What is it about?
Real-world fathers are increasingly involved in their children's lives. Yet, our study shows that depictions of fathers on sitcoms do not reflect this trend. We studied depictions of sitcom fathers in scenes involving disparagement humor, one character making fun of another. Our data show that within those scenes, recent sitcom fathers engage less often in key parenting interactions on screen compared to sitcom fathers of the past. When they do engage in parenting interactions such as giving children advice, setting rules, or disciplining, sitcom fathers are increasingly shown as foolish and incompetent.
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Why is it important?
Our data show that fatherhood is still played for laughs on sitcoms even as societal understandings of fatherhood change. Sitcom fathers have the potential to perpetuate stereotypes about gender and parenting.
Perspectives
This study is a follow-up to one of my favorite former studies. I published a similar piece on depictions of sitcom fathers from the 1950s through the 1990s in 2001. In this new piece, my co-authors and I were interested to see what, if anything, had changed in a new sample of sitcoms from the 1980s through 2017. Some depictions seem to have improved. For instance, sitcom fathers were not depicted as the butt of the joke more often over time in the new study as they had been in the old study. Yet, the findings about father characters engaging less often in parenting interactions and doing so rather incompetently in the new study show gender stereotypes about parenting remain in sitcoms today.
Erica Scharrer
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Disparaged dads? A content analysis of depictions of fathers in U.S. sitcoms over time., Psychology of Popular Media, April 2021, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000289.
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