Father Knows Best

“Father Knows Best” was a popular TV show in my distant youth. Can you imagine a show with that title today?

Not that fathers got it all their won way. A popular comic strip from the same time was “Bringing Up Father.”

But today, it is absolutely obligatory that fathers be portrayed as hapless and doltish, and women as brilliant and resourceful.

This marred the otherwise wonderful film “The Incredibles,” which I went to see recently.

It was heavily based on the old Fantastic Four from Marvel comics, circa 1960. The Mole Man appears at the end of the episode, from underground, just as he did on the final page of one of those early Fantastic Four comics. Violet, the daughter, has the same powers as the FF’s Invisible Girl: invisibility plus the ability to create force fields. Elasti-girl has the powers of Mr. Fantastic, while Mr. Incredible is the Thing. The baby, Jack Jack, is the Human Torch.

The FF was also a family outfit: Mr. Fantastic was married to Invisible Girl, just as Mr. Incredible is married to Elasti-girl. The Human Torch was her brother; he is their son in the movie. And they went through the same sort of trials and tribulations, at one moment popular, at the next scorned by the general public.

But the one big shift is that Mr. Fantastic was the brains behind the outfit. That won’t do for a male lead role these days: he had to be replaced as male lead by the Thing, a big lummox; and his wife has to be the brains. He must screw up, and be rescued by the women of the family. His daughter speaks of the need for him to learn a lesson.

Just the same thing happened to the recent film adaptation of the classic children’s book “The Polar Express.” As a book it is the story of one boy, who struggles with the question of belief in Santa. For the film version, it is breaded out with more child characters, most notably an assertive boy who is told, almost in so many words, that he should shut up and follow (“learn” is the word used) and an assertive girl who is told, conversely, she should speak up and “lead.”

That’s the progress we’ve made in “sexual equality” since the early Sixties. Then, the matter was case by case; now, women always outrank men, on the basis of their sex.

And this is what we are systematically teaching to our young. I hope they have the good sense to rebel.

Things are a little better on “Cartoon Network.” Thankfully, it lacks a high didactic purpose. “Johnny Bravo” is a shamelessly racist and sexist parody of the white male stereotype. “Ed, Edd, and Eddy” push the stereotype of male scruffiness and uncouth; they are regularly excluded from polite female society and ignored by everybody. But at least things are seen from their perspective.

And other shows on “Cartoon Network” tend to give the underdog’s point of view. They at least illustrate male frustration. This, of course, is why moms don’t want you to watch this stuff. It’s subversive. In “Dexter’s Lab,” Dexter, though absurdly brilliant, is ignored by his parents and adults generally in favour of his vacuous sister. In “Codename: Kids Next Door,” a boy, Nigel, leads a mixed gang in rebellion against adult oppression and conformity. Girls are welcome but not dominant. “Samurai Jack” seems fully comfortable with masculinity; but also seems to be a foreign import.