Basic Trope: Fathers cannot cook good or edible meals.
- Played Straight: Alice and Bob have two children, Claire and Daniel. Bob is a poor cook.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob is a Lethal Chef who cannot even make a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich.
- Logical Extreme: No dad can cook even an inedible meal.
- Downplayed:
- Fathers can cook only simple, basic meals.
- Alice has more of an intuition for cooking than Bob; he needs more practice.
- Justified:
- In this setting, fathers are required to work for most of the day, thus not being able to learn how to cook.
- Bob never learned how to cook and grew up in an upper class house where someone else cooked.
- Inverted: Bob cooks perfect food.
- Gender-Inverted: It's Alice who cannot cook to save her life.
- Subverted:
- Bob can cook, but not the meal that was shown.
- Bob is a professional Supreme Chef, but his job is so stressful that he has no interest in cooking at home during his free time.
- Double Subverted: But only one meal.
- Parodied: Bob turns on the oven, places the pan in, and as soon as the uncooked food touches the pan—it explodes.
- Deconstructed:
- When a father retires, he needs someone to cook for him. All the time. The media notice this and interview fathers on why they are unable to learn how to cook given their free time, or why they always need someone to cook for them. The issue gets to a point so big that even the government is involved.
- Alice is incapacitated. With Bob left to take care of the kids, he fails in cooking them some food. They all starve and die.
- Reconstructed:
- After many failed attempts to teach men with children to cook, the government decides to give retired fathers a special restaurant in retirement homes, and if they live in their own home or family, someone is sent there to make food for the man. A new profession is made out of this issue, helping to solve the unemployment issue.
- Alice's body might be too weak to cook, but her mind is still active. With that, she supervises Bob closely and explains to him clearly how to do everything. With her help, he becomes at least a competent if not world-class cook.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob cannot cook, but the next day makes a delicious and nutritious meal, but then it turns out to be a flop and he made it by accident. But he then suddenly gains the ability to cook chicken!
- Averted: All or some dads can cook.
- Enforced: “Okay, we need to give the father a flaw.” “How about the inability to cook?” “PERFECT!”
- Implied: Bob notes how he failed to make a basic meal last summer.
- Played for Laughs: “Dad! How did you mess up scrambled eggs!” “There wasn’t a manual.”
- Played for Drama: Bob is part of a family with a lineage dedicated to cooking, and is urged to follow their steps even though he cannot cook, which causes him to be shunned.
- Played for Horror: Bob attempts to cook, and his failures to use the kitchen equipment causes gruesome freak accidents to happen.
- Lampshaded: “Hey sis, isn’t it weird how that every father cannot cook?”
- Invoked: A secret organization influences every male’s life predicted to be a father to become unable to cook.
- Defied: There is a mandatory cooking class in schools for all genders.
- Exploited: Alice uses her ability to cook as leverage over Bob so he does not leave her, or else he will be stuck having to buy expensive food instead of having food at home.
- Discussed: “How come Dad can’t cook? It’s not like an egg is impossible to make.” “I know, right?”
- Conversed: “Ugh, another sitcom where the dad can’t cook.” “They really need to step up their game.”
Dinner's at Dads Can't Cook, Dad is the cook this time! I hope you have managed to grow a taste for his cooking.
