Happy Fathers day... wait, where's Daddy?!

[bufsum]

:cheering: First off, Happy Father's Day to all of the Dads on the board! :cheering:

Now then... I wanted to discuss the fact that in the verse (while parents are all but nonexsistent), fathers really get the short end of the stick. Why do you think this is? How would the show have been different if the following situations weren't true:

Buffy/Dawn: While the writers kept Hank around for Buffy in HS, he faded out completely. After Joyce died the girls could not even get a hold of him... apparently he's too busy in his new life for his girls.

Willow: Well, where can we start with Izra? I think it was Izra. I may have read that in a Buffy book years ago. While Willow's mom makes appearences, and is clearly too flightly for any remarkable parenting. All Willow mentions is that her dad will flip if he sees a cruifix nailed to her wall. However, we never get too see him.

Xander: There's a messed up relationship. Xander is terrified of turning into his drunk, wife-hating, useless father.

Oz: Does he have parents? Does he live in his van? Hmmm...

Riley: I'm just guessing he's a military man. Just a feeling.

Tara: What a piece of work! He thinks is acceptable to keep his women in line by lying to them about their demon background.

Giles: I can't recall any instances where he speaks about him, except that he rebelled against him.

Cordelia: Well, it was her father's "mistake" that dumped a essentially poor and helpless girl to LA. So... sort of, thank you?

Doyle: Demon, and I can't recall any real bad references... maybe he's the only good one?

Wesley: Eee! There's a pickle. Clearly a hate/hate, killer/killee situation.

Fred: Well, now we do like him. He's Texan, and jolly.

Lorne: He's from a hell dimension, and a part of why he left. Oppressive, and iron fist.

Gunn: Our boy is living on the street when we meet him, so I'm guessing something went array, there.

Connor: He has been raised to believe that Angel is evil, and that sort of stays with him. Even when he's genuinely attempting to make a connection. Their relationship seems to be getting better, now that we left them (in NFA) moments from death.

Angel: Clearly they disliked one another. Angel wanted to rebel, and his father wanted to yell. So... Angelus got his revenge.

Please correct/add on to anything I have missed.

Of course, if we move onto the "Fathers" of the groups, that's an entirely different conversation. Giles, being the ultimate "Daddy", of course.

 

[anyatara]

Giles was always the Father figure for the gang so I don't think they ever really needed to show parents in the first few seasons, and with them being in the high school, the parents wouldn't really have much of a place (Well 'cept Joyce). And as it progressed, the charaters were older and weren't living with their parents, anyway. As for Tara's Father, I never liked him 😉

 

[white avenger]

I'm not saying that Sarah had any say in the general attitude toward fathers in the series, but she on more than one occasion referred to her own father as "little more than a sperm doner." Other than Joyce and Fred's parents, Joss has very little good or positive to say about parents in general or fathers in particular. Even Giles, who was Buffy's pseudo-father, wound up betraying her by stealing her powers so that she would have to undergo a senseless Watchers' trial, abandoning her when she was at her emotionally most dependent, and finally plotting to kill her strongest and most loyal ally.

I don't know just how a happy a childhood Joss had, but he sure seems to like to portray parents in a poor light.

 

[Kean]

I don't know just how a happy a childhood Joss had, but he sure seems to like to portray parents in a poor light.

That's what I find strange about Joss's treatment of parents and fathers especially. I have heard him speak on a few occasions glowingly about his mother, father and step-father. Remarking on how they allowed him to flourish as a child and instill a strong moral backbone in him.

The parents on the show rarely reflect that.

 

[Washburne]

Fathers day? Our´s on the second sunday in november. But if we do have any fathers here (as I guess we do) happy fathers day to you all!

As for fathers in Whedonverse you´re absolutely right. Mostly they´re just "bad", but I don´t think it´s right to point out the fathers. Except from Joyce are the mothers much better? Maybe they´re not as bad as some of the fathers but you don´t see them in a particular good light either.

As for Joss I think he grow up with a very "strong" mother (in his words) but I don´t think I´ve ever heard of his father. I guess it has its reasons.

edit: Ok, just read Keanoities post. So I guess I was wrong. He apparently had a good realtionship with his father.

