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Guy’s Top Ten: Film Dads Not Getting Shit for Father’s Day
GUY takes a look at 10 film dads who ain’t gonna win any parenting awards any time soon.
The Worst: Luis Moreno, Soccer Dickhead
Owl kicker upgrades to man kicker.
Dickhead Dads: History’s Worst Fathers
We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. Our fathers are certainly no different. They’re only human after all. Father’s Day is a time to appreciate dad not for who you wished he was growing up, but for the mischievous old coot he has become. So dad might not have always had the time to play catch or take you to the movies. Quit your bellyaching; it surely could have been worse.
Hopefully yours was the kind of father who’d at the very least work and save just to put food on the table. Some of the fathers on this list would have worked just to keep food off your table. Here are some truly terrible fathers to help you feel better about the time dad got drunk in the Santa suit and ruined everybody’s Christmas:
Abraham
Abraham really, really loved God — so much so that when he heard a booming voice inside his head telling him to kill his son, Abe was totally down with that shit. As it’s recounted in the Book of Genesis, God asked Abraham to tie up his boy and stab him to death over a burning woodpile. While this would certainly be a most metal way to go, Abraham’s son was spared when an angel spoke at the very second before he plunged a knife into the fruit of his proverbial loins.
Abraham’s son had to be thankful that the voices in dad’s head were willing to give him a second chance; but talk about some trust issues…
Peter the Great
Ol’ Pete ruled Russia as Tsar from 1682 up to his death in 1725. In that time he brought both modernization and expansion to Russia. He was also a notoriously shitty father.
Peter had fourteen kids, and of those fourteen, only three of them survived long enough to see hair grow on their nether regions. Peter’s eldest son Alexei earned the prize for surviving into adulthood: a brutal maiming.
Peter disliked Alexei and when he started making accusations that his son was trying to overthrow the emperor. Alexei grew wise and got the hell out of Dodge. He later returned, making his father pinky-swear not to send him to prison or torture him. Peter, immediately upon hearing of his son’s return, ordered Alexei sent to prison for torture. Alexei was sentenced to death but Peter never signed the death warrant. Not out of mercy mind you — Peter was more than content in letting his son be tortured to death in jail, which he eventually was.
Constantine the Great
Saint Constantine was the 57th Emperor of Rome from 306 to 337. If only his parenting skills were as solid as his governing. Supposedly, Constantine’s wife Fausta had a thing for her stepson Crispus. Her advances being rebuked, she went off and told Constantine his son made a pass at her. Constantine was pretty pissed about this, and had Crispus executed.
Later on, Constantine felt bad about the whole “executing his own son” thing and began doubting his wife’s story. Sensing that the walls were closing in on her, Fausta ended up suffocating herself in a boiling bath — the last act of a spurned cougar.
Josef Fritzl
Wait, how’d this guy get in here? A truly despicable chap, Mr. Fritzl, although he’s still very much alive, shoots near the top of this list (among other incestuous places) by his sheer skeeziness. If Josef is guilty of anything (and he’s guilty of several) it’s being far too loving a father — nightmarishly so, in fact. Over the course of 24 years, this crazy bastard kept his daughter chained in his basement, forcing her to bear seven of his children. If that wasn’t enough, he also won the “Austria’s Creepiest Mugshot of All-Time” award (seriously, just look at that hair) soon after his misdeeds were discovered. Thankfully, he is currently serving out his sentence in an Austrian prison where, hopefully, creepy old man beatings are very much allowed.
Ivan the Terrible
The Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1584, Ivan the Terrible wasn’t just a nickname. The dude really did do his damnedest to earn the moniker. For starters, there’s the rumor that Ivan beat cats against the wall by the tail just to prove a point. What point he was trying to prove has no doubt been lost to history.
Ivan’s earned his place on this list through a series of unfortunate events. It all started when Ivan accused his daughter-in-law of wearing immodest clothing. By “accuse” we mean he savagely beat her. Did we mention that she was pregnant at the time? And that the beating caused her to miscarry? Needless to say, Ivan Jr. was sort of pissed at dad and went to confront him about it. Taken aback that anyone would dare challenge his lunacy, Ivan Sr. conked his son over the head with a pointed staff. It must have been a pretty hard hit given the fact that the son immediately fell into a coma and later died. Ivan the Terrible was kind enough to sit at his son’s deathbed though, no doubt mocking him for being weak.
