Introducing the Hot Dad Matrix

We are a few short weeks from the hottest holiday of them all—the Halloween for people who are attracted to men—Father’s Day. And yes, it’s a day about celebrating what our fathers have done for us, but it’s also about people posting hot pics of their dads on Instagram for the rest of us to enjoy. I’m obviously not alone in my dad thirst—every six months there’s a new thinkpiece declaring this year The Year of the Dad. And sure, in 2019 we’re blessed enough to have Instagram accounts dedicated to the hot dads of Disneyland, but movies and TV have been feeding this flame for years.

Perhaps the hot-and-horny film that still runs through my own deranged brain the most: Nick Parker (Dennis Quaid) driving down a sun-dappled Northern California after picking his daughter up at the airport in The Parent Trap. (In a Jeep! The official car of Hot Men everywhere!) Yes, he owned a sprawling Spanish-style compound on an honest-to-god vineyard, and owning a vineyard is the sexist job of all time other than being Michael B. Jordan, but twelve-year-old me certainly wasn’t thinking about property values as I crushed on him. 26-year-old me, however, knows some things about horniness, and let me tell you, the hottest thing about Nick Parker is that he is a dad.

Dads are hot for obvious evolutionary reasons. In fact, women can predict based on men’s faces if those men like babies or not; that’s how into dads we are. In a 2013 study, women were more likely to give their phone number to a guy who interacted with a baby in front of her. Even if it is just a deep-seated biological desire to find a guy who will have babies with you, there is something real about the attractiveness of dads, and Hollywood execs are fully aware. Whenever writers’ rooms need to beef up the emotional stakes for a smokin’ hot (if one-note) male character, they slap on a daughter. Boom! Now he’s saving the world and he’s a caretaker so we love him.

I combed through classic media—the movie Enchanted, Ross Geller, The Sopranos, every Steve Carell movie—to find out how our attraction to dads plays out on screen. It turns out hot dads in media exist on two spectrums: Family Man to Absentee Father, and Fun Dad to Sad Dad. You would assume, of course, that absentee fathers aren’t hot, that leaving your children in the care of someone else would be a major turn off. And that is the case to some extent, but dads get a lot of wiggle room to bop along and do their own thing away from their children while still maintaining their sex symbol-ness. But, most of the hot dads and daddies (dads whose sexuality has a sense of intention behind it) on screen are hot precisely because they’re engaged, doting fathers. Behold: the hot dad matrix.

John McClane, Die Hard (Somewhat of a Family Man, Sad Dad as hell)
I might get some flak for this, and I welcome it, but John McClane is not a great dad. Yes, he brings a giant teddy bear through airport security, but he also stays in New York while his wife and children move to another city, due to vague emotional reasons surrounding his wife having a better job than him. Rather than going to therapy, he deals with it through a traumatic event at the hands of Snape, but it’s still a mark against his full-on Family Man-ness. Also, dude is depressed. Had this act of terrorism not happened, his trip to LA would have ended with him in a random hotel room, cracking open an ice cold forty and jerking off to a sports bra infomercial. Instead, he stepped up (barefoot) for his family, and in doing so, showed us just how hot a sad, mid-level family man could be.

Ed Mackenzie, Big Little Lies (Family Man, Fun Dad).
Oh, Ed! Adam Scott with that beard is spicy. Adam Scott is a known Sweetie Pie. He’s got extremely Canadian energy; I don’t know if he’s from there and I’m not going to look it up. Yes, he’s a dad on Parks & Rec, but like the show itself, his hotness feels very… sitcom-y. Is he a good, sweet dad on the show? Hard yes. Is he making vaginas twitch? Ehh. But! Someone over at HBO wanted to give us the chance to to be wetter than the splash zone at SeaWorld, and cast Adam Scott as Ed Mackenzie. For god’s sake he DRESSED UP FOR A COSTUME PARTY! And SINGS! Do you know how hot it is to imagine that your husband would get on board for a costume party and just play along and not complain? Orgasmic.

David Kim, Searching (Utterly depressed, Family Man)
Imagine if Finding Nemo were a live-action film and Marlin was hot. But like sad-hot. Because, you know, his child is missing. And yes, having a missing child is serious, but also if David Kim needed to come over to my house for comfort I would welcome him with open legs. Okay, no I wouldn't; I would be like, “Let’s go look for your daughter.” Please, someone just make another movie where John Cho can be a dad, but happy, so I can enjoy it to the full extent of my horniness.

Randall Pearson, This Is Us, (Sad and Fun Dad, Family Man)
Randall is proof that you don’t have to be a goofy dad to be a good one. He’s a family man through and through. He loves his wife and kids so much, and so well (watch this clip of his daughter coming out to him and his wife if you want to cry), but he’s not exactly a happy-go-lucky guy. Mostly because life has been hard for him in ways that only a dramatic sitcom can deal out (he was adopted by a family of a different race, he reconnects with his biological father who is dying of cancer, his adopted dad dies in a fire caused by a Crockpot!). But he’s a wonderful, loving father and husband and easily a top-five sexy dad on TV right now.

