Jim Gaffigan on Fatherhood for the Recovering Narcissist | Thomas P. Harmon | CWR
The comedian’s new book Dad is Fat has a delightfully subversive message on fatherhood and the family.
Jim Gaffigan
is Catholic. As he wryly informs us, his wife is “Shiite Catholic.” Does that
make his new book, Dad
Is Fat, Catholic? Is he, as the Washington
Post’s Michelle Boorstein put it, “the
Catholic Church’s newest evangelizer”? Boorstein seems to want to say yes, although Gaffigan’s style is more
subtle than most people would associate with the word “evangelism.” After all,
you won’t hear “Christ, and him crucified” in so many words from Gaffigan.
Sometimes, however, evangelism can have a very different meaning. In modern America, most people have a certain view of devout Catholics—they’re either recent immigrants who will assimilate away from the Church, or they’re repressed weirdos with strange ideas about sex who probably hate all sorts of people (women, gays, Muslims, etc.). In any case, they can’t possibly be happy and well-adjusted.
And yet, there’s Gaffigan. He’s open about being Catholic, although he’s no Catechism-thumper (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). He has what many people—especially his neighbors in the Bowery in Manhattan—would consider an unimaginably large family (five kids!) and, while he seems tired, he also clearly thinks the kids are worth it. He has a lovely wife who is very attentive to the kids, but apparently neither he nor she thinks marriage and family detract from the enjoyment of life. In fact, he seems pretty happy and not nearly as neurotic as most of the other comics you’ll see doing specials on Comedy Central. In fact, despite his acquisition of fame, he seems pretty normal. The thought may even begin to creep in: maybe he’s happy because of all the weird stuff that look like trappings of his kooky religion. And once that thought’s present, it’s not too far away from the thought: maybe it’s not so kooky after all.
That being said, most of Gaffigan’s comedy is not about the Catholic faith. As a matter of fact, he never seems terribly interested in making Catholicism a subject of his comedy, except for the occasional joke about how long Mass is or that Catholics have guilt. That’s why his stand-up and his new book, Dad is Fat, are so deliciously subversive.Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.
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