Dad Movies

I don’t remember a lot of my dad’s preferences in media. I assume he watched the news with my mom, and I was really sad when I realized he’d missed “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen” by a matter of weeks, because he would have loved to know what happened when the gang at the 4077 went home. His favourite Disney animated movie was Lady and the Tramp. And that’s about where my knowledge of his taste runs out. But there are assumptions we make, because we think of certain media as just being for dads, regardless of anything else about the dad in question.

It’s a bit hard to separate Dad Media in particular from just, you know, media. The characters in it are mostly men, but, like, that’s just movies. Baseball movies are usually Dad movies, but some action movies are and some aren’t—though my beloved Uncle Bill, who filled in as something of a surrogate dad when I was growing up, loved action movies and would go see them without my aunt. It’s not even necessarily the kind of thing that’s full of Dad Jokes, though you might assume it would be—Dad Jokes, in fact, are considerably easier to define.

In many ways, I’m absolutely the wrong person to talk about this particular genre, being a woman who mostly grew up without a father and all. But I’m still fully able to look at things and say, “Yeah, that’s a Dad Show.” Do I know that my dad probably liked The Rockford Files? I do not. But I still kind of assume he did. And while Different Seasons, and therefore Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, came out the year before Dad died, he definitely missed the movie version so I don’t know he absolutely would have loved it, but come on. Dads love The Shawshank Redemption.

Actually, my dad was born in 1938, this year’s Year of the Month, and he missed a fair amount of Dad Movies. No Bull Durham or Field of Dreams for my dad. No chance to sit down and bond over Tombstone with my dad, though I suspect he would’ve found it awkward how much I thirst over early ‘90s Val Kilmer. He missed almost the entire careers of Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks—he didn’t even get to see Uncle Neddy punch Alex! Many James Bond movies have been made since 1983.

It’s kind of funny that the only Star Trek I saw in the theatre is The One With The Whales, because that feels more like a dad thing, and my mom is, perhaps predictably, not a huge fan. But Star Trek is Dad Media. I covered Martin Scorsese for Celebrating the Living this week, and that’s Dad Media. The Coens. Mel Brooks. Zucker-Abrams-Zucker. John Wayne. Oh, you know dads be liking them some Westerns. I strongly suspect the Knives Out movies.

The obvious question, I guess, is why. Because these appear to be true regardless of the dads in question. These don’t seem to be about class or ethnic background or region. Dads just like certain movies. I mean, I guess this is an American-centered list, and I can’t speak to dads in other countries. But it’s like being a dad instills in you an intense love for puns and The Great Escape. There are exceptions; my mother’s father didn’t like any jokes, regardless of whether they were puns or not, and I’ll admit I don’t know his opinion of The Great Escape.

Here’s where I admit I don’t have an answer, myself. That being a fatherless woman, I suppose. I’d love to hear from actual dads, and I suspect I’ll just put up with the puns. (A lesser-known corollary to the Dad Joke is the Mom Resigned Sigh.) Why did we all assume you guys were going to rush out and watch Ford v Ferrari? How many Christopher Nolan movies have you seen in the theatre? Women like these movies, too, of course, but I’m pretty sure the reason Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, and Harrison Ford have the records they do is that dads like the movies and moms can put up with them so they can watch the actors.

What about my partner? Yeah, to a lot of these. I am, unsurprisingly, the pop culture nut in the family, but he does watch a lot of Dad Media, and I think he watches a lot more of it than he did before we had kids. Not all of these. I like Scorsese more than he does, actually. But also I’ve been joking since before our son was born that the reason he wanted to have kids was to have a captive audience for the jokes.