I was going to say the Grey Power commercial. Someone already did, and was basically ignored.
I dispute this idea. Name the sitcoms that adhere to the format you assert is common. They have to be current sitcoms to count.
Just off the top of my head, I can think of * Malcolm In The Middle, The Simpsons,* and Family Guy.
Malcolm in the Middle hasn’t been on the air in years, and the other two are cartoons, not sitcoms.
According to Wiki Malcom only finished three years ago, and it’s still on the air in many places (ie here in Australia). And even though FG and The Simpsons are cartoons, they’re still sitcoms at heart.
There’s also a new show I saw previews for the other day called The Middle that looks exactly like Malcolm. Even some of the cast look similar.
From what I’ve seen, the Bill Engvall Show seemed to have the “Smart Wife/Clueless Husband” thing happening, as did the sitcom George Lopez was starring in. We’ve just had a whole bunch of new digital TV channels start up here and at least two of them seem to be running a lot of “Generic American Sitcoms Starring People You’ve Never Heard Of”, and most of which seem to have the “Smart Wife/Clueless Husband/Stereotypical Teenage Daughter/Precocious Son” thing happening.
I mentioned this in another similar thread, but it bears repeating.
That is the entire point. Lucy was the star. That is why it was ok to portray her as a bumbling idiot.
These men today are the stars of the show. That’s why they are potrayed as idiots. It’s funny to watch the star of the show bumble. If people want to see more dumb women on t.v., they will have to be willing to watch shows with the woman as the star.
Regarding Malcolm in the Middle…was the mom really wise vs. the dad’s buffoonery? I always saw it as more of a he was more fun and youthful while she was the uptight bitch. There were certainly episodes that focused on her doing really dumb things, based on her bitchiness.
You can repeat this a hundred million times, and the posters who beat this drum will continue to ignore you. In a few months, another thread like this will pop up with people making ridiculous claims, but it’ll never occur to them that the reason men are “bumbling idiots” in sitcoms is that men are the stars of sitcoms. They’re the ones who get to do the funny shit while their wives play the “straight men”. It’s a pretty simple formula for comedy, and older than television itself, but this is the SDMB–why let facts get in the way? The reason that men are “bumbling idiots” in commercials is that the commercials are trying to sell items to women because men are not the primary market for paper towels, or whatever. Throw in confirmation bias, and you’ve got a recipe for the greatest example of persecution in the past 50 years, apparently.
The dad was not a “buffoon.” Hal was a very warm, very caring, even intelligent person who had poor impulse control–you know, so funny shit would happen. Lois was far from perfect and could sometimes be grating, but she never, ever made Hal feel stupid or inferior. And in The Simpsons and Family Guy, Homer and Peter are the “stars” and their wives are their humorous foils. Contrast that to King of the Hill, where Peggy and Hank both get to take turns being the buffoon and rescuing each other because it’s more of an ensemble show.
You can’t point to shows that have been cancelled as evidence of a current phenomenon. And cartoons are not sitcoms.
The husband is the together one, though he’s not perfect by any means. Patricia Heaton is the star, and as such plays the wacky, frazzled working mother. If anything that’s strong evidence of the exact opposite of the claim made. Same with Cougar Town.
That’s my whole point. People seem to cling to this idea of what sitcoms are like, but the sitcoms they’re thinking of went off the air years ago. Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, According to Jim; these shows are all in the past. Current sitcoms don’t portray women as put-upon saints and men as bumbling fools.
I haven’t seen those, but they definitely have potential to be throwbacks. Hopefully a fan of those shows can let us know.
The end of your post reminded me of Hank, which did conform to the stereotype. It was cancelled after three episodes.
From what I’ve seen of How I Met Your Mother, the guys seem to be the doofi, and the gals are the more reasonable ones.
Or The Big Bang Theory, where the guys are socially awkward and Penny is the one with the common sense. Although Leonard is pretty much the central character, and is the most normal of the guys.
An interesting throwback case are the sitcoms of Bob Newhart. He was always the sane, reasonable one (and it suited him perfectly) surrounded by eccentrics. That’s why he’s a genius.
