Fresh off the Boat & Last Man Standing
Nearly every sitcom dad of the last fifteen years is a dopey incompetent. Last Man Standing tries to be the conservative Christian answer and, to my eye, fails so completely that if someone set out to undermine both the faith and the politics, I could think of no better way to do it.
If you watch any family-oriented sitcom from the past fifteen+ years, you'll find a dopy, incompetent, unaware father, a mother who has to run everything, and disrespectful, immoral children. American comedy genius, apparently.
I recently found a very unexpected deviation from this norm in the show Fresh Off the Boat – the story of a Taiwanese family, formerly living in DC. The father moves them to Orlando so that he can start a business and stop working for his in-laws. The father is aware, intelligent and hardworking. He resolves family issues. He encourages and supports his wife. His wife is hysterical in her eccentricities. She educates the children and works diligently inside the home and outside. The kids are respectful and generally good. There doesn't seem to be any political lean to this show in particular; they're just looking out for themselves.
