I generally have high standards in my choice of entertainment, but occasionally I get sucked into certain unpardonable indulgences. One in particular is a very popular streaming show of a sci-fi nature* with no particular redeeming value-- not even a personal one I could point to, like, "It's so bad it's good" ... or "It fills some cultural void in me" ... or "I like it". This show is actually not good at all and it's not even not good in an interesting way. It's not a show I would necessarily want to participate in discussions about. With one exception. One of the main characters on the show is a singularly average looking small town police chief. He's paunchy, balding and middle aged. He's got a mustache-- not a stylish job, just hair on the lip. He also has, not a beard, but several days of beard growth. He's got a big fat head that his Smokey-the-bear police hat is too small for. I. Hate. Him. The average looks are not the problem-- the non-Hollywood casting is one of the few things I admire about the show. What gets me is the flavorlessness of the role in combination with the cockiness of the performance. There's a swirl of picky little things I contend with every time the character shows up: His touch with comedy is not light. There's not a tremendous amount of intelligence shining from within. He's not merely crabby, he oozes entitlement to be crabby. While he's called upon to mete out justice without a lot of formality, Dirty Harry style, he's not particularly deft with the tough guy act. Most galling of all, for some reason this guy with the sex appeal of a turnip is called upon to parade his half-naked dad-bod around in one context or another every other show it seems. I haven't taken the trouble of remembering the character's name but in my mind it's Dad (even though I couldn't tell you whether the character actually has children. It's not the children that makes him Dad. It's the mustache.).
On principle, I don't fast forward through shows I'm watching-- not even the not particularly good ones. It's a solidarity move. It doesn't seem fair to people who actually watch the shows. But the antipathy I feel for this character has tempted me to make an exception in his case. On the other hand, I have to admit to a certain fascination about how this vacuum of charisma continues to be a center of the show. It's like a kind-of-near train wreck that didn't-actually-happen. I can't take my eyes away from it even though there's not really anything I could point to to look at.
My daughter, who does not watch the show, tells me that she hears that this character has a fan base among her cohort, the millenials. What could they possibly see in him, I wonder. She tells me it's exactly what I hate: that he's just a big dumb Dad. They like him because he's a Dad??! Ugh! I suppose it should have been obvious to me since there is literally nothing else going on with this guy.
What is it with young people and their capacity to be entertained by Dad figures? Someone my daughters' age enthusiastically recommended I watch a Bert Kreischer comedy special. I'm going to give them one more chance at a recommendation to redeem themself. I've also learned from my daughter about a popular video "dating game" released not too long ago in which the object is for the protagonist, a new-Dad-in-town, to choose a "date" from among a selection of other Dads in the neighborhood. What!? You're kidding me. Is it a horror game? No! Is it political education disguised as discomfiting social satire? No! You mean, it's just supposed to be fun? Yes. And young people actually buy and play this game?! Yes, they do. I'm not at all worried about this up and coming generation, until I hear about shit like this.
Always on the cutting edge of music I noticed in my YouTube recommendations not long ago new videos from Soccer Mommy and Hockey Dad. Something is really terribly wrong when college students are naming their bands after their parents.† This indicates to me a failure of parenting.
We're supposed to be progressing, but instead we're indulging in stale, dad-aged obsessions like racism and misogyny again.
Kids! Dad is not cute! Dad is not cool! Dad is Donald Trump. Jordan Peterson will not save you. Joe Biden will not save you.§ You're not supposed to like Dads, you're supposed to resent them. You're supposed to rebel against them. They are the enemy! They are old, they are overweight (and if they’re not overweight, they’re vain), they are angry, they have terrible taste in music. They watch Fox News. They criticize you for no reason. They laugh at cruelty. They have stopped learning. They don't understand you! What's more, they made this world that you're inheriting. They could have done something about global warming but they only made it worse. They could have made this a safer, fairer world but instead they acquiesced to the most evil systems of politics and economics in the world and a devotion to or at least an okayness with a bullshit concept called the free market. And now we're enslaved to it. You want to fix it and they're telling you what they always say about anything that could make your life better: We can't afford that! This is a lie. It's just a reflex with them. They don't know what they're talking about, but they do know that you can't have what you want. They have ruined your future. And they did it accidentally on purpose because it was more fun for them, it was easier for them, and they could get away with it because nobody could tell them what to do. They are selfish. They are uninformed and proud of it. They are complacent and they have taught you to be complacent too.
So drop the obsession with the old man, kids! When it's time for Fathers' Day, just remember this: Every day is Fathers' Day...
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* It's the one where all the originally pre-teen characters still wear rugby shirts and beanies and socks with shorts even though the actors portraying them are by now beyond puberty.
† It really pains me to report that Soccer Mommy is actually pretty good. I refuse to listen to Hockey Dad.
§ Bernie Sanders will save you.
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