Yeah, and women must be the primary market for car buying because there was, for example, an ad for the Honda Pilot that showed the husband literally behaving like a dog. (Can’t find the video of it on Youtube or anywhere for some reason)
And women must be the primary market for tax software because there was, for example, an ad for H&R Block (I think) where the woman hit the doofus husband on the head with the box from tax software because he was stupid for buying the brand that doesn’t have phone support (or something like that)
Sure, women are the primary market for everything. Men don’t buy anything.
this is a joke right? The 2 ads I liked to in post #9 aren’t moronic enough for you?
ETA: unfortunately, the first one had been removed, it was far funnier
ETA 2:
Where’s the smart/normal man who comes and corrects these moronic women and demonstrates how stupid they truly are? Nowhere to be found in this ad, or any ad I can think of.
Actually, the ad goes something like this
To be fair, this LA county fair ad has sorta what you’re looking for.
It’s funny though, and the ad is local to LA, and LA is where the ditzy valley girl thing got started.
Cartoons can’t be sitcoms? Sez who? And According to Jim didn’t end until June of 2009. That’s close enough to now for me to call it current in terms of television narrative styles.
To be fair, though, the women being made fun of are not representatives of the average woman. They are representatives of the ditzy valley girl, as you mention. Which is in contrast to ads with dumb guys: They are the generic husband/boyfriend, don’t belong to any known subgroup, and are thus representatives of the average man. That is, the “dumb men” ads make fun of all men, whereas the above ads make fun only of valley girls.
Maybe the target demographic for those ads are women. I don’t know. I do know two things though. The first is that men are responsible for these ad campaign decisions for the most part. The second is that if an ad is ineffective, it doesn’t last for long. Companies spend millions of dollars every year finding and marketing to a select demographic. Clearly, they get the response they want from portraying men as as buffoons. Maybe because these ads appeal to women. Or maybe because it’s all a big joke. After all, it’s safe to “pick on” middle class white men because middle class white men are still pretty much the most privileged demographic in the US. It’s pretty easy to take a joke when you’re still the one in power (well, I guess that would be the general “you” since it’s pretty clear you’re taking this shit seriously).
Finally, consider confirmation bias. If you could link to some sort of study on how picked on men are in the media, I’d appreciate it. I do notice fucked up sexual and gender dynamics in commercials, but that has less to do with how stupid men are portrayed as, and more to do with the fact that women are still the happy little housewives and men are still the breadwinners. The point of the commercials aren’t “Hoho, look how stupid men are.” The point of Mom Saving the Day is “Don’t worry, guys, no matter how liberated the women folk get, they’re still going to be in the kitchen. Right where they belong.”
Personally, I’m quite politically incorrect. I would prefer if it was OK to make fun of any group (men, women, whites, blacks, etc) on TV. What pisses me off is when it is OK to make fun of some groups but not others. The fact that some groups are “in power” means shit. If I had a 7 year-old-son, why should he have to sit through portrayals of men as dumb and useless, just because “men are in power”?
You are right. It’s possible that there is confirmation bias.
I guess everyone does have a different chip on their shoulder.
How does a man running around literally behaving like a dog mean “Don’t worry, guys, no matter how liberated the women folk get, they’re still going to be in the kitchen. Right where they belong”?
How does a woman berating her husband for picking the wrong tax software mean “Don’t worry, guys, no matter how liberated the women folk get, they’re still going to be in the kitchen. Right where they belong”?
Men are also the ones writing the shows. I don’t know if anybody has ever done a survey of working sitcom writers to determine a ratio of men to women, but I’d guess it’s thoroughly male dominated. Just as an example, more than 90 percent of the episodes of The Simpsons are credited to men. (That doesn’t mean 90 percent of the writing staff has always been male - some of their most prolific writers don’t get many credits for solo episodes - but it’s an indication.)
According to the Unauthorized History of the Simpsons by John Ortved, there have been a total of 7 female writers on the Simpsons staff. At least one showrunner pretty clearly stated it was because ‘‘women are good at writing about relationships, but fail at being consistent joke machines.’’