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In the twenty-first century, fatherhood is shifting from simply being a sidekick in the parental team to taking center stage with new expectations of involvement and caretaking. The social expectations of fathers start even before the children are born. Mr. Mom is now displaced with fathers who don't think of themselves as babysitting their own children, but as central decision makers, along with mothers, as parents. Deconstructing Dads: Changing Images of Fathers in Popular Culture is an interdisciplinary edited collection of essays authored by prominent scholars in the fields of media, sociology, and cultural studies who address how media represent the image of the father in popular culture. This collection explores the history of representation of fathers like the "bumbling dad" to question and challenge how far popular culture has come in its representation of paternal figures. Each chapter of this book focuses on a different aspect of media, including how advertising creates expectations of play and father, crime shows and the new hero father, and men as paternal figures in horror films. The book also explores changing definitions of fatherhood by looking at such subjects as how the media represents sperm donation as complicating the definition of father and how specific groups have been represented as fathers, including gay men as dads and Latino fathers in film. This collection examines the media's depiction of the "good" father to study how it both challenges and reshapes the ways in which we think of family, masculinity, and gender roles.
Show moreIn the twenty-first century, fatherhood is shifting from simply being a sidekick in the parental team to taking center stage with new expectations of involvement and caretaking. The social expectations of fathers start even before the children are born. Mr. Mom is now displaced with fathers who don't think of themselves as babysitting their own children, but as central decision makers, along with mothers, as parents. Deconstructing Dads: Changing Images of Fathers in Popular Culture is an interdisciplinary edited collection of essays authored by prominent scholars in the fields of media, sociology, and cultural studies who address how media represent the image of the father in popular culture. This collection explores the history of representation of fathers like the "bumbling dad" to question and challenge how far popular culture has come in its representation of paternal figures. Each chapter of this book focuses on a different aspect of media, including how advertising creates expectations of play and father, crime shows and the new hero father, and men as paternal figures in horror films. The book also explores changing definitions of fatherhood by looking at such subjects as how the media represents sperm donation as complicating the definition of father and how specific groups have been represented as fathers, including gay men as dads and Latino fathers in film. This collection examines the media's depiction of the "good" father to study how it both challenges and reshapes the ways in which we think of family, masculinity, and gender roles.
Show moreAcknowledgments
Laura Tropp and Janice Kelly
Introduction: Changing Concepts of the Good Dad in Popular
Culture
Janice Kelly and Laura Tropp
Section I: The Evolving Dad in Popular Culture
Chapter 1: The Culture of Fatherhood and the Late-Twentieth-Century
New Fatherhood Movement: An Interpretive Perspective
Ralph LaRossa
Chapter 2: Who’s Your Daddy: Sperm Donation and the Cultural
Construction of Fatherhood
Laura Tropp
Chapter 3: Soldiers and Fathers: Archetypal Media Representations
of Service, Family, and Parenting
Laura C. Prividera and John W. Howard
Chapter 4: Decoding Comedic Dads: Examining how Media and Real
Fathers Measure up with Young Viewers
Janice Kelly
Section II: Dads Across Popular Culture Genres
Chapter 5: Watching the Leisure Gap: Advertising Fatherhood with
the Privilege of Play
Peter Schaefer
Chapter 6: Detecting Fatherhood: The “New” Masculinity in Primetime
Crime Dramas
Sarah Kornfield
Chapter 7: Magazine Depictions of Fathers’ Involvement in
Children’s Health: A Content Analysis
Justin J. Hendricks, Heidi Steinour, William Marsiglio, and Deepika
Kulkarni
Chapter 8: New Paternal Anxieties in Contemporary Horror Cinema:
Protecting the Family against (Supernatural) External Attacks
Fernando Gabriel Pagnono Berns and Canela Ailen Rodriguez
Fontao
Section III: (Representing Dads)
Chapter 9: From Good Times to Blackish: Media Portrayals of
African-American Fathers
Shirley A. Hill and Janice Kelly
Chapter 10: Queering Daddy or Adopting Homonormative
Fatherhood?
Lynda Goldstein
11. Paternidad, Masculinidad, and Machismo: Evolving
Representations of Mexican/-American Fathers in Film
Leandra H. Hernández
Index
About the Contributors
Laura Tropp is professor of communication and media arts at
Marymount Manhattan College.
Janice Kelly is associate professor of communication arts and
sciences at Molloy College.
Communication scholars Tropp and Kelly have compiled an important,
in-depth collection that explores the ways in which contemporary
media representations of fatherhood cultivate expectations about
family life, fuel misconceptions about parenting, and promote
complicated and contentious ideas about what being a father means.
Contributors use literature reviews, audience studies, and content
and textual analyses to examine topics such as the culture of
fatherhood and the conduct of fathers; sperm donation and lineage;
soldiers, military service, and family commitment; stay-at-home
dads, caretaking, leisure, and manhood; masculinity in crime dramas
and horror films; increased, yet domesticated, portrayals of gay
fathers; and how representations of African American fathers in
sitcoms and Mexican American fathers on film disrupt and perpetuate
stereotypes about these men and groups. Taken together, the essays
illustrate striking contradictions in representations of fathers by
showing how these representations are progressive, subversive, and
hopeful and also restrictive and harmful, among the latter
especially those that offer tidy, uncomplicated depictions of
fatherhood; reify patriarchy; and perpetuate traditional attitudes
toward gender and parenting. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All
readers.
*CHOICE*
“Deconstructing Dads: Changing Images of Fathers in Popular Culture
is a needed corrective to a lack of previous research on media and
fatherhood, and a boon to those studying masculinity and
representation. It's well written, well organized, and examines
mediated representations of modern fatherhood in ways that break
new ground and re-examine old approaches critically. Highly
recommended.”
*Brian Cogan, Molloy College, author of Deconstructing South Park:
Critical Examinations of Animated Transgression*
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