Fathers hold an essential position in the family hierarchy and are seated at the top in a patriarchal setting. Animation movies often reflect this setup, even in anthropomorphized stories, making father figures unquestionable.
Animated dads are often depicted as decision-makers not just for their own lives but also for the collective future of their family. They tell their daughters to marry and demand sons to be manly. The portrayal of the relationships animated dads have with their animated wives is nearly non-existent. Romance is often reserved for single, unmarried characters. Queer stories are rare.
Also Read: The search for queer representation in the animation genre
Pixar’s Up, which to date has depicted one of the most romantic and tear-jerking aspects of a marriage, centers on a couple who can’t conceive. The male protagonist becomes a father figure only after his wife’s demise. The hugely popular anime Naruto doesn’t feature many female characters in wife roles, but it does highlight their maternal sides.
Animation films target a specific age group and ensure the story remains relatable to them. So while father figures are side characters, they have often been the silent heroes and villains, and we don’t talk about them enough.
The saga of single fathers
When Professor Utonium mixed sugar, spice, and everything nice with chemical X, he created the Powerpuff Girls. A gentle soul and a scientist, he is one of the best single dads in animation, caring for three young girls with distinct personalities.
When most dads are shown to be overprotective of their girls, Professor Utonium actively pushes Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup to go save Townsville. He believes in them, guides them, cooks for them, paints their room pink, and tucks them in after a long day of being heroes.
The Little Mermaid, Ariel, is a full-time troublemaker and the youngest of seven sisters. She’s a little older than the Powerpuff Girls, but not old enough to have a mermaid boyfriend (or girlfriend). She hangs out with a pufferfish and a crab, looking for human objects on the ocean bed. She’s a collector and an adventurist who often gets into trouble.
Ariel’s father, Triton, is the king of the ocean —a single father who controls the seven seas —and yet is shown struggling to raise Ariel. Their relationship is similar to that of a real dad and daughter.
Jasmine from Disney’s Aladdin and Belle from Beauty and the Beast are older and more mature, and both have loving relationships with their single dads.
Jasmine’s father, the Sultan, keeps an open mind about his daughter’s relationship with Aladdin. The couple often hangs out in her room, goes on adventures or romantic outings, and is frequently shown to be romantically playful in front of Sultan. Jasmine’s attire that shows her cleavage and navel is nobody’s concern.
In the anthropomorphic sphere, Mr. Goose was every bit of a dad to an abandoned, Kung-Fu-obsessed panda. His simplified relationship with Po and a complicated one with Po’s birth father have life lessons for all of us, especially men.
Also Read: What does Kung Fu Panda 3 teach about the inevitability of relationship conflicts?
Loneliness and seeking companionship
It takes immense strength to be a single dad in real life. And while they care for their child, they also get lonely and seek companionship. The Chinese animated film Over the Moon explores adult loneliness in a movie intended for children.
When young Fei Fei loses her mother, she also loses the stories of the moon that her mother told her every night. She fights through, continues to excel in her studies, helps her dad at the bakery, and soldiers on.
On a random day, she finds a new woman in the house who’s roughly the same age as her dad. Her initial reaction is confusion, which quickly turns into anger.
Fei Fei is still lonely without a mother, misses her, but doesn’t express it. Her father, on the other hand, tries to hint at his adult loneliness, which his daughter is just too young to understand.
Over the Moon, in my opinion, is a dream of Fei Fei as she navigates the new candidate to play the role of her mother and acknowledges the loneliness of her father.
Some dads can definitely do better
Based on Malay folklore, Walinong Sari is a 2022 short film that centres on a brilliant princess who lost everything because her father was obsessed with marrying her off. Yes, that’s my introduction of the movie to you.
She was proficient in archery, spear, statecraft, and everything else a princess must learn. She excelled, and the best idea the king, her father, could think of was to marry her off. She was the rightful heir and a capable one, and her own father was blind to it.
Walinong Sari defeated every prince who challenged her in combat to claim her. She was brilliant, invincible, and was forced to wander in the jungles when she could have ruled.
The short film portrays the folklore like a sad film. I see it as a father’s failure.
Walinong Sari isn’t alone. Princess Kaguya shares a similar fate of homelessness because her earthly father made assumptions about his daughter’s happiness without asking her.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is a Studio Ghibli film based on the old Japanese folklore, “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.” A bamboo cutter finds a tiny girl in a bamboo stalk; she is so small that she fits into his palms, and then grows by the time he reaches his house.
The film is a subtle commentary on women’s freedom or lack thereof. Kaguya is happy living her life in the mountains with her friends and just being herself. Her presence brought good luck to her earthly parents, and each gold coin bought her a new restriction.
Isao Takahata thought about the film fifty years before making it. He wondered that something must have gone wrong on the moon, causing Kaguya to choose an earthly life. And on earth, she is expected to be everything but herself. Expected to look and dress a certain way, entertain male attention who knew nothing about her, and was reduced to an object of desire.
She tells her father – “The happiness you wished for me was hard to bear.”
Also read: Five animation films with minimal visual details, Part 1
Final Thoughts
Animation films have rarely featured parental figures as the main characters, but they subtly shape the movie. Just like in real life, the presence or absence of a father makes a difference in a child’s life – often the main character.
No way the list is complete, and the viewpoint is narrowed to popular studios located in the US or Japan. There are stories and well-written fatherly characters, probably existing as character sketches or in the lonely corners of the World Wide Web, waiting to be discovered, to be written about.
