: That is a good choice. Poor Mr. Bennett married to a dingbat.
Another Scott
@pajaro: [ Flashback! ]
You mentioning Sutherland reminds me that he played the father in the music video for Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting”.
YouTube video (6:56)
He was an expressive actor even when he wasn’t saying anything.
Best wishes,
Scott.
sab
My husband says Nick and Nora Charles. I pity their dog but maybe for parenting?
frosty
Gomez and Morticia in the Addams Family – the first TV version. Who wouldn’t want a Dad with a model railroad who specialized in crashing the trains??
Morticia was unperturbable, a calm, composed friend to everyone in the family no matter what the situation was. At least that’s how I remember her. The anti-Lucy Ricardo.
pacem appellant
sab
The McClains in DieHard 1.
pacem appellant
@frosty: I would have been a much happier child if my parents were Raul Julia’s and Anjelica Huston’s portrayal of the characters.
Another Scott
@frosty: That show was so perfectly cast. I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone else playing Gomez and Morticia so I never saw the later movies.
Uuuuuhhhh.
[ rofl! ]
Best wishes,
Scott.
stinger
@funlady75:
Don’t ever watch After the Thin Man.
Cliosfanboy
When I was a teen, I wanted Hugh Hefner to be my Dad because, well, I was a teenage boy, do I REALLY need to spell it out????
sab
@Another Scott: My husband is on boaed with this. Gomez and Morticia.
pacem appellant
@funlady75: I love James Stewart, even when he played imperfect or evil characters. He was the villain in “After the Thin Man”. And IMO in “The Man Who Knew too Much” he was villain-adjacent because not only did he lose his son to kidnappers due to negligence, he drugged his wife before breaking the news to her.
edit: cc @stinger
John Sterling
@Another Scott: Also, Sutherland’s father in Ordinary People was a pretty good person.
Rusty
I have always loved Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen as the parents in the movie Parenthood. Their extended family is messy and complicated, the kids are not perfect and have real problems, and each of them is messy and complicated. But at the core they love their family, try hard to do the best for their children, and love and each other.
sab
It is amazing how few good parents I remember in movies. Were there none, or do I not remember them? I think good parenting does not fit in the short arc of a movie.
stinger
Sheriff Andy Taylor, John and Olivia Walton, James and Helen Herriot spring to mind as desirable parents.
dnfree
In Elizabeth Strout’s book “My name is Lucy Barton” there are a number of good quotes, but this one sticks with me; I saw the quote before I ever read the book. It’s aspirational for me (to avoid doing this).
“It interests me how we find ways to feel superior to another person, another group of people. It happens everywhere, and all the time. Whatever we call it, I think it’s the lowest part of who we are, this need to find someone else to put down.”
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
Me too! Having them as parents would have been great.
Even better, from the straight male POV, to have been Gomez. Always loved the dynamic between Gomez and Morticia in the TV show.
Montanareddog
@pacem appellant: Also great as very flawed protagonists in The Naked Star and, especially, Vertigo.
funlady75
@stinger: I thought I watched almost all his movies.
Missed that one…thanks….still luv him…
piratedan
I’ve always had an extreme fondness for Calvin’s parents in Calvin and Hobbes.
Montanareddog
And here’s a loving screen Dad out of left field: Robert Newton as Frank Gibbons in This Happy Breed
Ben Cisco
Benjamin Sisko. (SURPRISE!! LOL)
The man was exemplary in making sure that in spite of serving as:
He still prioritized being:
As a character, he spoke to me. My dad was not a single dad, but I saw a LOT of him in the character of Sisko. And I did my best to emulate the best of him in my interactions in the kids I helped to raise. I’d like to think I did well.
schrodingers_cat
@Ben Cisco: I liked Cisco’s father too. DS9 is the best Trek.
BenInNM
@piratedan: That’s one I hadn’t thought about but once you mentioned it, it resonated with me. It seems like a couple who really weren’t expecting a kid but when it happened did the best they could. Although as I think about it more I feel like she might have wanted it more than he did – just a reflection of Bill Watterson’s genius to bring ink characters to life
mrnaturaljc
@pacem appellant:
I love Jimmy Stewart, but boy no one would want his character in Vertigo to be their father.
frosty
@piratedan: Yes, especially dad completely misinforming Calvin about the world. “Dad, where do kids come from?” “Oh, we got you at the store.” “Which one?” “K-Mart, you were on sale.” “WHAT??!!??”
Then mom: “What are you telling him now???”
schrodingers_cat
Among unforgettable movie dads, Darth Vader has to be at the top.
zhena gogolia
@pacem appellant: Haha, I was going to say The Man Who Knew Too Much, but I think After the Thin Man wins the day!
But he is so dreamy in The Shop around the Corner . . .
Ben Cisco
@schrodingers_cat: Indeed.
Just look at that parking lot
Jack Butler, Michael Keaton’s character in Mr Mom. He was a flake and a bullshitter but at least he tried. And sometimes just trying is enough.
Timill
@schrodingers_cat: Hmmm. Unforgettable and unforgivable do tend to go together…
Jackie
Robert Young looked so much like my dad in his forties and beyond. In Father Knows best, his devilish grin combined with the twinkle in his eyes, along with his combed hairstyle, made him a dead ringer for my dad. As the years went on, and Marcus Welby, MD premiered, it was apparent to me and my sisters, that Robert Young and dad were aging together as one. It was uncanny. Every time I run across reruns of either show, I immediately see my dad, and have to sit and watch the entire show.
BarcaChicago
TCM played a movie I love today: Our Vines Have Tender Grapes. Edward G Robinson plays a very warm and loving father and Margaret O’Brien is his daughter.
