Why are sitcom dads still so inept?
- Written by Erica Scharrer, Professor of Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Scott Vandehey/flickr, CC BY-NC-SA
From Homer Simpson to Phil Dunphy, sitcom dads have long been known for being bumbling and inept.
But it wasn’t always this way. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, sitcom dads tended to be serious, calm and wise, if a bit detached. In a shift that media scholars have documented,...