“Mr. Mom” no more: single-father representations on television in primetime drama and comedies

So, You Think You Can Parent: Twitter Users’ Responses to Single Father Tropes in Television’s Single Parents

“…Viewers responded, "Miggy with the win… and the WiFi," and "Miggy handling those kids like a Boss!!" Douglas is considerably older than the others and exemplifies more traditional approaches to fathering, illustrated by his detached relationship with his twin daughters (Turchi and Laurena 2020). Viewers alternated in their perspectives on this dynamic, ranging from quotes articulating Douglas's perspective (e.g., "I'm afraid of my children") to tweets reveling in the notion that "Douglas is raising Mafia Daughters!"…”

“…Evidence demonstrates that men of different races and classes are subjected to stereotypes about their parenting abilities (Coles 2015), and as such, we expect that race and class would inform viewers' comments about these characters' representations. We also expect viewers to hold these fathers to different standards based on the characters' ages, as constructions and expectations of fatherhood have changed over time (Turchi and Laurena 2020).…”

“…These studies typically presented limited snapshots (Vrtis 2016), while the recent increase in single-father representations presents the opportunity to give them long-overdue attention (Feasey 2021). For example, Turchi and Laurena (2020) found in their comprehensive analysis of primetime television that custodial single fathers demonstrated a wide range of traditionally gendered parenting roles and varying degrees of emotional competence. Given the mutually constitutive nature of media and society, and the shifting representations of single fathers on television (Feasey, 2021), we seek to unpack how viewers respond to these new representations, where single fathers are empowered to provide childcare in ways that are both masculine and feminine (Doucet 2018).…”

“…Against the backdrop of this predominant trend, it is important to understand how viewers perceive single fathers’ parenting styles given the need of single fathers to fill a wider range of roles for children as compared to married fathers in two-parent families (Feasey 2021). Televisual portrayals of single fathers are complex in their negotiation of both gendered parenting norms and the evolution of gendered expectations over time (Turchi and Laurena 2020), and Scharrer and Blackburn (2018) outline how the “[e]ndorsement of narrowly traditional views of masculinity has been associated with a host of negative outcomes” (150) for society. These studies point out how representations of single fathers vary in the extent to which they frequently, occasionally, or rarely reinforce the historically gendered status quo.…”

Fatherhood Images and Ideals : Transforming, Circulating, and Responding to the Swedish Dads Photo Exhibition

“…As if in answer to these earlier studies, a more recent study entitled "'Mr. Mom' no more" examined representations of single fathers in primetime television in the US (Turchi and Bernabo, 2020). The authors compared these representations of single-fathers with prior research of lived experiences of single-fathers, finding that while some of these representations were 'authentic' in representing emotional connections, others perpetuated negative stereotypes about single fathers (Turchi and Bernabo, 2020).…”