Steve LaBonne
Please forgive me for speaking of my real, and beloved, father, who died when he was 39 and I was 11. The fiction lies in imagining the relationship I might have had with him if he had lived, and how that might have influenced my life.
Matt McIrvin
I was a lucky kid and it’s hard for me to think of any fictional parents I’d want more than my real ones.
But that Ben Sisko was indeed a hell of a dad, at least until he ascended to join the Prophets in their wormhole.
Spanky
Grandfather in Little Big Man.
Chris
Much as I hate J. K. Rowling, both Weasleys are pretty great. They’re the closest thing to real parents Harry ever gets. I also find it interesting that with all the inter-generational stuff going on in that franchise, their past at Hogwarts never gets discussed much. They weren’t part of the Marauders’ gang, they clearly weren’t part of the proto-Death-Eater thing, they’re not old enough to have been part of Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s whole shtick… and they never get their own equivalent “these were our adventures when we were your age” backstory. Makes them, and by extension the universe, feel more real, to know that not everybody fits into some grand narrative.
From Star Wars, honestly the Lars adoptive parents from the original movie don’t seem half-bad. Like the Weasleys, they’re shockingly normal for the universe they’re in. In their case, what that means is that Luke Skywalker is possibly the only major character in the franchise who actually had a relatively normal childhood.
From DC Comics, Ma and Pa Kent. Part of why modern fiction has so much trouble writing a compelling Superman story is that they’re all obsessed with gritty, tragic, and action-friendly origin stories like Bruce Wayne gets in Batman Begins. And Superman’s origin story, once you zap past the parts he’s too young to remember, is literally “Ma and Pa Kent loved him and raised him with a solid foundation of ordinary decency, and once he was eighteen he went out into the world and decided that even with superpowers he should follow these values as best he could.” And modern Hollywood just has absolutely no idea what to do with that.
Of course, you can’t mention Ma and Pa Kent without bringing in their Marvel equivalent, Uncle Ben and Aunt May. It’s set against a big-city working-class neighborhood instead of Kansas farmland, but the basic premise is close enough. The Ultimate version of Uncle Ben is also full of such wisdom as “I never met a man with money who hadn’t stepped on somebody to get it” and “never trust a man in a tie,” which is also fun.
Tehanu
Off the top of my head:
— Dan Hedaya as the dad in Clueless
— Jean-Louis Trintignant as the dad in A Man and a Woman
— and the incredible Francoise Rosay as the mother in Carnival in Flanders [La Kermesse Heroique], but not her cowardly husband!
Misswhatsis
@sab: she’s not a dingbat, or not solely a dingbat. She’s legitimately terrified of what will happen to her daughters and to her if Mr Bennet dies before anyone is well established.
Misswhatsis
@Chris: the father of one of my son’s friends told my son Charlie that he always thought of our family as the Weasleys, but not to tell me because I might be offended. Charlie immediately shared it because he knew I wouldn’t be offended— instead I was charmed. We were like the Weasleys: a large, noisy family of perennially underfunded redheads. But, yeah, fuck JK Rowling.
Chris
For parents who were definitely imperfect and that you wouldn’t necessarily want as your own, but are still colorful enough to be pretty fun onscreen:
Shawn Spencer’s dad from Psych is the best character on the show. The main character would honestly be insufferable if he didn’t have somebody to call him on his bullshit in nearly every episode, and his dad is that person.
Sarek on Star Trek. He’ll never win a father of the year award, but he’s pretty great as a larger than life character that makes you understand how much Spock has to live up to.
Carmen Argenziano has the distinction of having played the father-figure of both badass military women I grew up watching in the late nineties/early 2000s, Sam Carter in Stargate SG-1 and Sarah Mackenzie in JAG. Only one episode of the latter, sadly, but he got a nice recurring role in the former. When you need a Military Dad, accept no substitutes.
James Garner as the Maverick father in the movie. Growing up as the son of what’s basically a con artist who apparently raised you to follow in his footsteps might be a questionable background, but man, it must never have been boring.
Of course, the absolute gold standard is Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Per Steven Spielberg in interviews, the reason they picked Connery was that they needed an actor who could be credible intimidating Harrison Ford: there just weren’t that many of those. (Similar logic was applied when casting Charlton Heston as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s boss in True Lies).
Pauline
Given the horribly dysfunctional family that I grew up in, I would have happily settled for having June and Ward Cleaver as my parents. No screaming or yelling and they actually functioned pretty well as a team.
Chris
@Ben Cisco:
Ah yes. How the fuck did I forget Ben Sisko. The guy character who was literally written to be a good dad.
Gloria DryGarden
If he weren’t so busy w Sherlock Holmes, I suspect Watson would be a good parent. Martin freeman as Watson in Sherlock, or Lucy liu, in elementary. Either one.
Also, patrick jane, who is quirky, adventurous, playful, but always has the backs of the people he cares about. We don’t see him much as a parent in the mentalist.
It’s hard to see many examples of good parenting in stories that have conflict and an arc, a climax. Too much action, and urgent problems to solve, that drive a story.
Parenting seems to require steadiness, good listening, compassion, patience, and incredible negotiation skills, with resilience to bounce back from all the button pushing. Sometimes I like a character so well I read the book a second time right away, but they aren’t that many of them friend material, or parenting role models.
Chris
Seeing Enrico Colantoni on this season of FUBAR is reminding me of another guy who was a pretty good dad: Keith on Veronica Mars.
(Well, so far as I know. I only saw Season One).
Kayla Rudbek
@frosty: Gomez and Morticia for sure, and then maybe Aral and Cordelia Vorkosigan? And the Doctor and Romana. Also now, Penric and Nikys from Bujold’s Penric and Desdemona series
pacem appellant
@zhena gogolia: 100% agree!