The study, titled “Stay Tuned: Portrayals of Fatherhood to Come,” found significant differences between what it calls, middle- and working-class dads. It studied 13 fathers in 12 sitcoms and their 699 interactions with minor children.
The study’s abstract concludes that father-child interactions do not differ based on race or ethnicity, but they do depend on a family’s economic class, marital status, and the TV network airing the show.
For instance, Troilo found heterosexual dads were much more likely to say hurtful things to their children than the one gay father in the study, whose parenting skills were depicted as nearly perfect.
Portraying fathers as bumbling idiots is not a new trend, but does seem to be growing.
I would have said it had peaked, but I don’t watch a lot of TV.