Yahoo Lifestyle What Exactly Is 'Dad TV'? Well, It Depends On Whom You Ask.
Like most parents with young kids, Yvette Holland Kirk looks forward to that sacred post-bedtime hour after her kids are actually asleep. Then, she and her husband can watch an hour of TV. They have made their way through shows like Prime Video’s “Reacher,” Netflix’s “The Night Agent” and Paramount+’s “Yellowstone” while sitting on the couch together at 9 p.m.
Over the past year, the term “Dad TV” has cropped up as a sub-genre to define the kinds of shows that Kirk and her husband tend to watch together. Crime shows or action-packed procedurals may be considered the original version of this genre. Not just because dads watched them but because your dad (or husband) was more likely to be next to you on the couch when you did.
As streaming has expanded, it has incorporated elements from successful network shows that are designed to appeal to male viewers and have large audiences. Think shows with a middle-aged male protagonist who is good at his job and works within a formulaic storytelling arc to solve a problem or defeat a bad actor who is endangering a core societal institution. The goal isn’t to remake the world; it’s to fix a broken piece within it while telling a story that is easy to follow and enjoyable to consume.
“Dad TV” is a term that you may or may not have heard because it hasn’t engrained its way into our cultural lexicon in the same way as the long-used and ubiquitous genre titles like rom-com, thriller or drama. This is true for Kirk who was unaware of the categorization and immediately found it lacking.
“I’m a little surprised though that those shows are classified as ‘Dad TV’ because maybe it’s more dad-friendly TV,” Kirk says. “I feel like almost always these are shows that the couples are watching together.”
And Kirk is right. Culture critics like NPR’s Eric Deggans are quick to tell you that “Dad TV” doesn’t mean it’s TV that only dads watch.
“All I’m trying to do in calling it ‘Dad TV’ is just help people understand why the shows are constructed the way they are and why people seem to be responding to them,” Deggans told me.
And viewers are responding to them. The gender distribution of the audience for shows like “Yellowstone” and “The Night Agent” are over 50% female, according to data from Parrot Analytics.
“Despite the older and male-leaning moniker, this programming lane can appeal to broader audience demographics than many may expect,” said Brandon Katz, an entertainment industry strategist for the company, via email.
That’s always been true. Before the streaming boom, that 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. hour is when most audiences tuned into primetime networks for shows like “JAG,” “NCIS” or “Blue Bloods.” Katz said “Dad TV”-type shows have become a “defining original series brand identity” for Prime Video (“Goliath,” “Bosch,” “Reacher”), Paramount+ (“Yellowstone,” the “Star Trek” franchise) and even Netflix (“The Lincoln Lawyer,” “The Diplomat”).
So, if shows like these have mass appeal, if streaming is using them to expand their audiences, then why are they being referred to as “Dad TV” and what does “Dad TV” actually mean?
The answer depends on whom you ask.
For example, Deggans’ definition of “Dad TV” is more restrictive. It’s a show with a lot of action like “Reacher” that centers on a middle-aged male protagonist who is working to right an injustice.
“Their target audience is men who are the age where they would have kids, so the fantasy is to have an action-oriented life where you don’t necessarily have the responsibilities that most dads have,” Deggans told me. Reacher doesn’t have a wife, girlfriend, car payment or mortgage, and his independence gives this brand of “Dad TV” an escapist quality.
Within his definition, Deggans wouldn’t categorize shows like “Yellowstone” or “The Night Agent” as “Dad TV.” The first is too soap opera-y and the second leans more into the subcategory that he refers to as “spies with families” because of the romantic entanglement between Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) and Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan).
Deggans also says shows like Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” and “Shrinking” are too tied to the emotional arcs and relationships of the characters to be “Dad TV.” For him, a key feature of “Dad TV” is that the male protagonist has a hard time emotionally bonding with people and maintaining relationships. This creates irony within the genre when an isolated character like Reacher eventually forms a found family (often one that changes each season) that he is forced to rely on to right that season’s wrong.
Kathryn VanArendonk, a culture critic for Vulture, argues that “Dad TV” is for everyone in the streaming era.
“‘Dad TV’ viewers still long for competence,” she told me. “They want characters doing the best possible version of their tasks, preferably via nitty-gritty depictions of a well-designed process lovingly planned and enacted. And so the dads at the center of these shows — whether literal or symbolic — believe in big institutions that provide order and a system that keeps everyone functional.”
However, the execution is more complex. In her definition, a “dad” doesn’t have to be a man, and the show doesn’t have to be action-focused. Instead, the protagonist just needs to be capable and working toward a goal that she is uniquely able to accomplish, like Julia Child (Sarah Lancashire) in Max’s show “Julia.”
“Her position as a woman forced to battle against 1950s sexism only provides another anchor for her Dad TV cred: She believes in the possibility of the social system, but the current version of it is flawed. You know who can fix it if she bends the rules a little? Julia, Neo-Dad,” writes VanArendonk in her defense of this broader definition of “Dad TV.”
Joshua River, a writer and critic, rejects the term “Dad TV” altogether because he finds it too restrictive.
“Once you call you something ‘Dad TV,’ it’s kind of dismissive,” River told me. “I know a lot of people use it affectionately, but at the same time you’re sort of limiting the range of conversations that you have about a thing.”
Ultimately, what became apparent as I talked to other culture writers about what “Dad TV” is or isn’t is that it’s hard to pin down in a world in which, as VanArendonk puts it, “[the] kind of dad you are suddenly has a lot more options, so it makes sense there would be a lot more kinds of dad shows.”
But then why, as River argues, categorize anything as “Dad TV” if it’s just being used to describe TV?
This is “the first time where there is a genre of shows that is specifically catered to men,” culture critic Elamin Abdelmahmoud pointed out on his culture podcast, “Commotion.” So, maybe it doesn’t even matter if the categorization isn’t useful because its mere existence is revealing of where we are at this cultural moment.
Perhaps, it’s the indefinable quality of the genre itself that holds meaning. Maybe the ambiguity surrounding “Dad TV” allows it to appeal to such a broad audience because it mirrors the inability to define masculinity in our modern world.
“Today’s boys and young men are being fed contradictory cultural signals about masculinity,” according to the National Research Group’s study published this fall called the “Hero Complex,” a study that unpacks the role that the entertainment industry plays in today’s masculinity crisis.
“If there’s a consistent theme in ‘Dad TV’ at the moment, it’s the idea of having to reevaluate and reassess notions of masculinity to fit in with a fast-changing world,” Fergus Navaratnam-Blair, a research director at NRGtold me via email. “That’s likely reflective of the experiences of many dads themselves; they’re finding themselves somewhat adrift from contemporary youth culture, and are having to figure out how to reconcile their own understanding of masculinity with the contemporary values of the world their kids are growing up in.
Within this gap, NRG finds that it’s hard to define masculinity because the topic has become so politically contentious, and liberals and conservatives are looking for different things.
“Conservative audiences want to see on-screen portrayals of masculinity that reinforce and validate traditional masculine archetypes, whereas liberals want to see storytellers redefine the concept and develop new models of masculinity,” Navaratnam-Blair said.
Because “Dad TV” appeals to such a broad audience, it’s worth assuming that viewers across the political spectrum are finding something that resonates with them, that “Dad TV” is bridging an ideological divide that other forms of media can’t.