***** CONTENT WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS REFERENCES TO CHILD ABUSE, ALCOHOL AND DRUG USE, PARENT DEATH, CANCER, AND DOGFIGHTING *****
Happy Father’s Day to all who celebrate! In honor of the occasion, here are some pop culture dads that I love – and a few that I love to hate.
- Mike Brady – The Brady Bunch (Robert Reed)
For Gen-Xers like me, no pop culture dad is more iconic than Mike Brady. The head of a blended family, Mike is a busy architect who still finds time to attend school plays, football games, and dance recitals. As played by Robert Reed, Mike is firm and fair, and he dispenses the best advice to both his three bio sons and his three stepdaughters. This clip from The Brady Bunch Movie is a perfect send-up of Mike’s often platitude-filled life lessons.
- Captain Von Trapp – The Sound of Music (Christopher Plummer)
My favorite movie musical – unapologetically – is The Sound of Music, and Christopher Plummer is the musical leading man of my childhood dreams. Absurdly handsome, Plummer was the perfect choice to play stern but devoted single father Captain Georg Von Trapp (although other actors, including Bing Crosby, Yup Brynner, Sean Connery, and Richard Burton, were considered for the role). Plummer was so dreamy, his young co-star Charmain Carr, who portrayed eldest child Liesl, had an enormous crush on him, and who could blame her? But Plummer also had the gravitas to sell the family’s escape from the Nazis.
FUN FACT: Plummer was a dad in real life, too. Amanda is also an actor; you may know her from movies like Pulp Fiction – she played Honey Bunny – and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Amanda won a Tony in 1982 for her portrayal of the title character in Agnes of God.
- Mufasa – The Lion King (James Earl Jones)
To his subjects, Mufasa is “King of the Pride Land”; to Simba, Mufasa is “Dad”. With his booming basso profundo, James Earl Jones has a voice is befitting of a King. Mufasa’s death at the hands of his scheming brother Scar kicks off the film’s plot, but the lessons Simba learns from his father stay with him on his journey (with a little help from his bonus dads, Timon and Pumbaa).
- Royal Tenenbaum – The Royal Tenenbaums (Gene Hackman)
Royal Tenenbaum, played by the legendary Gene Hackman, is a formerly absentee father looking to make up for lost time. Director Wes Anderson wrote the part for Hackman “against his wishes”, but Hackman initially passed, feeling like he couldn’t relate to the character’s motivations. Anderson reportedly considered Michael Caine and Gene Wilder before Hackman accepted the role. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Royal takes his grandsons for an adventure, the kind their neurotic, recently widowed dad Chas disapproves of.
CONTENT WARNING: This scene contains a reference to dogfighting.
- Edward Bloom – Big Fish (Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney)
“Big Fish is about what’s real and what’s fantastic, what’s true and what’s not true, what’s partially true and how, in the end, it’s all true.” – Tim Burton
Big Fish is Burton’s most personal film (he’d lost his father and mother in 2000 and 2002, respectively). In the film, based on Daniel Wallace’s novel, Will Bloom is estranged from his tall-tale-telling father, Edward (played by Ewan McGregor in flashbacks and a BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated Albert Finney). Now cancer-stricken, a dying Edward attempts to reconcile with his son. Will takes over as storyteller, describing their imaginary escape from the hospital to the banks of a river, where all of the characters from Edward’s stories (as well as his late wife) are waiting to send him off. I defy you to watch this without tearing up.
FUN FACT: Miley Cyrus made her film debut in Big Fish, as Edward’s childhood friend Ruthie.
- Jack Bristow – Alias (Victor Garber)
Double agent Sydney Bristow has a complicated relationship with her father Jack (Victor Garber in an Emmy-nominated performance), who’s lied to her about basically everything her entire life, from what actually happened to Sydney’s mom Laura to the fact that Jack is also a double agent. Forced to work side by side with a man she hardly knows or trusts, Sydney will eventually understand that everything Jack did, he did for her.
FUN FACT: Offscreen, Garber and Alias star Jennifer Garner developed a father-daughter love for one another. When Garner married Ben Affleck in 2005, Garber officiated the ceremony. The two remain close to this day.
- Henry Jones, Sr. – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Sean Connery)
Sean Connery did some of his best acting in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, my favorite film in the franchise. Connery was initially hesitant to play the role because he was only twelve years older than Harrison Ford, but director Steven Spielberg knew he’d be perfect for the role of Indy’s strict professor father, whose lifelong pursuit of the holy grail has left his son feeling neglected. The chemistry between Ford and Connery, who modeled the senior Jones after his own “gruff, Victorian Scottish father”, is spectacular, and Connery gets to be funny, a joy the James Bond actor was rarely afforded.
FUN FACT: Connery ad-libbed the line, “She talks in her sleep”. Everyone on set laughed, so Spielberg kept the line in the film.
- Jim Hopper – Stranger Things (David Harbour)
At some point prior to the series premiere, Jim Hopper lost his daughter Sara – and his marriage – and now he’s drowning his grief in booze and pills. In season 2, he finds Eleven hiding in the woods and takes her in, and a new father-daughter relationship is born. As played by the brilliant David Harbour, Hopper wants so desperately to keep Elle safe from the government baddies who want to use her as a weapon that he sequesters her, keeping her away from not only the baddies but her friends as well. By season three, they’ve found a balance, despite Hopper’s ham-fisted attempts to keep Elle and Mike apart. When season three ends, Hopper is presumed dead (though a post-credits scene suggests he’s still alive) and Elle leaves Hawkins with the Byers family. In season four, as Hopper is fighting for his life against Russian prison guards and demogorgons, we learn the devastating truth about Sara’s illness: Hopper was exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. Fortunately, Hopper and Elle are reunited at the end of season four, though things look a little bleak for the future of mankind (the writer’s strike has delayed production on season five).
