The Difference Between Dad Shows and Dude Shows
Dudes, Dads. Dads, Dudes.
Recently, my new Substack friend Travis Clark of The Traverse gave Dad Shows a very nice plug in a post about Prime Video and “dude TV.” In the piece, he drew an astute distinction between Dad Shows and Dude Shows. I would like to pick up on the idea he put down and expand upon it.
Dad Shows and Dude Shows are obviously both shows geared toward a male audience, and there is sometimes crossover between them. But not all Dude Shows are Dad Shows, and not all Dad Shows are Dude Shows. There are some big things that set Dad Shows apart from the larger universe of Dude Shows.
On Prime Video in particular, it’s very easy to tell them apart. The main thing, as you might expect, is that Dad Shows skew older, while Dude Shows are younger. Dude Shows have more juvenile source material. Dad Shows on Prime Video are often based on novels, while Dude Shows are based on video games or comics.
Here’s a visual way to think about it. Picture a middle-class man in his 60s. Imagine him reading a novel. Pretty natural and easy to do. Now imagine him reading a comic or playing Xbox. That feels a little weird, right? Dads aren’t gamers. But Dudes are.
Bosch and Jack Ryan are Dad Shows. Fallout and The Boys are Dude Shows.
Source material is an important differentiator, but it’s not the only one. Dad Shows are generally set in something resembling the real world. They’re about cops or spies or soldiers. Gritty guys doing jobs that exist. Dude Shows are sci-fi and fantasy and superheroes. They’re set in more heightened worlds, like Middle-earth or post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, and thus have a more expansive point-of-view. They’re more likely to have multiple characters whose heads the audience is inside of than Dad Shows, which are usually more tightly focused on one main character. And their themes are often more heady.
Guys on Dad Shows ask “Am I a good man?” Guys on Dude Shows ask “What does it mean to be human?”
Dads can still be Dudes and watch Dude Shows. It’s not as if a guy becomes a father and suddenly loses interest in The Boys but becomes a fan of The Terminal List. But if he’s looking for a show to watch with his father, he might pick The Terminal List over The Boys. The Boys might be too ironic, too exaggerated, and too political. (Not that The Terminal List isn’t political, it’s just not about politics the way The Boys is.)
Prime Video doesn’t have any shows that are simultaneously Dad Shows and Dude Shows. Josh Brolin’s just-canceled weirdo sci-fi mystery Outer Range came close, but it was too much of a Western about a guy with grown-up problems (his son is too old to be this much of a fuckup) to be a Dude Show. A better example of one that manages to consistently be both is HBO’s The Last of Us, which is based on a video game inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It’s about fatherhood (Dad Show) and having to survive the zombie apocalypse (Dude Show). And the way it splits its dual perspective — slightly more to Joel, slightly less to Ellie — gives it some properties of a Dad Show without fully becoming a Dad Show. It’s a Dad Show daywalker.
Actually, I take it back, Amazon does have one show that’s both a Dad Show and a Dude Show: Thursday Night Football.
Thanks for the shout!