The original post: /r/television by /u/unitedfan6191 on 2024-07-29 00:54:23.
Hi.
Hope you’re doing well.
To be clear, I am not specifically talking about bad parents or the worst parents in TV history, but parents who in TV are just commonly portrayed in a particular sort of way and look, essentially, like the villain in the story - whether cartoony or more realistic.
I am also talking more specifically mothers, but I know fathers are portrayed also in a stereotypical or negative sort of way and also cartoony at times.
This is especially the case with network TV shows where the mother (especially in the mother-daughter relationship) is often presented as highly judgmental, pushy/overbearing and meddling in their kid’s life - sometimes as an outright villain in a cartoonish way (Arrested Development or Two and a Half Men), but other times it’s not as over the top and you can maybe be a little more sympathetic with them.
Whether it’s Judy on Friends being more harsh with Monica and sympathetic with Ross, or Emily Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, or Peggy and Al Bundy from Married with Children, or Betty Draper on Mad Men, I notice lots of similarities with the way mothers in particular are portrayed.
What are your thoughts on the way parents (especially mothers) are portrayed on TV in general and is it realistic for them to be sort of (or highly) villainy, because I know parents who are just sweet and caring and I see very little representation of that in TV?