A new drama on Tuesday nights is dominating ratings and leaving people in a puddle of tears on their couches. I’d like to think the success of “This Is Us” has something to do with how the men of the show are portrayed.
Or, rather, not portrayed.
The men of “This Is Us” aren’t bumbling caricatures, and they aren’t one-dimensional romantic heroes or villains. They’re loving dads, devoted husbands, good providers for their families. They aren’t stuck in some prolonged adolescence, and they aren’t trying to avoid responsibility. They’re good, fully developed, imperfect real men.
In the pilot episode, Rebecca Pearson (Mandy Moore) is in labor with triplets. Her husband Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) gives her, and everyone attending to her in the delivery room, a pep talk when the doctor warns of possible complications. “We’re walking out of this hospital with healthy babies and a healthy wife.” He talks about the three cribs they’ve prepared and the three onesies his mom has already knit for the babies and adds: “It also happens to be my birthday today, which tends to be a pretty great day in our house, a day that I get pretty lucky. So I’m gonna need everyone in this room to believe me when I say that only good things are gonna happen here today. Actually, I don’t just want you to believe it, I want you to know it. Do you know it, baby? Do you know it, doc?”
Most people would listen to a speech like that and see a dedicated husband and father-to-be.
Slate, of course, sees it differently. “Ladies,” writes Willa Paskin, “if your husband interrupts the doctor trying to save your life by claiming he can protect you with the force of his will, consider kicking his mansplaining behind out of the delivery room, if not your life.”
Woe to the man who splains. But no matter how much we malign the take-charge guy in our society, he is what women continue to want.
When “Mad Men” was at its peak, Katie Barker wrote for Newsweek about the confusion modern women felt in their attraction to the main character, the troubled, womanizing Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Barker wrote that women described Draper as a “man’s man” and felt guilty because they didn’t think they were supposed to be attracted to him.
“We’re supposed to want men who are sensitive and respectful; men who emote and help around the house, and talk openly about their feelings. And we do want these things. Don’t we? So then why are we fantasizing about Draper rather than Jim from “The Office?”
Why, indeed. The answer is because there’s a difference between what women are “supposed to want” and what they actually want. Men never challenge each other about what they’re “supposed” to be attracted to, why do women?
With Jack Pearson, women should have much less of an internal struggle. So far, he’s close to the perfect man. The one episode where he’s falling apart and stays out drinking culminates in him going home and promising his wife he’s going to be an 11 for the kids and a 12 for her, on a scale of 1 to 10. Jack builds houses, he loves his wife like crazy, he takes care of his children.
“This Is Us” often gets compared to another recent family drama, “Parenthood.” But many of the men on “Parenthood” were struggling to grow up. Not so, the men of “This Is Us.”
It’s not just Jack, either. With the possible exception of Kevin Pearson (Justin Hartley), who despite being somewhat lost is there for his family and is trying to be a better man, all the men of “This is Us” are solid.
Randall Pearson (Sterling K. Brown) is so good that his wife calls his goodness “his vice” and says she has to protect him because of it. In addition to being a great husband and father, Randall lets his dying biological father, who abandoned him at birth, move in with his family and takes care of him as he suffers from cancer.
Even the peripheral characters are dependable men — Kate’s boyfriend Toby, the doctor who delivers Jack and Rebecca’s babies, the firefighter who brings Randall to the hospital. It’s so rare to have this many good men on one show that it really stands out.
It’s only the first season, of course, and there’s no telling where the plot’s going to go. But so far, “This Is Us” has done something no other show has done in some time: made men good again.