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Crap dad cartoon: sexist or funny?

by 7 Comments

There’s a brilliant short cartoon that’s been doing the rounds on social media and is stirring up a big debate about the way dads are portrayed in popular culture. The one minute animation—“I’ll get the ice-creams”—has been broadcast by the BBC who describe it as follows:

“A man is left to look after his kids while his wife goes to fetch some ice creams. Result = chaos.”

As I watched it for the first time I was at first delighted by the beautifully timed slapstick of the piece, which showed a hapless parent struggling to prevent two young children from hilarious pratfalls. As I watched with glee, my inner gender warrior also asking:”Is that a man?”; “Is it a dad?”; “Is it a generic androgynous parent struggling with kids or is it another sexist portrayal of a useless dad?.”

And then the pay-off arrived, as the competent wife and mum returns to discover the chaos that (according to stereotype) is bound to ensue when you leave children to be cared for by a man.

So then the question arose in me, is this funny or is this sexist? I took to social media to find out how people were responding and here’s a selection of what people said. Firstly some men and women seemed to relate to the comedy in the cartoon:

Arthur Cruz: “God I can imagine that being me when I become a dad xD.”

Irene Adler: “This is not only funny but very accurate.”

Martina Ni Riain Downey: “This is what most women imagine will happen if they leave dad alone with the kids for five minutes.”

David King Wonder: “Kids with dad alone is never a good idea… LOL. I HOPE THEY STILL ALIVE.”

Glenda Carr: “I agree David, many times I left the girls home with their dad for a few hours and got back & my clean home looked like a tornado hit, I was like WTF happened in here?! Lolol.”

Tara Kennedy: “I agree with David men find it a LOT harder than women to care for children bless them, oh well.”

Taking a stand for dads

Then I started to see something interesting happen as men stepped forward and challenged the stereotype that dads are helpless with kids:

Rob Anthony: “I take care of all three of mine from morning till evening before my day begins. Ya’ll must be some sorry a$$ people to believe that.”

Graham Johnston: “You guys need better partners.”

David J Brown: “Good to see gender stereotyping & sexism is alive and well.”

Al Moanin Koasohr Eperiam: “Believe it or not there are a lot of men out there that knows how to take care of children better than the moms.”

Mums supporting dads 

And some mums waded in on the side of dads:

Renee Neri: “I hate going to the playground and my husband is actually MUCH better than me playing with them in the playground, am tired of videos making fun of dads, they are great and constantly trying to help….we need to stop putting dads down.”

Jessica Nitschke: “How sad that women don’t choose to have children with men they believe are capable of taking care of their children properly  I am blessed to be able to leave & know 100% that our children will be taken care of, the house will be in order & that I don’t have to worry! Thank God I made a smart informed decision!”

Sense of humour bypass?

Just as I was feeling justified in my belief that this cartoon is a bit sexist against men, I spotted another group of people commenting who made me wonder if I was having a sense of humour bypass:

Kelly Jo: “Can’t you just laugh? Maybe your day would be brighter.”

Metasymplocos: “Damn it’s an ANIMATION! stop trying to put your real life issues in it! Gees!” I enjoyed it!

I remembered that before my inner gender warrior kicked in, I was enjoying the skillfully crafted comedy in the film. Why, oh why, oh why can I not just laugh at funny stuff? I guess it’s because of the double standards. I guess it’s because jokes that stereotype men are tolerated in ways that jokes stereotyping women aren’t.

Maybe if I felt free to laugh at both men and women then  I wouldn’t be so critical. And  then I saw this comment and it made me feel like some kind of balance had been restored:

OhFishyFish: “Bet it took her so long because she had to park the car. :p”

Humour is often about context (you had to be there!). I don’t personally find jokes about women drivers funny, but as a riposte to a sexist joke about men, it was witty put down that speaks a thousand words about the sexist double standards that are reflected in the humour we will and won’t laugh at.

So what do you think? Is this cartoon sexist or funny?

—Photo:flickr/Fabio Di Lupo

By Glen Poole 

In the run up to the launch of a new film on Fatherhood called DOWN DOG, insideMAN will be publishing a series of articles about fatherhood and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.  

Down Dog is released in selected cinemas on 14 February 2015. For more information see www.downdogfilm.com

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  • Brett Caton

    Well, it’s like a portrayal of an American Black acting stupidly whilst eating watermelon, or a jewish man being greedy and sly. It relies on hateful stereotypes as a shorthand.

    Men are stupid; they aren’t natural fathers either (not since “The Tender Years doctrine”, anyway).

    And that’s what you see, over and over and over, with rare exceptions.

    It’s not a joke to those commenting – they genuinely believe men are inferior.

    So yes, this is sexist, and unfortunate – and would never be tolerated if some equivalent was made of a woman.

  • CitymanMichael

    The people who made this animation meant it to be funny and nothing more.
    However, like most comedy, some person or group has to be the butt of ridicule. In western culture it is normally white heterosexual men – the easy PC target.
    Unfortunately, people like Glen & I and more and more others who have taken the “red pill” cannot but see the sexist side of this comedy.
    If men and boys were not so unjustly treated by both society and the organs of state we would could also have a good laugh without our consciences bothering us.

  • http://redpilluk.co.uk William Collins

    Note that Glenda Carr referred to “my clean home”. Possibly that might explain why her husband is not that motivated to keep it clean – it’s not his apparently.

  • http://www.theskirtedman.eu Jeremy Hutchinson

    If society took gender equality correctly and equally for both genders – funny cartoon. As society clearly doesn’t – sexist.

    If the cartoon had been based upon a woman their would have been zero tolerance on all social media, media and from our female politicians.

    This is where the debate on gender equality in society fails as it is centered upon female needs, wants or requirements and ignore those that apply equally to men or even male only issues.

    If it is not acceptable in this era to satire women, then the same applies to men. At the end of the day a little bit of lighthearted with no serious innuendo towards either gender is just human banter surely.

  • Sean Murray Rothbard

    No no no, let’s not become the feminists. No father is offended by Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, in fact most of them love the characters, because men, unlike some outspoken po-faced feminist women (NOT all women, just the noise makers and the followers) have a sense of humor and even get something positive out of the act of being able to laugh at yourself when you are like Homer or whoever.

    We know we’re not perfect. But apparently, the women whos comments you featured, happily equate 2 kids comedically mashed up in this video, to the house being a mess when they leave, and everyone has had so much fun in their absence they didn’t keep the place as OCD clean as you like it isnt that right Glenda?

  • Sean

    I found the cartoon rather funny. I’m also aware that there would be a feminist uproar if it was a mother and an in holy uproar if the father was portrayed as Muhammed.
    The cartoon is funny, any dad could laugh at this. Funny.

  • Jon

    I didn’t find it funny to be honest. Not overly offensive, just not funny.

    The problem is that most of the root of comedy is in truth. The phrase “it’s funny cos it’s true” applies for so much of this. The fact of the matter is, men in general are not incompetent parents. If they were, then this animation would actually be funny to me. Because it isn’t actually a truth, but rather a tired and jaded stereotype, so I find the animation tired and jaded.

    The same goes for “manflu”, by the way. You can get away with a lot if something is actually funny because it is true. Since “manflu” demonstrably isn’t a thing.. (ie men take less time of work than women and are constantly having to be persuaded to go see the doctor), so “manflu” itself just isn’t funny.

    What would be funny (and actually helpful to men’s health) would be if they were mocked for NOT taking care of their health. A skit on how difficult it is to get a man to go to the doctor, for example, would be amusing to me. Of course this needs to be assisted by a reduction in “sick shaming” aka the word “manflu”.