Exploring Television’s Weird History Of Shaming Mannies (AKA Male Nannies)

In the new Netflix comedy Turn Up Charlie, Idris Elba plays a one-hit wonder turned-wedding-DJ who becomes a paid caretaker for 11-year old Gabrielle (Frankie Hervey), his oldest friend’s hellion daughter. It’s unexceptional but entertaining and it joins a surprisingly robust “manny” genre.

As well as shows like Melissa & Joey, Ben and Kate, Charles in Charge, Mr. Belvedere and Who’s the Boss?, male nanny characters had recurring roles on Mistresses, Kevin Hill, The L Word and Modern Family and appeared in one-off episodes of Frasier, Friends, and Doctor Who.

In some ways, Turn Up Charlie is a departure from the status quo. We haven’t seen this role portrayed by a Black, working class Brit in his mid-forties before, nor by an actor who imbues the part with such pathos and charm. In others, it repeats the same tired tropes, not least the lead character’s reluctance to take the job. (“Kids ain’t my thing,” he grumbles.)

Even though he’s underemployed and he and Gabrielle have an easy rapport, Charlie won’t work for her parents David (JJ Feild) and Sara (Piper Perabo) until they beg him to and until Sara, a superstar DJ, throws in the use of her studio. Even then, he rejects the title “nanny,” asking to be called “a friend of the family,” as if there’s more honor in being a freeloader than a childcare professional.

This attitude is common in the manny canon, where men who are good at the job and find it fulfilling are treated with suspicion. On Modern Family, Jay (Ed O’Neill) called his son Joe’s nanny “a weird man” while on the Season 9 episode of Friends “The One With The Male Nanny,” Ross (David Schwimmer) fired Sandy (Freddie Prinze Jr), despite his homemade baby lotion and improvised hand puppet shows, because Ross found him “too sensitive.”

Perhaps to reassure audiences of these men’s normality, and with more than a tinge of homophobia, many shows have taken pains to establish their male nanny as a sexually-active heterosexual. This was handled least subtly in Friends, where Ross asked Sandy “Are you gay?” and Sandy replied that he was straight in an unnecessarily reassuring tone. On Charles in Charge, the titular character (Scott Baio) regularly found that his caring responsibilities cramped his dating style, and Idris Elba’s Charlie lives with his auntie, who walks in on him with a potential one-night stand.

Being a manny is often framed as the worst-case scenario; a humiliating comedown. On Melissa & Joey, former trader Joe (Joey Lawrence) lost everything in a Ponzi scheme, the male lead on Fox’s 2012 sitcom Ben and Kate (Nat Faxon) was a failed entrepreneur taking take care of his sister’s kid while he dreamed up new schemes, and on Who’s The Boss?, Tony Danza played Tony Micelli, a widower, single father and pro baseball player who suffered a career-ending injury. For Charlie, nannying is the manifestation of his failure to reach his musical, financial, and romantic goals.

The good news for him is that male nanny narratives typically follow a redemption arc, with the job a mere stepping stone to something different and, we are led to assume, better. Tina and Bette’s nanny Angus on The L Word wanted to release an album, Charles might have been “in charge” but he was also in college and Modern Family‘s Andy dreamed of being a real estate agent. Viewers are thus encouraged to feel comfortable with male nannies, safe in the knowledge that it’s a temporary gig and not something they’d devote their lives to, the way a woman might.

Historically, this upending of conventional gender roles was mined for alleged humor. In the Who’s The Boss? pilot, Angela’s boyfriend Grant (Dennis Holahan) says Tony is “the ugliest woman I’ve ever met,” Ross calls Sandy “Gary Poppins,” and when irritating young Wesley hears Mr Belvedere’s (Christopher Hewett) full name he scoffs, “Lynn? That’s a girl’s name.” No one in Turn Up Charlie is crass enough to suggest that performing a job primarily associated with women should be a source of shame, although Charlie’s unwillingness to discuss his new career suggests it still might be.

In real life, women do the majority of chores and childcare and fewer than 4% of U.S households have a nanny; even fewer a male nanny. So what makes them such frequent fodder for TV and streaming shows, comedies in particular?

It’s tempting to see it as a reflection of society’s anxiety about changing gender dynamics, and to some extent that’s true (it’s surely no coincidence that many shows began in the 1980s, when the number of women working outside the home was quickly climbing). A more generous interpretation would be that these shows, more recent examples in particular, are wrestling with the tension between society’s traditionally low expectations of men and the maturity it takes to look after a child, and in the process helping to build a less toxic model of masculinity.

Whatever the motivation, new shows about male nannies keep being made and the existence of Turn Up Charlie supposes audiences haven’t tired of the topic yet. If the male nanny TV trend helps to subvert retrograde gender ideals and normalize the idea of men in caring roles, long may it continue.

Diane Shipley is a freelance journalist writing about pop culture, health and books. Her bylines include The Guardian, The Washington Post and Bitch Media. She also tweets: @dianeshipley

Stream Turn Up Charlie on Netflix