History Main / SupernaturalProofFather

You see, the father, as the head of the family and the most "sensible and grounded" member, is the last person to encounter (or admit encountering) these bizarre events. The children see them, the [[HauntedHeroine wife/mother]] sees them, Hell, even the [[AnimalReactionShot family dog]] [[EvilDetectingDog sees them.]] But the dad is always the last person to see and believe. Although it's debatable whether or not they're the least susceptible, or just plain [[FlatEarthAtheist in denial]]. This is a common trope in "Haunted House" style stories, and may also be used by elder brothers/best (male) friends, etc. Could also be a way for writers to keep the male out of the way of the story. Presumably because it's [[UnfortunateImplications more believable when a woman is a scared victim]].

* The film ''AudreyRose'' concerns Ivy Templeton, a preteen girl tortured by horrific nightmares of dying in a car crash. When her parents are approached by a man named Elliot Hoover who claims that Ivy is the reincarnation of his dead daughter Audrey Rose (who died in a car crash at the exact moment of Ivy's birth), Ivy's father refuses to believe it. He holds fast to his belief even after the evidence becomes overwhelming enough to have convinced his wife, leading to serious tension between the two.

* The Made-for-TV movie ''TheHaunted'' had a father who didn't experience any of the supernatural happenings that the other family members was experiencing, Until he was raped by a female ghost/demon.

* In ''TheMiraculousMellops'', the father and some other adults don't believe in anything outside an ordinary lifestyle. While the father is affected by one supernatural event and the aunt suddenly learns forign languages, they [[FlatEarthAtheist still doesn't believe it's supernatural]], and thinks the kids are still playing games.
* In ''RoundTheTwist'', Tony Twist, father of the three kid protagonists, is the last to believe the ghost in the first episode is real. Despite continuing strange goings on in Port Niranda, he's also most prone to ArbitraryScepticism.

* ''TheHaunted'', a show on Animal Planet featuring stories of hauntings connected to the family pets (often very loosely), also often had this trope in effect.

** While not a father, Micah refuses to believe that he and Katie are being haunted by a demon, and before he takes it seriously he [[TooDumbToLive mocks and taunts it]].
** Dan from the sequel plays this completely straight, though he does behave somewhat more sensibly than Micah.

** Inverted in ''Paranormal Activity 3'', where the mother is the one who refuses to believe anything strange is going on despite it affecting her husband and children.
** Played somewhat straight ''Paranormal Activity 4'' with both parents, though the daughter hurts her case by only showing the father footage once at the beginning, which the father thinks is fake, then telling them about all the weird stuff happening instead of showing them the much better footage she collects later on.

* Some literary scholars claim that the father in ''Literature/TheErlKing'' by Creator/JohannWolfgangVonGoethe represents the enlighted attitude of his time and is thus unresponsive to the supernatural phenomena his son (and for that matter all children - and women due to their sensitive nature) are capable of sensing.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLifeAndTimesOfJuniperLee''. [[DuelingShows Similarly]] to the ''Jake Long'' example, Juniper Lee's dad is not aware of TheMasquerade because the "chosen one" gene skipped a generation after her grandmother. In fact, it also skipped her older brother, and would've skipped her younger brother if the latter didn't suffer an accidental hit from a monster in the past, causing him to see things that are InvisibleToNormals despite not being a chosen one. [[spoiler:The older brother actually finds out many times, they just used a memory spell to wipe his memory multiple times, but eventually it stops working and they clue him into TheMasquerade.]]

* Inverted in ''[[Anime/JungleWaItsumoHaleNochiGuu Haré+Guu]]'', where Guu's WeirdnessCensor renders her horror inconspicuous to everyone except Haré, the main character, and to a much lesser degree Dr. Clive, Haré's father. And the Village Elder who always turns into quivering jelly when Guu is around. Though that could be more due to what Guu did to him in the first episode than fear of the supernatural.

* Doctor Terrance Thirteen, the Ghost Breaker, is Franchise/TheDCU's preeminent example, earnestly believing that aliens (like Franchise/{{Superman}}), magicians (like DoctorFate) and supernatural beings (like Comicbook/TheSpectre) simply don't exist at all, even though his daughter, Traci, is a member of the Homo Magi, magic-using humans such as ''ComicBook/{{Zatanna}}''. He's treated unilaterally as a joke. Ironically, in his original appearances before continuity held sway (that is, before Franchise/TheDCU was firmly established as a SharedUniverse where nearly all DC properties resided), the ghosts and magicians he went up against always ''were'' fake and his skepticism was presented as a virtuous trait; but when continuity started drawing all DC books into one reality, he was first shown the spirit of his dead father by the Spectre, then he was teamed with the very mystical [[ComicBook/ThePhantomStranger Phantom Stranger]], and from then on he was always wrong, simply because the Stranger's very existence demanded it be so. Dr. 13 currently lives outside of the time stream, aware of his own fictional nature; he is teamed with an alien, a vampire, a French caveman, and a talking vampire gorilla with Nazi leanings, his daughter is a rather powerful witch, and he believes none of this.

