Is Bluey turning fathers into Transmothers?

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There’s only one problem with this new ideal father: He embodies almost all of the elements of the traditional mother, purged of the essence of elements from the historic father.

The poster child for this new depiction can be found in the mega-popular kids program "Bluey." The dad, Bandit, is seen as a constantly nurturing, always-present playmate to his two daughters, Bluey and Bingo. He’s so present, in fact, that fans of the show often joke about when Bandit finds time to work, and in the show, it’s clear that the mother has less time to play than the dad.

Our culture LOVES this depiction of fatherhood. It empties the father character of all the elements of the traditionally masculine father we’ve grown uncomfortable with, and at the same time, it provides freedom for the mother to get out in the world and explore her individual passions.

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It depends on whether there’s an objective ideal of fatherhood and motherhood, and if there is, then symbolic depictions seeking to reverse these objective profiles are problematic.

Embracing these kinds of portrayals, especially in a highly symbolic medium like in a cartoon, will go a long way in shaping our intuition around the essence of these roles.

Now today, almost no one thinks there are objective ideals to these archetypes, and if they are right — and they personally resonate with the father, mother, and daughter depictions in "Bluey" — then everything I’m about to say will be dissonant and probably offensive.

So let me say from the outset that, even in the conservative Christian world, my position is a tiny minority, maybe less than 1%. So feel free to stop reading if you’re getting triggered.

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Let me lay out three premises I believe about this topic, and if you disagree with any of these, you’ll likely disagree with my conclusion.

Masculinity and femininity are not social constructs or primarily biological concepts but are family concepts designed to create a certain dynamic and to construct a highly functional multigenerational family team.
The Bible presents meta descriptions of masculinity/fatherhood and femininity/motherhood through symbolic characters primarily rooted in the story of Genesis.
Meta depictions of these roles are good and necessary to give culture at large something concrete to aim at even, though all of us as individuals will find some elements of these roles dissonant with our desires or even our innate wiring.

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Their first statement was something like, “They treat their dad like a plaything.”

I then watched one three-minute clip on YouTube from a different episode and saw what they were so alarmed by.

There are hundreds of interesting elements of fatherhood that one can glean from studying how God interacts with the meta father (Abram), but I’m pretty sure Bandit is in no way tethered to this understanding of fatherhood.

And this tethering is not hard to do. When I’m in the Middle East, I see it everywhere. All the good and toxic depictions of fatherhood I see from those native to this region I recognize as coming from these Abrahamic stories. It’s increasingly hard to see in the Christian West.

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One reaction I’ve received is from people who think it’s absurd to criticize a cartoon. You might think that "Bluey" is a wonderful depiction of fatherhood, but please don’t be naive about the power of symbolic depictions, especially ones aimed at children.

We spend almost one-third of our lives experiencing symbolic depictions in our dreams, and most of our entertainment is created by watching stories filled with meta characters and what they symbolize. Symbols tend to bypass our conscious awareness and form our intuitions about the nature of truth and reality. These symbols include things like numbers, colors, animals, objects, shapes, and storylines. The Bible is full of these kinds of symbols, and most Western Christians are totally unaware of their power. When Jesus says things like “how many baskets did we pick up” after the feeding of the 5,000 and 4,000 and the disciples reply, "12" and "seven," he expected his disciples — and us — to immediately get the symbolic significance of what he did. But we don’t.

And in the same way, creating a daughter named Bluey using the color blue is totally lost on us. It goes right past our conscious awareness. If we do think about it, we think it’s cool that they’re reversing the gender stereotype of colors. We’re playing checkers with those who are playing chess, and we’ve been checkmated over and over again.

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