 

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

Maybe it all just adds to the women power statement of the show. Here are all these men, failing at what they are meant to do, and here are all these women, doing what others thought un-doable by a female.

 

[Joyce Summers]

I believe has Joss has stated many times that he's a big fan of the Family You Choose. The one not given you by birth. I mean Buffy is the only one with any blood family members shown in a good light- and that's Dawn and Joyce. The rest have not just awful parents but awful families. I mean we see a lot of Xander's family and they each seem to be more terrible than the other.

So not seeing the Fathers in a good light on the show is a part of that I believe, not just being exclusive to the paternal figures. And of course, we always had Giles filling that role and I know people say he betrayed her on a few occassions but I never saw that as betrayal, but instead just as a Father he did what any parent inevitably does as some point and that is to make a mistake. In Helpless he eventually rebels against the council and sides with Buffy, effectively reversing his betrayal or at least redeeming himself in some way. When he leaves in season 6 and his decision over Spike in Lies My Parents Told Me were both, in my opinion, wrong decisions but it wasn't an outright betrayal but rather doing what he thought was best for his 'daughter', whether that was ultimately right or not. And the way he tried to hide it for as long as possible in LMPTM seemed more protective than betrayal-y.

Hank on the other hand seemed to become worse and worse each time he was mentioned, which admittedly was probably for narrative reasons more than anything. But that aside, I think it was showing the typical view of a Father in a divorced relationship. Now a lot of the things I 'saw' Hank do on the show, effected me quite personally, due to the fact my own Dad- who had divorced my Mother years ago- was doing the same things so I have slightly biased and agressive view on the matter. After they divorced my Dad did the whole trips, visits, staying over at weekends, buying presents thing that we see Hank do in season one and season two. But then it started being 'Well, I've got to help a friend do this...', and 'I'm too busy with work' much like we see from Hank in Helpless. Needless to say my Dad ended up living the cliché also when he got the new family who had already had three kids she prepared earlier. My point is, Hank often directly mirrored my own Father and I think that was what Joss was using him as- the stereotypical divorced Father. The one that does eventually fade from the child's life.

But we see lots of variants of parents in both Angel and Buffy- with Fred being the only one with two successful, likeable parents.
Buffy- The Estranged Father, The Working Mother who Tries
Xander- The Drunken Father, The Repressed Housewife Mother
Willow- Strict Father, Workaholic (and benevolently neglective) Mother
Cordelia- The Typical Rich Parents. We presume a Pretty Socialite Mom and of course the Dad who cheats on his taxes
And then of course we have Giles who is The Good Intentions Father who Makes Bad Choices.

I could go into all the other characters but we'd be here all day. Haha.

 

[InsaneMystic]

Wow, Father's Day really is different from country to country... we have it on Ascension Day, which was 1st of May this year. Anyway, happy Father's Day to all applicable. 🙂

I fully agree that a central part of the show's message is about "Family You Choose", especially since I'm well known not to be jumping on the "Buffy: Good mom, bad dad" wagon, it's more "bad mom, worse dad" in my book. :wink:

Well, I'm prejudiced of course... as a kid, you tend to believe that families are more or less like the one you grow up to, so coming from the place I grew up, I don't think the dire list above is anything unusual, it pretty much just fulfills my expectations. I guess that's one of the reasons I can relate so easily to the show, as "blood ties bad, friends good" fits my own experience well.

Still, with Joss speaking fondly of his real life family, it makes me wonder how he came up with such a negative portrayal in his 'verse.

 

[bufsum]

For clarification purposes I was not saying that the mothers of the verse are shining beacons on maternal goodness, just pointing out that the fathers always seem to be a step worse (ala Joyce Summer's post). I think that the absense of fathers by in large points to the importance of the women standing up, and over taking the patriarchal society set up for them. On the other hand, both BtVS and AtS have patriarchs at their head. I find it fascinating, however that in both shows the Fathers seemed to be constantly dumped on.

Of course I believe that the important familial ties are the families that that each group creates for themselves.