Don Draper, Mad Men, (Sad Dad, Absentee Father)
He’s the worst! At least as a dad. But, there’s no denying some real daddy vibes from this sad, sad father. Maybe you can fix him. Maybe you guys will get married and you can fix his relationship with his children and step up as a step-mom. Maybe he’ll stop drinking. Most likely not. His hotness stands.

Ennis Del Mar, Brokeback Mountain (Sad as fuck, Absentee Father)
I bet you barely remember Heath Ledger being a dad in this film; hell, he often barely remembers that he’s a dad in the movie. Eventually, he turns the car around and becomes at least a somewhat positive force in his daughter’s life, but let’s not pretend he was ever a certified Family Man. He did his best at a lot of things and had a rough, and horny, life. Regardless of being a shitty father, he is a babe. I can’t imagine a role of Heath Ledger’s that doesn’t inspire at least a little twinge of arousal, even if it is weird and you don’t want to think about it for too long lest you freak yourself out (See: The Joker). This role is the epitome of Sad Hot.

Paul, The Kids Are All Right (Fun Dad, Absentee Father)
Ok, is Paul a dad? No, not exactly. He’s a sperm donor who then meets the children that he sired. But Mark Ruffalo is the number one most dad-hot man alive; everyone agrees on this. He’s somehow both baby-faced and greying? Cheeky and responsible? And we love it? Anyway. He is so overwhelmingly dad-hot that it spills over into this proto-dad character who, while fun, is not particularly good at being a dad. He’s meant to ride motorcycles and make women come, and god bless him for that.

Mufasa, Lion King (Neither fun nor sad, just right in the middle, Family Man).
Look, Mufasa is stupid hot; he’s beautiful. Is this a wrong, bad opinion I have? Yes. Should I feel shame? Also yes. Mufasa is one of the hottest dads of all time. He is ripped. He’s protective. Yes, he’s a royal, and monarchical rule is problematic, but I don’t care. Who wouldn’t want to raise children and run a country with this strong, serious man-lion with Pantene-perfect hair?

Jacob, Grace & Frankie (Family Man, Fun Dad)
Ok, so you don’t really get to see Jacob—who started the series as Frankie’s “Yam Man”—be a dad. His children are grown and living in Santa Fe, and he misses them terribly, which is why he isn’t a full-on fun dad, but he can hold his own with Lily Tomlin’s hilarious Frankie Bergstein. Despite not getting to see him actually parent anyone, he is a dad and he is sexy as all get out, so he’s on my list. I could write a whole 30 page single-spaced horny-manifesto about his sweater and henley collection in the show; it’s unreal. He’s older, he’s ripped, he’s a farmer. Who grows things. With his hands. He’s also a responsible adult who saved so much for retirement that he could afford to up and move to Santa Fe to be with his children and grandbabies. Sigh.

F.P. Jones, Riverdale (Sad Dad, Absentee Father and Family Man).
I will admit to you that when I started writing this, I had never seen Riverdale, but I was told that the show’s whole Thing was hot dads (never before has a show so fully understood its audience). So—for research!—I went and watched some dad content. I’m not fully caught up so please don’t spoil anything (I’m rooting for all the dads to kiss each other), but F.P. Jones can hit me with a truck, if you know what I mean. Is he a good dad? No, not really. He’s the head of a crime syndicate, which keeps him in and out of jail a lot, he’s an alcoholic, and he named his son Forsythe after himself and his daughter Forsythia, which is nuts and is the only reasonable explanation for why they go by Jughead and Jellybean. He’s the grown-up version of the 90s bad boy we all lusted after over as a dad. So even hotter.

Graham, The Holiday (Sad, but still Fun Dad, Family Man)
The day I watched Jude Law play a single dad was the day I realized that I could—nay, would!— date a single father should the opportunity arise. That there was something extra sexy about a man being a good dad. And he’s a great dad. He’s a sad little widower (hence his sad score) but he’s also open about how often he cries (cliché, but hot), close with his sister, he owns a cow (who even knows the FIRST THING about bovine care?), and he’s got a banging hot library in his little home in England. 10/10 would co-parent with.

Nick Parker, Parent Trap (Head Dad in Charge, The Big Dad, The True North Star of Sexy Fathers)
Nick Parker his and his ex-wife Elizabeth James (Natasha Richardson, RIP) have the worst, most unethical custody agreement of all time: You take one twin, I’ll take the other, never the twain shall meet (or even know of the existence of one another). But he is a devoted father to whichever daughter he just so happens to be in charge of, and a definite Family Man to exactly half of his offspring. He’s funny and fun and when he’s not being led to almost marry a mean-but-hot 26 year old by his traitorous lonely dick that has been too busy raising a daughter to get laid (a theme of single dad hotness), so I’ll give him a halfway rating. He’s halfway between Sad Dad and Fun Dad, Family Man and Absentee Father, and for that reason, he’s the true platonic ideal of being a hot dad.

Originally Appeared on GQ