The father-daughter relationship is often underrated, mostly due to the lack of incredible on-screen chemistry.
Alternatively, shows featuring fathers and daughters don’t particularly focus on that. This is not a simple action either.
The creators combine the dynamics to create an engaging rapport between father and daughter, with complex underlying personalities.
For example, fathers often have a soft spot for their daughters but have difficulty understanding them as they get older. Love and genuine confusion are interesting character studies, but they often lead to lame “goofy dad” routines.
There are a few things on this list, but I’m going to choose something a little non-traditional. Furthermore, as a father, I find this silly but well-intentioned father trick to be a call to mind that is completely unoriginal.
What exactly makes for an extraordinary father-daughter relationship?
There was a time when the careless, absent-minded, bland father who could barely grill hot dogs without burning down the back porch was an amusing stereotype. Conflict with reality is what makes good comedy.
That is, more than 70 years later, we’re still making the same commercials and situation comedies. It’s easier to write a Joker than a complex character, and the father-daughter dynamic is harder to fully capture.
Don’t get me wrong; there is a level of ignorance when it comes to father and daughter issues. What our daughters are going through is completely foreign to us, so dads often fall somewhere between doting parents and uncomfortable dads.
The father is the guiding force and the balance of discipline and emotion is key. At the same time, his emotions are his weakness, giving him comic or actionable value.
The daughter, on the other hand, has a much bigger arc. She’s finding her way, without his inherent blind spots, but with all the blind spots that come with youth and inexperience. It’s an interesting dynamic, but only if it’s done right.
Plax and May – “The Firmament”
Prax and May aren’t even the main characters, but their subplot is a great example of what I call a father-daughter dynamic. All of season two revolves around this indicator, as Prax travels across the solar system in search of beauty with the help of the crew of the Rocinante.
Prax and May have remained apart for much of the season, but the sacrifices Prax makes to be close to her, coupled with May’s innocence when facing the monster, give the entire film a A tone of extreme tension.
In fact, it’s their separation that makes their connection so unique. The vast space and time gap between them becomes an adversary.
Watch The Expanse online
Gomez and Wednesday Addams – “The Addams Family”
The relationship between the eponymous character and her father, Gomez, was barely explored Wednesday. If we want to take a closer look at the father and daughter, we have to go back to where things started – the Addams family.
The infamous Gothic family may be a bit strange, but most of the family dynamics, especially for that time period, are present. “Wednesday” shows her father’s voice, and like Netflix’s “Wednesday,” he clearly dotes on her.
However, she clearly inherited some of his oddities, not just a love of spiders and judo. Her first relationships are formed within the bounds of normalcy, while her horrific lifestyle unfolds outside of them.
Although she found it challenging, she shared her father’s compassionate nature, a trait that was explored more deeply in subsequent versions of the character.
Watch The Addams Family online
Eric Taylor and Julie Taylor – “Friday Night”
Friday Night Lights’ Eric and Julie Taylor didn’t appear on the list of fathers and daughters because their relationship is an exemplary example of how a father should raise his daughter.
They are on this list to teach others a lesson. Of course, Jolie goes through her typical rebellious phase, making her character unlikable for a while. Live with any teenage daughter going through the same thing and you can relate.
However, Eric did the same mistake that some fathers did – he spent too much time focusing on work instead of family. Any father knows that if you want to have a meaningful relationship with your children, you need to set clear boundaries.
Eric goes through all the daddy moves, including lectures about dating, but often finds himself on the outside trying to find his way. More true than one is willing to admit.
Eric clearly loves his daughter, and he plays an awkward, often-absent father in Friday Night Lights who spends more time playing dad on the football team than at home.
Watch Friday Night Lights online
Robert and Mary – Downton Abbey
Of all the father-daughter characters on this list, Robert and Mary are the most dynamic. How one person treats another sets the stage for choices and revelations in later seasons.
As a show set in the early 1900s, “Downton Abbey” is conservative and traditional in its lifestyle, morals, family behavior, and society as a whole.
Mary never reached the point of embracing full-blown feminism, but her relationship with her father was clearly the catalyst for her eventual role as the heir to Downton Abbey.
Of course, Matthew named her his heir, but if Robert doesn’t ultimately accept that she’s a younger version of himself, he might make her life more difficult.
She was capable and able to adapt to changing times, and he ultimately believed in her ability to move on after his death.
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Philip and Page – Americans
In many ways, “The Americans” is the same dish – parents divided over what’s best for their children. Or, at least, that’s what it will become over time.
But what sets The Americans apart from other shows with similar parent-child relationships is that the child is completely destroyed by one of the parents (the mother) and the father is unable to stop it.
Some of the show’s best moments are when Philip instills in his daughter some of the knowledge he’s learned – the lessons of hand-to-hand combat come to mind.
Philip showed his daughter that reality was far from teaching. While a bit exaggerated, it reflects the dynamic between father and daughter. His primary concern is her safety, and his lessons are harsh and represent that fear.
Scenes like this also make it more difficult for Page to be a pawn for her mother, who has lost faith in his allegiance to the Soviet Union.
As hard as it is to watch, this is yet another common theme in the multibillion-dollar family court system, which is programmed under Social Security IV-D and the majority of fatherless children across the United States
watch america online
Jimmy and Alice – Zoom out
Jimmy and Alice don’t have a traditional father-daughter relationship in “Shrunk,” as her mother and his wife have just died, leaving the two to pick up the pieces and work through each other’s grief.
He’s not an imbecile (he’s a psychiatrist, after all), but his grief takes him off topic, and the dynamics between two grieving family members under the same roof, especially with a teenage daughter Dynamic and fascinating.
Luckily, Jason Segel (Jimmy) and Lukita Maxwell (Alice) have great chemistry on and off set. This is an important factor in making the father-daughter relationship believable.
Jimmy’s behavior and reactions to his daughter also reflect a 180-degree turn in his office, where he begins telling patients what he thinks rather than what he thinks they want to hear.
Watch “Shrink” online
The father-daughter relationship isn’t always easy to establish, at least not in a believable way that allows the audience to sit back and experience life through the characters.
What do you think? Do you find the above family dynamic believable? Leave a comment below and let us know!
