This being Jake's fandom birthday, let's look into his role as a cartoon father.What did Daria and Quinn think about their father? I'm not sure what Quinn thought, but Daria found him both embarrassing ("One J at a Time") and, oddly, heroic ("Of Human Bonding").
We talk about Jake in a distant sort of way, because he's a cartoon dad, but let's make it more personal: What if Jake had been your father? Put yourself in a teenager's position once again, and ask yourself, how would you have handled that?
To be fair, I'll go first. I would have been embarrassed to death. As a teen I was already known to my family as "Mole Man" because I so rarely came out of my room in the basement (severe introversion), but with Jake around, I would have become The Invisible Man. I'm sorry, but the heroic part of Jake, fighting off his own demons, would not have become obvious to me until decades later after I had kids, too.
Quinn appeared to handle this by keeping her parents away from her friends and her friends away from her parents, and everything was fine. Daria had only one friend most of the time, and Jane was around Jake about as much as Daria was. (Misery loves company.) Daria did not want Tom to be around Jake, especially after Jake's awful attempt at a joke on insider trading (and the squirrel thing, too). Come to think of it, Quinn did the same thing, leaving the house as soon as her date arrived.
Your turn. Jake is your old man. How would you deal?
OTHER NEWS: Latest addition to DariaWiki: Maine Escape, one of many new entries from the great and powerful Dr. Mike! Thank you!
1 comment:
Jake and my dad would easily have drinks together, and if Jake WERE my Dad and happened to be married to the woman who IS my mother, his experience wouldn't be that much different than it is being married to Helen. I wouldn't mind. Jake in his way is a good dad, who, like my father, faces the unexpected dilemma of being the only man in a household of women. He's a good guy who shows his humanity. He can also be reasoned with when he's not caught in his psychological loops. He'd be there to pick me up when I needed, if I were in the hospital he'd get his butt there, and while my extra-curricular activities with boys might or might not be monitored, he's someone I could go to if the trouble every got really deep - because he'd handle it and then immediately suppress it.
There are worse fathers than Jake. Much worse.
Now Jake as a husband does leave a bit to be desired, but we've only seen him with Helen, and he knows he's lucky because she was always out of his league but she didn't figure it out until years later.
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