* Played painfully straight by ''Film/DontBeAfraidOfTheDark''.

* In ''Film/TheAmityvilleHorror'', George is the last person to believe the house is haunted, yet is probably the one most affected, barring the Priest of course who ends up getting cursed after being the house for all of 10 minutes.

* Inverted in ''[[JungleWaItsumoHaleNochiGuu Haré+Guu]]'', where Guu's WeirdnessCensor renders her horror inconspicuous to everyone except Haré, the main character, and to a much lesser degree Dr. Clive, Haré's father. And the Village Elder who always turns into quivering jelly when Guu is around. Though that could be more due to what Guu did to him in the first episode than fear of the supernatural.

** There have been two alternate takes on Dr. 13, making his skepticism something other than the IdiotBall. In Creator/NeilGaiman's ''ComicBook/TheBooksOfMagic'', the fact he doesn't believe in magic means it simply doesn't work around him, in a cross between ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve and WeirdnessCensor. In Creator/GrantMorrison's ''{{Zatanna}}'' he visits a mystical dimension and is happy to admit ''something's'' happening, but defines it all in scientific terms. (Quantum mechanics and M-theory get a lot of crap past the scientific radar.) There's also the ''Architecture and Morality'' take, wherein he's simply strongly in denial of reality.

* The film ''Audrey Rose'' concerns Ivy Templeton, a preteen girl tortured by horrific nightmares of dying in a car crash. When her parents are approached by a man named Elliot Hoover who claims that Ivy is the reincarnation of his dead daughter Audrey Rose (who died in a car crash at the exact moment of Ivy's birth), Ivy's father refuses to believe it. He holds fast to his belief even after the evidence becomes overwhelming enough to have convinced his wife, leading to serious tension between the two.

* In ''The Canterville Ghost'', people can only see ghosts if they already believe in ghosts. The dad, because he doesn't believe in ghosts, can't see them, and because he can't see them, it reinforces his belief that ghosts aren't real. He blames the ghost's activities to pranks on the part of the children, to the shock of the ghost in question.

* The Made-for-TV movie ''The Haunted'' had a father who didn't experience any of the supernatural happenings that the other family members was experiencing, Until he was raped by a female ghost/demon.

* In ''The Miraculous Mellops'', the father and some other adults don't believe in anything outside an ordinary lifestyle. While the father is affected by one supernatural event and the aunt suddenly learns forign languages, they [[FlatEarthAtheist still doesn't believe it's supernatural]], and thinks the kids are still playing games.

* ''The Haunted'', a show on Animal Planet featuring stories of hauntings connected to the family pets (often very loosely), also often had this trope in effect.

You see, the father, as the head of the family and the most "sensible and grounded" member, is the last person to encounter (or admit encountering) these bizarre events. The children see them, the [[HauntedHeroine wife/mother]] sees them, Hell, even the [[AnimalReactionShot family dog]] [[EvilDetectingDog sees them.]] But the dad is always the last person to see and believe. Although it's debatable whether or not they're the least susceptible, or just plain [[FlatEarthAtheist in denial]]. This is a depressingly common trope in "Haunted House" style stories, and may also be used by elder brothers/best (male) friends, etc. Could also be a way for writers to keep the male out of the way of the story. Presumably because it's [[UnfortunateImplications more believable when a woman is a scared victim]].

* Genderflipped in ''Literature/TheShining''. Jack and his son are the only two to experience the hotel's evil haunting. Jack is slowly driven insane in part by his inability to tell his wife what's going on, and his son (being psychic) is getting bombarded with oh-so-horrible ghostly memories. His wife is quite firmly grounded in reality, and in fact proves to be more than Jack or the Hotel can readily handle even after he goes batty on her.

* Also averted in ''StirOfEchoes'' when the dad's latent psychic powers cause the trouble.