- Darth Vader – The Empire Strikes Back (David Prowse and the voice of James Earl Jones)
The Big Bad of Daddies, Darth Vader severs Luke Skywalker’s hand during a light saber fight before dropping the ultimate bombshell: Vader is Luke’s birth father. The prequels explain the transformation of Anakin Skywalker into Vader, but we didn’t really need the origin story. On the American Film Insitute’s list of 100 Heroes & Villains, Vader placed third on the villains list behind Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates.
FUN FACT: Concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, who also worked on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Cocoon (he won an Oscar for the latter), was the first to suggest that Darth Vader should wear a helmet with a breathing apparatus. Vader’s headwear resembles a samurai helmet, which is fitting since Star Wars was heavily inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress.
- Red Forman – That ’70’s Show (Kurtwood Smith)
Gruff Korean War veteran Red Forman doesn’t have much patience for his son Eric’s antics (or Eric’s dumbass friends), but he loves his family to pieces. Kurtwood Smith, best known at the time for his roles in RoboCop and Dead Poets Society, turned out to be quite adept at comedy (he also got a big assist from the delightful Debra Jo Rupp, who played Red’s wife Kitty). Red is my husband’s favorite television dad, probably because Red reminds him of his own father, who passed away in 2007.
- Atticus Finch – To Kill a Mockingbird (Gregory Peck)
Atticus Finch, the inspiration for many a law student, is the American Film Institute’s greatest film hero of all time. Finch, played by Gregory Peck in an Oscar-winning performance, stands for justice and equality; he is the story’s moral center. But he’s also a widowed father whose children (narrator Scout and her big brother Jem) adore him so much, they’ll risk their own safety to rescue Atticus from a dangerous situation.
- Marlin – Finding Nemo (Albert Brooks)
Sure, Marlin (voiced to perfection by Albert Brooks) is a helicopter dad, but can you blame him? His son Nemo is the only survivor of a terrifying barracuda attack that killed Marlin’s wife, Coral, and their remaining children. Marlin promised Nemo he’d always keep him safe, but the kid was bound to rebel against his overprotective father sooner or later. When Nemo is captured by divers, Marlin travels to Sydney with forgetful blue tang Dory to find him.
FUN FACT: William H. Macy was originally cast as Marlin, but director Andrew Stanton was unhappy with Macy’s performance. According to Stanton, hiring Albert Brooks “saved” the film. Brooks, so gifted at improv, loved the idea of Marlin being an unfunny clownfish and recorded outtakes of Marlin telling terrible jokes.
- Walter White – Breaking Bad (Bryan Cranston)
Pop quiz, hot shot. One day you’re celebrating your 50th birthday, the next you’re diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. You’re a high school chemistry teacher who needs to quickly secure your family’s financial security. What do you do? Make meth, of course. Played by Bryan Cranston in a career-defining, four-time Emmy-winning performance, Walter White transforms from “Mr. Chips into Scarface” (creator Vince Gilligan’s pitch for the show). We know that Walt loves his children, Walt Jr. and Holly – but not as much as he loves being a drug kingpin.
FUN FACT: Vince Gilligan, who worked with Cranston on a 1998 episode of The X-Files called “Drive”, knew he wanted Cranston for the role of Walter White, but AMC was hesitant (at the time, Cranston was best known as goofy dad Hal on Malcolm in the Middle). AMC execs apparently approached John Cusack and Matthew Broderick. When both actors declined, AMC agreed to hire Cranston, who became the first actor to win a Critic’s Choice, Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Award for the same performance.
- James P. “Sulley” Sullivan – Monsters, Inc. (John Goodman)
Sulley isn’t Boo’s dad, but when the child follows him back to the scare factory, Sulley takes on a paternal role, keeping her safe (with the help of his BFF Mike Wazowski) until he can return her home. In one harrowing scene, Sulley believes he’s lost Boo – and he realizes just how much he’s grown to love her.
- Jack Torrance – The Shining (Jack Nicholson)
Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance differs significantly from the novel (one of the main reasons Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation). Book Jack was far more sympathetic; yes, he was an alcoholic and yes, he broke his son’s arm while drunk, but he wasn’t a monster until the Overlook’s ghosts turned him into one. At the end of the novel, Jack has enough humanity left to sacrifice himself so his son can escape. From the beginning of the film, though, Jack is angry and a little crazed; there’s never any doubt that he’s the villain. In the following clip, Jack tells Danny, “I love you more than anything in the world, and I’d never do anything to hurt you”, but you don’t buy it for a second.
FUN FACT: In his book Hollywood’s Stephen King, Tony Magistrale stated, “Kubrick’s version of Torrance is much closer to the tyrannical Hal (from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Alex (from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange) than he is to King’s more conflicted, more sympathetically human characterization.”
Readers, who are your favorite pop culture dads?
PB & Julie + Julie C. Trivia 