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How 'Active Clubs' use male bonding, fitness and other healthy activities as a trojan horse for extremism (rachelgilmore.substack.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Name me a single TV show where the man isn’t a moron, and where the woman is not the only functional adult in the relationship, and I could likely show you 100 shows where the man is portrayed as a moron and where the woman is the only functional adult.

You appear to be characterising all TV shows as being family sitcoms with the "dumb husband" and "smart wife" dichotomy. You do realise this isn't the only formula on TV, and is even less common than it's ever been in terms of being made right?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Okay, so I was not specific enough. Let me rephrase:

    “Name me any popular media that centres around a husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend dynamic, where the man isn’t a moron…”

    There we go. Happy?

    And notice the term “likely” in my prior comment. Don’t ask me to pick grains of sand off of a beach when you have the entire beach in the first place. I’ve got better things to do with my life than working through Brandolini’s Law; gesturing to that beach is as far as I am going to go.

    Aside from distressingly rare well-written examples of healthy relationships such as Babylon 5, the “foolish husband, responsible wife” trope is almost everywhere. It even figures prominently in a majority of advertising that features couples interacting with each other.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    “Name me any popular media that centres around a husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend dynamic, where the man isn’t a moron…”

    I don't know. I don't watch that type of show personally. I honestly couldn't comment. I know that it's a trope, I also know that it's a dated trope and that shows like that aren't made that much these days. It's a 90s/00s media trope.

    Aside from distressingly rare well-written examples of healthy relationships such as Babylon 5, the “foolish husband, responsible wife” trope is almost everywhere. It even figures prominently in a majority of advertising that features couples interacting with each other.

    Oh no, not advertising! Woe is me!

    I will never understand this obsession and crying about how random couples are depicted in 30 second advertisement clips. I live with adblock so I genuinely never see any of this. It's honestly such a laughable thing to cry about.

    As for TV, since you've bought up Babylon 5 let me cycle through shows I've seen on the matter where this dichotomy is not true in regards to man-woman relationships: Turk and Carla in Scrubs, Jack and Anne Bonny in Black Sails, Flint and Miranda in Black Sails, John Silver and Madi in Black Sails, John and Aeryn in Farscape, Holden and Naomi in The Expanse, Ed Baldwin and Karen in For All Mankind, James and Cassandra in 12 Monkeys, Rick/Michonne in TWD, The relationship between the leads in Twisted Metal, The relationship between the older couple in Night Sky (unfortunately cancelled). It's even true in the poorly-written Witcher (Geralt and Yennefer). Now are many of these setups strictly "husband and wife"? No. I don't watch shows focused around those themes generally. But these are equal relationship setups where the man is not depicted as an idiot, and the woman not a genius.

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