Despite the prominence of family relationships in cinema, fatherhood remains a surprisingly underexplored area of academic film study.
There are a few exceptions. Charting the emergence of the paternal protector as a key masculine archetype is Katie Barnett’s Fathers on Film: Paternity and Masculinity in 1990s Hollywood. And crucially, Gershon Reiter’s Fathers and Sons in Cinema considers the lasting impact of absent fathers on cinematic characters.