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Father Knows Worst

Why paternity doesn't suit Hollywood.

Apr 26, 2004, Vol. 9, No. 31 • By GABY WENIG
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I ONCE ASKED my Jewish studies teacher, a mother of eleven, why women were expected to take care of children, and not men. "Women have breasts," she said, enunciating every word slowly while gesturing vaguely at her chest, "that they use to feed the babies. Men don't." In the years since, when I read serious feminist tomes about a woman's role in society or had lengthy discussions with friends about working mothers, or even when I listened to university lecturers and petulant classmates prattle on about "essentialism," the audacious simplicity of Mrs. Cohen's answer always came to mind. Women were biologically geared to nurture babies, and men weren't.

At a screening of the new Kevin Smith film, Jersey Girl, it seemed to me that Hollywood shares this view--the movie industry's new-age feminism notwithstanding. Watching Ollie Trinke (played by Ben Affleck) fumble his way through diaper changes and bottle feeding, I felt a queasy sense of déjà vu at his ineptness. Over the years, we have suffered endless comedies about fish-out-of-water fathers, standard fare like Mr. Mom (1983), where Michael Keaton tried to take over running the household when his wife went to work, or Three Men and a Baby (1987), where three swinging bachelors found their lifestyle stymied by a baby that landed on their doorstep, or last year's Daddy Day Care, in which Eddie Murphy's foolproof plan of opening a day-care center is wrecked by his inability to take care of a gaggle of hyperactive children. For Hollywood, missing mammary glands have always been a sign that the child-care gene was missing as well.

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