Have you noticed a certain sexism in comic strips? It’s considered funny when a man is beaten up. Think of all those times Sarge has beaten Beetle Bailey to a pulp. Or how mangled Jason appears after he’s pulled some prank on his older sister Paige in the strip FoxTrot. Or how in any number of strips when a single male character makes a clumsy pass at a woman, the last frame shows him battered and bruised?
Why is it “funny” to see male characters beaten up? Would it be funny if female characters were beaten up in cartoons? If a male character didn’t like something a female character said, would the next frame show her after being physically assaulted? Of course not. Yet this reverse sexism goes by without any notice. And it’s considered funny.
P.S. If you’re inclined to relate this to real world violence, men are slightly more likely to be victims of violent crime in the U.S. than women. And 76% of murder victims are male.
I remember talking to my brother about that, except we talked about miss piggy. She is physically abusive to kermit in a children’s tv show and no one finds that bothersome. ah well. Remember the honeymooners? i guess its just a cultural thing.
Its a principle that extends beyond comic strips - think of the large number of television adverts that involve the humiliation of men and think about the uproar there would be if it were the other way round…
Yeah; TV shows like “Dark Angel” showing lithe females beating on huge men…You’d never ever see it reversed. And if a woman feels a man is being sexist, it’s totally okay to slap him, whereas it’s not if the roles are reversed. Pretty sexist, says I.
The reason those situations used to be funny is because it was considered turning the tables - the man’s supposed to be all strong and in charge, but he gets his clock cleaned by the “weaker” woman. Of course, those gender roles no longer apply for most of us in the reading audience.
Violence portrayed as funny in comic strips irritates me. Doesn’t matter if it’s man-on-man or woman-on-man. It’s just saying that the writer/artist isn’t being creative. I like Foxtrot, but the Paige-beats-up-Jason-for-prank#X leaves me cold.
About your statistics, Walloon, it’s important to remember that most often, it’s men committing violent crime against men, and men murdering men. I see these statistics misrepresented far too often.
And while I do agree it’s more common, there are cases where, on TV, men beat up women, although not often for comedic effect. Angel has had several long-running and short-running female villains, and most of the heroes who do the fighting are male (Gunn and Angel).
While I don’t think I agree with it, the reasoning behind it is that, most of the time, women have more reason to be afraid of men in real life than the other way around, physically. Joking about something you are not afraid of is okay, joking abut something that you perceive to be a scary, real-life problem is not.
I do agree, however, that we need to start seeing all assault as unacceptable. But then again, where would TV be without violence at all?