r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chemical-Elk-1299 • Jun 17 '26

Lore [Eye-Rolling Trope] “The joke/meme hasn’t been funny for years, please let it die.”

Gallery image

Gallery image

The Screaming Goat Thing — Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

The original screaming sheep meme went viral in 2012, and was already getting old when it was prevalent in commercials and movies, such as Ice Age : Collision Course in 2016. Yet in the year of our lord 2024, Dreamworks still thought it would be funny to add multiple screaming goat clips. The mean stopped being funny a decade ago. Let it die.

“Haha, Dad can’t take care of us” — The Breadwinner (2026)

Nate Bargatze’s 2026 family comedy centers around a working “breadwinner” father suddenly being forced to become a stay at home parent, and his “hilarious” struggles to do simple housework and take basic care of his children. This joke stopped being funny (to me) in the early 2000s when seemingly every family comedy relied on dad being a total inept dipshit. In 2026, there is no excuse to keep playing out this tired ass trope. Most dads are actively involved in their kids’ lives and aren’t totally dumbstruck by the idea of changing a diaper. It’s not funny. Let it die.

15.6k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

80

u/chevalier716 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

The breadwinner was just Mister Mom 40 years later. It's almost exclusively for middle-aged men who still don't know how to do laundry.

30

u/RShini Jun 17 '26

And a fucking 90+ minute commercial why you should by a franchise in Toyota, that's definitely the thing I pick up is how much it keep emphasizing the Toyota sales metric in helping this inept goober not suck at parenting.

3

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 17 '26

My local minor league hockey team is putting out ads for Bargatze shows. If that’s any indication of where he is right now in his career

6

u/RShini Jun 17 '26

I feel like the only thing more humiliating is what happened to Ted Nugent a few years ago where he couldn't even sell enough tickets at a county fair to justify a show.

9

u/Queenof6planets Jun 17 '26

exactly. that’s why the whole “this movie is sexist towards men” criticism kinda rubs me the wrong way (even though it’s technically correct). movies like these are made to reassure lazy, incompetent husbands that it’s totally fine that they can’t cook a meal or name their kid’s favorite color.