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Daddy Issues: Blossom and the Trouble with “Cool” Dads
Brainy, outspoken, and with a fashion sense all her own, Blossom modeled confidence (and oh, so many hats) for a generation of teenage girls.Along with unquashable self-esteem, she also possessed that...
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Daddy Issues: How Surprise Single Fatherhood Makes Men's Lives Worth Living
The idea that fatherhood redeems men, turning them into proper grown-ups (and thus acceptable members of society) is an enduring pop cultural preoccupation.In Three Men and A Baby, the lead characters...
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Daddy Issues: Lorelai Gilmore, Savior of Single Dads (And Why That's A Problem)
In comparison to single moms elsewhere, on Gilmore Girls, they’re heroes. In fact, when it comes to parenting on the show, there’s a recurring theme: Men! Not quite as good as women, are they?They’re...
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Daddy Issues: The Pursuit of Happyness and the Trouble with the American Dream
While many men would apparently prefer a son to a daughter, that isn’t reflected in pop culture, where most movies and TV shows about single or stay-at-home dads feature a father-daughter...
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Daddy Issues: Is Baby Daddy the New Three Men and a Baby?
There are some obvious similarities between 2012 sitcom Baby Daddy and 1987's Three Men and a Baby. They’re both about three guys sharing an apartment in New York who are unexpectedly gifted a doorstep...
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Daddy Issues: The Mixed Blessings of "Dadvertising"
Obviously it’s not always possible to tell when the dad in an ad is a primary caregiver, but there’s been an increase in dad-centric TV commercials this year, with a move away from the doofus archetype...
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Daddy Issues: Keeping it (Upper Middle) Classy
With its over the top premise and mining of dementia for “comedy”, I could never get into Raising Hope, but there's one thing I do appreciate about the sitcom: it’s one of very few successful shows to...
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Daddy Issues: Pop Culture's Pioneering Single Dads
If you’d asked me a couple of months ago when the pop cultural trend of dads as primary caregivers began, I might have guessed the 1970s (when we saw an increase in single moms on TV). Turns out I’d...
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Daddy Issues: But What About The Moms?
While I ended my last post by snarkily suggesting that pop culture’s fascination with fathers might give way to an interest in motherhood, the truth is a lot of messages about moms are already encoded...
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Daddy Issues: What's It All About?
Over the last two months, I’ve written more than 20,000 words (!) about male primary caregivers in popular culture. I hope I’ve illustrated that while the rise in non-stereotypical portrayals of men is...
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