* Daniel in ''Dark Skies''[[note]]No relation to [[Series/DarkSkies the '90s TV series]][[/note]] is a textbook example. Website/SomethingAwful refers to him, and this character type in general, as "Horror Dad" in [[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/current-movie-reviews/dark-skies.php its review]]. Although to be fair Daniel is more so a case of extreme denial, plus he's obviously terrified and confused. In the third act he does come to terms with whats happening to him and his family.

* Subverted in ''RosemarysBaby''. Rosemary's husband tries to convince her that nothing strange is going on with their neighbors next door and that all of the other disturbing things that happen to her during her pregnancy are in her mind. However, [[spoiler: he knows that they are really part of a [[HollywoodSatanism devil-worshiping]] cult, and he's promised the baby to them]].

* Doctor Terrance Thirteen, the Ghost Breaker, is Franchise/TheDCU's preeminent example, earnestly believing that aliens (like Franchise/{{Superman}}), magicians (like DoctorFate) and supernatural beings (like Comicbook/TheSpectre) simply don't exist at all, even though his daughter, Traci, is a member of the Homo Magi, magic-using humans such as ''ComicBook/{{Zatanna}}''. He's treated unilaterally as a joke. Ironically, in his original appearances before continuity held sway (that is, before Franchise/TheDCU was firmly established as a SharedUniverse where nearly all DC properties resided), the ghosts and magicians he went up against always ''were'' fake and his skepticism was presented as a virtuous trait; but when continuity started drawing all DC books into one reality, he was first shown the spirit of his dead father by the Spectre, then he was teamed with the very mystical [[ThePhantomStranger Phantom Stranger]], and from then on he was always wrong, simply because the Stranger's very existence demanded it be so. Dr. 13 currently lives outside of the time stream, aware of his own fictional nature; he is teamed with an alien, a vampire, a French caveman, and a talking vampire gorilla with Nazi leanings, his daughter is a rather powerful witch, and he believes none of this.

** In the Comicbook/{{New 52}} ''ThePhantomStranger'' title, he's been reinvented as a "scientific occultist" in the mould of [[Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}} Egon Spengler]]. His ancestor, the ''[[RetroactiveLegacy original]]'' Terrence Thirteen in ''[[Comicbook/JonahHex All-Star Western]]'', on the other hand, is the ultimate Flat-Earth Atheist: at one point his ''ghost'' chides the modern-day Terry for believing in the supernatural, believing that he himself is just a {{hallucination|s}}.

See also NotNowKiddo, AdultsAreUseless. Contrast OnlySaneMan, where sanity in the face of mass hysteria is portrayed as a virtue.

* Wonderfully subverted in Creator/CliveBarker's short story, ''The Yattering and Jack''. The premise is that a demon has been assigned to drive the owner of a house mad or corrupt him by haunting him, but the demon cannot leave the house or reveal himself nor harm him or even affect him directy. The only problem is that man is completely boring and has no vices to be corrupted by, and ignores everything the demon does, which drives the demon to suicidal frustration. When the man's daughter comes over for Christmas dinner, the demon pulls out all the stops and animates the turkey. His daughter is freaked out, while the man still just shrugs and says he's going to go for a walk. The demon finally comes out and grabs his arm. The man turns and says "Ah ha! Got you!" Turns out the man knew about the demon all along and was only faking disbelief, and knew if the demon ever affected him directly then the demon would become enslaved to him.

* Wonderfully subverted in CliveBarker's short story, ''The Yattering and Jack''. The premise is that a demon has been assigned to drive the owner of a house mad or corrupt him by haunting him, but the demon cannot leave the house or reveal himself nor harm him or even affect him directy. The only problem is that man is completely boring and has no vices to be corrupted by, and ignores everything the demon does, which drives the demon to suicidal frustration. When the man's daughter comes over for Christmas dinner, the demon pulls out all the stops and animates the turkey. His daughter is freaked out, while the man still just shrugs and says he's going to go for a walk. The demon finally comes out and grabs his arm. The man turns and says "Ah ha! Got you!" Turns out the man knew about the demon all along and was only faking disbelief, and knew if the demon ever affected him directly then the demon would become enslaved to him.

** In the Comicbook/{{New 52}} ''ThePhantomStranger'' title, he's been reinvented as a "scientific occultist" in the mould of [[Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}} Egon Spengler]]. His ancestor, the ''[[RetroactiveLegacy original]]'' Terrence Thirteen in ''[[Comicbook/JonahHex All-Star Western]]'', on the other hand, is the ultimate Flat-Earth Atheist: at one point his ''ghost'' chides the modern-day Terry for believing in the supernatural.