'Bad Dads' Reality TV Show Stirs Controversy
Corrected on 6/6/08: An earlier version of this blog incorrectly spelled a Fox spokesman's name. The correct spelling is Scott Grogin.
This week, I received an intriguing E-mail from Glenn Sacks, a men's advocate and journalist, crying foul about the possibility that a reality show called Bad Dads might air on Fox. The show's producers and officials from the National Child Support Center plan to hunt down deadbeat dads and humiliate them into paying child support with the cameras running, according to an article first published in the Hollywood Reporter and then by Reuters, which calls the concept "ambush reality TV—but for a noble cause."
The show's premise peeves men's activists, who say it perpetuates the stereotype that men are irresponsible when it comes to child rearing. Ned Holstein, the executive director of the advocacy group Fathers & Families, says: "According to U.S. Census data, noncustodial mothers are 20 percent more likely to default on their child support obligations than noncustodial fathers. There is absolutely no reason to name the show Bad Dads when the average noncustodial father is more likely to pay his child support than the average noncustodial mother." Adds Sacks: "The worst part about Bad Dads is the way it publicly humiliates children of divorce by depicting their fathers as not loving or caring for them. These children did not volunteer to be humiliated on national television."
Thousands have written, faxed, or called Fox to protest the show's launch, according to Sacks. There are people protesting the protest, too. One man, who emphasizes that he himself pays his child support, wrote the following to Sacks, who then posted it: "There are huge numbers of non-custodial fathers who simply walk away from any and all responsibility for their children. This show will attempt to find those selfish , narcissistic scoundrels, who never seem to be lacking for beer, cigarettes, cable TV, trips to Vegas, nice cars, dating expenses, clothes, etc., but are 'unable' to meet court requirements to financially support their children. I can appreciate men having an advocate, but your position doesn't pass the smell test."
A spokesperson for Fox, Scott Grogin, says: "We have currently been pitched an idea for a show with the working title Bad Dads. It is something the network is taking into consideration just as we consider hundreds of other ideas a year." The studio has no firm plans to air the pilot at this point, he says.
Tags: Fox Broadcasting Co. | television | parenting
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Reader Comments
Glen's protest doesn't meet the "smell test"
And I suppose that this reprobate slimebag private investigator using tactics that should get him a restraining order tattooed on his head does somehow pass the smell test. And oh yeah, this guy also takes about 38 percent of the cut of "child support". Never thought that I would meet somebody who actually made the CSE look honest and upright.
I agree Fox Should air "Bad Dads"
The election of Bill Clinton made Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity into household names. And the proposed Fox TV show "Bad Dads" could do the same for men and fathers rights advocates like Glenn Sacks and David Usher.
And more importantly it will finally expose the child support collection system in America for what is really is. And that is an anti-father, extortion and revenge based system for women that were never quality marriage material in the first place.
And so as a men and fathers rights advocate myself I welcome a close examination of the child support system in the United States. Because the devil is in the details, not the premise.
And if you look at the details what you will find is that in the vast majority of cases child support payments are based on the wealth of the biological father. No matter what wicket and/or deceptive acts the mother committed to conceive the child. To prevent this with law the child support system could be reformed to a (non-profit 50-50 flat rate system) where both parents would pay 50% of a flat rate equal to the amount that the state pays to foster parents that includes no access profit for ether parent.
And to all the demagogues that would question this type of arrangement I would ask why are foster care children and their parents worth less than women who lie about birth control pills and their children born out of wedlock? And why children born from sperm banks are not entitled to child support at all? Or even the basic human right to know who their biological fathers are?
Of course I'm no fool and I clearly understand in the end the child support system will not be reformed to anything like the "pie in the sky" "equal justice under law" system I outlined above until men gain the political leverage to force the issue. And that will only come when they find an antidote to all these visually undetectable and easily to manipulate female contraceptives like the pill and the patch. And the only antidote for that is the long overdue and (scientifically proven) male contraceptive pill that is being kept off the market because of the threat it poses to feminist who set up the child support system and those who profit from it.
But this bias attack on working class men and fatherhood in general proposed by Fox could serve to raise the public awareness. Maybe to the point that enough men may start to connect the dots between their inability to control their sperm in monogamous relationships and the injustices they face in the family court system.
why not bad parents
This is sexist propaganda that preys on those who are to be crucified publicly in the name of profit -there are bad moms-and moms who abuse this current system there needs to be better fairer laws. The antiqued justice system's idea that men cannot raise children helps perpetuate the fall of the American Family. The better interests of the child are not served when the child becomes the battlefield- To be a poor father is criminal under this system.
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