Being away from the U.S. -- watching American television is depressing. Except for the Simpsons, which is oddly a relief. Watched an episode of Oprah -- most of the cast of the Cosby show was on -- and while my sentiment and nostolgia were aroused, I was mostly saddened that Bill Cosby is apparantly ill or ailing or just old and ill-looking. Growing up, my brothers and I (the four of us shared two rooms) would listen to his comedy tapes as we went to sleep. I suppose he was my mammy at bedtime. He was comforting. When I see him on TV (or like when I saw him in person two years ago), I trust him implicitly. I don't believe for one second he would do anything wrong to me or anyone else. He is my television father. Of course most of my father figures have come from TV. There was Sam from Cheers; he always seemed to be the nice guy, if sex wasn't involved. However, for all the Michael Landons and Mr. Rogers (who I did love), I think Bill Cosby comes out on top as my #1 TV surrogate father.
I remember Bill holding his TV daughters when they had been in some sort of trouble with friends or boys. This is something my father never did. Of course my father held me as a baby, but he didn't hold me when I needed comfort. He was no shoulder to cry on -- he's not a giver of tissue or an offerer of a sleeve. He's a stony man with something more important than your tears on his mind. He's a man who when a lovely speech was being read to him about his daughter and her impact on the school she got herself through and the award she was to receive could be found leafing through the purple program appearing uninterested. He has been the father deathly afraid of being branded a nepotist, failing to understand that he is still free to support, praise, comfort, and love his children. Yeah, if you haven't noticed, I'm working through some issues here.
On Oprah, there was some talk about the Cosby show itself, about how it portrayed an unrealistic situation within a black family, possibly discouraging black viewers. I never knew of this controversy, because I was watching this in a white neighborhood and thinking to my little white self, these are just people -- a big family, like mine, I wish I had such a big house, with my own room -- and I wish I had a dad that cared that much about what was going on in my life and would put his arm around me and tell me I was special and smart. A dad that believed in me. A dad that wanted me to go and get what I wanted out of life.
Listening to BIll Cosby at night before bed stepped in as that voice to say get out, get out of a bad situation and find your own road. I took my dad to see Bill Cosby at the OC Fair last year, and it was less meaningful to him than to me. The reality hits then -- I only have one dad. It's not the funny, charismatic person on the stage. It's the bored and uncomfortable white man down the way.
Saying goodbye to the fantasies that got me through the ideas I held on to in my youth has been hard. It's all part of the death of youth. The countdown to 29-07-09, when I will be thirty years old, with no fanfare, but maybe, with some hope. Kissing things goodbye only means that you create a space for more things to kiss. So here's goodbye to all the stand-in dads that I leaned on in times of dad-abandon. Thanks. I needed that.
2 comments:
How odd that I just watched On Golden Pond, a movie that is very much about daughters reconciling with fathers. You might want to watch it again just to hear Katharine Hepburn's advice to Jane Fonda. It gets me every time.
I promise I'm not trying to play amateur psychologist, but sometimes we do have to accept that these are the parents we have. Cosby undoubtedly had his bad days as well, but those never made it on the show. No one could really live up to the standards that he and the other dads on television set. The same is true for mothers. My mother is no Carol Brady or Shirley Partridge or any other woman we saw on TV, but she has her own charms.
That's not to say that most of us haven't grown up with ideas about how much we would have preferred some of the TV parents to the ones we have. I think all of us have had that fantasy at some point. It's a powerful urge, particularly when they seem able to solve problems and provide comfort and be funny and solve crimes and do whatever else it is that people on TV do.
Your father may also be of that generation of men who were "trained" not to show emotion. To do so was considered weak or "unmanly." They just kept everything bottled up inside of them. My grandfather was one of those. He's gotten better over the years, of course, as he's gotten older. But I still remember my mother saying that the only time she ever saw him cry was the day I got into my Ford Bronco II and headed for California. Otherwise, stoic was pretty much his modus operandi.
As a footnote, I can't quite believe that your birthday is July 29. Mine is the day before. I just turned 45 this year, so let me warn you that the whole re-evaluation of life is only getting started at this point. In the words of the song, "You've got a lot of living to do."
On Golden Pond is a tough film to watch; it's tough to see Hepburn look AND act like a frail old woman. I know that the father-daughter relationship is the one that is supposed to be the emotional nucleus of the film, but the part that gets me is when Henry Fonda's character thinks he's having a heart attack. It's their marriage that tugs at my heart strings.
I don't readily give my dad enough breaks -- he has had a lot of hard knocks, and has been through things I don't even want to imagine. Of course I didn't understand any of that as a child, and I can't honestly say that I truly understand it now. I have much more compassion for him now, even though I still get upset at times that my dad cannot be there for me in certain ways.
What I find interesting is the bond I created with other father figures; I'm fascinated that I care about Bill Cosby on such a personal level, and that even now I have a visceral reaction when I see him speak. TV mothers don't affect me the same way. I also think that I often get my wires crossed; I hook up sentiment where emotion should go, and sometimes I can't tell the difference.
Well look at that -- we're summer babies. It's odd, I have two friends (and that's a good percentage of my friends, I don't have too many) who were born on July 29. I'm actually looking forward to being thirty -- I'm just not as excited about saying I'm thirty.
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