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There are lots of different dads on Parenthood: single dads, married dads, almost-stepdads, mostly absent dads, and of course, stay-at-home dad Joel Graham (Sam Jaeger). Married to high-powered attorney Julia (Erika Christensen), he was a contractor until the recession hit. Since then, he’s been the primary caregiver for the couple’s daughter, Sydney, who is 5 when the series starts.

The show doesn’t stint on clichés associated with stay-at-home dads, from Julia feeling threatened by the flirty, make-everything-from scratch homemakers her husband now hangs around with to his father-in-law wondering why he doesn’t have a “real” job. Joel himself sometimes seems frustrated by his lack of a creative outlet or a social life not involving children. But for the most part, it’s a positive portrayal of a man who doesn’t resent his wife for having a job, or consider his own contribution to the family to be any less important. He’s probably more patient than Julia, steps up to the plate when it comes to both discipline and showing affection, and is a caring, competent father.

The New Normal isn’t the first time we’ve seen gay dads (in this case, dads-to-be) on TV. But from Will & Grace’s Jack McFarland to LeRoy and Hiram Berry on Glee, they’re usually non-custodial fathers or secondary characters. The aughts brought sitcoms It’s All Relative and Normal, Ohio, both of which centred around gay fathers, but neither found an audience.

It wasn’t until 2009's Modern Family that a successful network sitcom showed gay men being full-time fathers — and even there, their portrayal is stereotypical and desexualized. That’s something Glee and The New Normal creator (and out gay man) Ryan Murphy publicly criticized in 2010, stating that if he were to make a show with two gay leads, their kissing would be shown as no big deal.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy Modern Family, exactly. It’s a slick sitcom that showcases some great acting and witty writing. But despite including characters who are gay and people of color, at heart it’s a deeply conventional show, more interested in peddling stereotypes than subverting them.

Most often, Modern Family’s white heterosexual family with a stay-at-home mom is presented as the default, including in the show’s promotional images, most of which literally position them at the centre of the show: the “normal” people those wacky minorities orbit around. The first season poster even made this overt, describing the family units we could expect to see as: “straight, gay, multi-cultural, traditional” — that last word providing reassurance to conservatively-minded potential viewers that storylines wouldn’t get too progressive.

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Brainy, outspoken, and with a fashion sense all her own, Blossom modeled confidence (and oh, so many hats) for a generation of teenage girls.

Along with unquashable self-esteem, she also possessed that mixed blessing, the “cool” dad. With his tight jeans, collar-grazing hair, hippie past, and career as a professional pianist, Nick Russo wasn’t your typical TV father. He thought of himself as laid back, and his kids could confide in him.

When Blossom and her bestie, Six, made a video for a school-related media contest about the importance of wearing condoms, and the principal refused to submit it on the grounds of decency, her dad and Six’s mom went into school with the girls to complain. Sure, the show could be preachy and heavy-handed at times, and became known (and parodied) for its very special episodes, but it was also extremely open about issues affecting teens in a way it's hard to imagine happening today.

Lena Dunham tells Esquire she doesn't listen to the haters, including those who say she's whitewashing Brooklyn.

I used to love My Two Dads. To recap, or in case you (shocked face) never saw it: the show was about two  single, straight Manhattan bachelors who were given joint custody of 12-year old Nicole after her mom/their joint ex-girlfriend died. Living with just one mom, I was fascinated by a show that centered around a girl’s relationship with her two fathers. Except I re-watched some of it recently, and it’s not about that at all.

I don’t have exact stats, but it seems like the vast majority of shows and movies about single and stay-at-home dads feature a father-daughter dynamic. This could lead to some interesting explorations of what it means to parent a child with a different gender to your own in our patriarchal society. But most often, it's a way to reinforce society's discomfort with young women's sexuality.

Ah, marriage. It’s a preoccupation with Republicans: the destruction of it, sex outside of it, the redefinition of it. Promoting marriage was a significant part of the Bush administration’s domestic-policy agenda, presumably in an attempt to protect women from the horrors of birth control, single motherhood, abortion, and illicit sexual activity. Whether it's correlating single motherhood with gun violence or railing against the destruction of the sacred institution by the gays, the right wing has a deep-seated jones for getting (straight) couples to the church on time.

This weekend will see the takeoff of Robert Zemeckis's new movie, Flight, which stars Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, and John Goodman. Washington plays a pretty conflicted character: Whip, a star pilot who also happens to be an alcoholic with a cocaine problem. He parties hard with one of his flight attendants before going up in the air one morning, and of course, shit gets unfortunately real with a crash landing. He's a hero for a minute, but that all changes wtih the investigation into the emergency landing.

It's a great performance from Washington, but, as with nearly all Hollywood products, it toes the line on negative racial stereotypes: in this case, the black substance abuser and absent father. In the name of Sydney Poitier, these challenging roles have got to be out there for people of color. But how do we determine if a movie is actually doing justice to its representation of members of a marginalized group? I'm going to share a few rules I've developed to help explain whether or not a character is more than just a stereotype.

This week on Call the Midwife, there were only two births, and one of them was a piglet. The plot has veered away from focusing exclusively on pregnancy and birth, offering viewers the opportunity to think more broadly about reproductive health.