“Dad, you pale in comparison to total dickheads…”
So maybe give your father a hug this weekend, and be thankful that he wasn’t one of the assholes on this list. You may not have always agreed with his methods but, so long as those methods didn’t involve pointed staffs or savage beatings, you can at least appreciate his madness.
Actually I do kind of wish my dad was Constantine the Great. That would be incredible. I would use my knowledge of modern science to win the loyalty of the people, and then overturn my father’s embrace of Christianity. My unique understanding of concepts like disease ETC would prove invaluable, and soon the people could not help but wonder if I was not in fact some sort of living goddess, the all knowing Prometheus of this new golden age. “Kate, why does it rain?” “Kate, what are planets?” “Kate, what is across the great western ocean?”
For each question I’d have an answer, and with each answer my legend would grow
Rome would see a glorious rebirth, and I would go down in history as one of the most beloved and important people ever to have lived
: )
PS Glad you guys called Abraham out for being a shite dad, rather than buying the line about his supposed devotion to his deity
I would have loved for you to unleash the renaissance hundreds of years too soon.
Kate, I have a feeling they would simply find you to be too far ahead of your time and assume you were a witch or demon and burn you alive. People were kinda dicks that way.
@bradkovach thanks, me too! : )
@agenttalon It would pretty much all boil down to whether or not I was able to make proof of my powers clear before the monotheists were able to lynch me, on that point you’re correct. If I could show that I possessed knowledge and abilities that no one else understood or could replicate, unique insights that held the power to make peoples lives better (such as curing disease), I might have a chance of convincing the people that I was the offspring of Jupiter, that the gods of the Roman pantheon were real and the growing acceptance of Christianity had been a grave error. If I could convince them that I was the real deal, then I’d be able to succeed in getting most people to abandon their faith, and my rule would be secure
If I started dissing the Christians and talking up my divinity before I could trick people into thinking I had magic powers, than yes, I’d very much run the risk of being identified by the mob as a “witch”, giving my political enemies room to act against me. I wouldn’t just need to convince the plebs, I’d need to inspire fear even among the powerful that I wasn’t someone to be trifled with
It would be nothing less than a race to prevent the dark ages, but I like to think I’d be up to the task
IMHO if I were to come up with some sort of trick that could be demonstrated in front of a large crowd and passed off as magic, that would be my best bet for solidifying my legend and making me a figure too awesome (meaning to inspire awe) to challenge. Using a glass lens to light a fire, or static electricity to bend water pouring from a fountain, something with a “wow” factor that would convince people to go along with my other ideas about sanitation ETC. If those then succeeded and I managed to eradicate most disease from the city, well then the sky would be the limit
PS Perhaps I could rig up a hot air balloon, that would no doubt astound everyone
PS People also used to think that cinnamon came from cinnamon birds, and I’d be able to tell them that it actually came from Sri Lanka
I’d like to submit Genie’s father for consideration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29
@William I am obsessed with that story! Dad committed suicide when the case went public, and mom was never punished. There’s a great 4-5 part documentary on that girl that you can find on YouTube.
I was not familiar with Genie, Andrea/William, but yes, feral children are pretty fascinating. Going back to Romulus and Remus, they’ve had a unique ability to capture our imagination. I spent a long day at work reading about them once, it’s fascinating stuff
Russ Rymer’s book about her was a course text for a class I took in college (psychology or philosophy, I can’t remember). The story stuck with me and it’s the first thing that comes to my mind on the subject of awful real-life parenting. I think I still have my copy of that book lying around somewhere.
I watched that NOVA doc Andrea mentioned on YOUTUBE. Sad, intriguing story. Is not having language at an early age an obstacle to ever developing it? Or was it the hateful home environment that contributed to the problem? If you had a group of people who all grew up without language, would it be next to impossible for them ever to start a new language or communicate abstract ideas verbally or otherwise? Are we only capable of such complex lingual feats simply because the human race has been passing it down without fail one generation to the next at an early age for so many thousands of years? If the planet lost the ability to speak for just a single generation, would it then take us tens of thousands of years to get back to a language like english (the language with the most words) again?
All questions that are on my mind after that program
PS My first word was “stick”, followed by flag then squirrel