And some writers actually manage to do it. Check out this bit from Matt Feeney's article "Beauty and the Beast: Why are fat sitcom husbands paired with great-looking wives?":
It's not that there aren't handsome or sexually desirable men on sitcoms, but these men are typically marked as terminal bachelors, like Ted Danson on Cheers. To the extent they have anything to do with family life, they tend to skulk around its outer margins like coyotes. On Two and Half Men (CBS, Mondays, 9:30 p.m. ET), Charlie (Charlie Sheen) is handsome, successful, and wedded to promiscuous bachelorhood, but he gets to enjoy some nourishing familial scraps since his loser brother (Jon Cryer) and scampy nephew moved themselves into his pad. (In keeping with the Maxim ethos of these shows, the brother was abandoned by a woman who thinks she might be a lesbian. It would be emasculating for male viewers to see a man dumped for being completely undesirable, and, besides, lesbians are so hot.)I may not agree with all of this guy's points, but damn is he funny, and sharp as a tack.
2 comments:
I've always thought that the reason for that pairing is simple marketing appeal. First off, most men tend to relate to the man on the show because they are probably overweight or out of shape and they either think of their wives as being much better looking (or they wish that they were).
The women relate because they identify with the woman by either being in better shape than their husband or they think of themselves in the same situation (that is - married to someone like the man in the show who doesn't fully appreciate that they have such a wonderful and beautiful wife).
It also gives the men some nice eye candy to look at, and provides humour in the form of physical comedy at the expense of the out of shape husband. I think that the Two and Half Men example is right on the money though.
The really interesting part is that in most of these formulaic sitcoms, the women are also much smarter than the men. Either they are wittier, more intelligent, a better parent, or all three.
_kelly_
Yeah, men really do get the shaft in a lot of sitcoms. I don't know that it's some great feminist conspiracy, but it is at the last an interesting comment on our societal perceptions.
Post a Comment