Kathleen Parker weighs in on Opus two moms cartoon
Skip to comments
Earlier this week, I told you about a conservative blogger who was upset at the depiction of men and the celebration of a two-mom family. The topic is no longer being discussed in the right-wing blogosphere – Kathleen Parker, syndicated columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, has written a column calling the cartoon “threadbare” and “stereotypical.”
Reaction has been swift and predictable: outrage on the right; smug contempt for the right on the left.
Yup, that pretty much sums up the comments on this blog.
She continues:
But here’s the biggest truth of all: Men and fathers have been on the receiving end of a male-bashing trend for the past 20 years or so, and they’ve had enough. Breathed’s comic strip might have faded into the ether if it didn’t cut so close to the bone, if it weren’t one more insult added to a history that long ago ceased to amuse.
On television, men are depicted as boors or buffoons, while in the broader culture, they’re deadbeats or wife beaters. In a 1999 study of how fathers were presented in 102 prime-time shows, the National Fatherhood Initiative found only four in which a father was portrayed as present and involved in his children’s lives.
At the same time little boys and girls are seeing bad, dumb daddies on TV, more than a third don’t live with their own father, owing either to divorce or single motherhood. Despite inevitable exceptions to the rule, it is merely ignorant to say that a father’s absence has no effect on children. Study after study shows an association between fatherlessness and a wide range of social pathologies, including drug abuse, promiscuity and delinquency.
Two mommies may work out fine for some children. And some men, just like some women, are contemptible slobs or worse. But neither observation diminishes the larger truth that children need fathers, most of whom are not, in fact, the cartoonish characters we love to loathe.
Breathed’s comic strip, intended or not, revealed where we have arrived as a society in our attitudes toward male role models, otherwise known as fathers: Two lesbian mommies are cool, while dad is a violent, profane, impulsive, substance-abusing slob. In such a world, we can be grateful for an existential penguin whose voice offers a counterweight to the know-nothingness of children. Opus asked the appropriate question: “No dad?”
Comments 3
Comments are closed.