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This is brought to you via the Green Hornet, which is getting lukewarm reviews today.
So once upon a time, when men were men and women and minorities knew their place, men (white men, of course, the others don't count) in television and movies and comics were competent and benignly indulgent of the dizziness and incompetence of their female companions and minority sidekicks. See, say, The Spirit or I Love Lucy.
These days, it seems far more likely, at least in light-hearted fare, that the women are the competent ones, while the men are overgrown man-children who need to be gently herded lest they do nothing with their lives but drink beer and make fart jokes. With the Green Hornet, we apparently have the same dynamic--Kato is the hyper competent killjoy to his employer's inanity.
So here's the question. Is it that we've made some progress, so women and minorities are allowed to be competent? (Clearly, not enough progress, as the main character's still a guy and the woman/minority still acts as an "other". Although I'd certainly rather be boringly responsible and competent than a ditz.) Or is the social mores have changed enough that the prejudice is still just as bad? Is it that in the 1950s, competence was prized and therefore only white men got it, while now perpetual adolescence is prized and therefore only white men get it?
(I realizing I'm totally generalizing here. Obviously there are movies with female heroes and so on. Although, I can't think of a movie where a woman acts as badly as the men in, say, Knocked Up or Iron Man. It seems that you can be a useless, irresponsible schlub and still be sympathetic and even heroic, but only if you're a white dude. Anyway, there are lots of exceptions, but I feel like there's enough of a trend to think about.)
So once upon a time, when men were men and women and minorities knew their place, men (white men, of course, the others don't count) in television and movies and comics were competent and benignly indulgent of the dizziness and incompetence of their female companions and minority sidekicks. See, say, The Spirit or I Love Lucy.
These days, it seems far more likely, at least in light-hearted fare, that the women are the competent ones, while the men are overgrown man-children who need to be gently herded lest they do nothing with their lives but drink beer and make fart jokes. With the Green Hornet, we apparently have the same dynamic--Kato is the hyper competent killjoy to his employer's inanity.
So here's the question. Is it that we've made some progress, so women and minorities are allowed to be competent? (Clearly, not enough progress, as the main character's still a guy and the woman/minority still acts as an "other". Although I'd certainly rather be boringly responsible and competent than a ditz.) Or is the social mores have changed enough that the prejudice is still just as bad? Is it that in the 1950s, competence was prized and therefore only white men got it, while now perpetual adolescence is prized and therefore only white men get it?
(I realizing I'm totally generalizing here. Obviously there are movies with female heroes and so on. Although, I can't think of a movie where a woman acts as badly as the men in, say, Knocked Up or Iron Man. It seems that you can be a useless, irresponsible schlub and still be sympathetic and even heroic, but only if you're a white dude. Anyway, there are lots of exceptions, but I feel like there's enough of a trend to think about.)
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Date: 2011-01-14 05:05 pm (UTC)From:Modern Family: The closest character to a ditz dad, Phil, is also a pretty good real estate salesman, competent with technology, and tends to be the calming influence on the family. The other male characters are all competent and reasonable, no nuttier than the women.
Big Bang Theory: The woman is a ditz with common sense, all the male characters are geniuses.
How I Met Your Mother: All 5 characters have real jobs--the men are an unidentified businessman (Barney), a lawyer (Marshall), and an architect/professor (Ted); the women are a reporter (Robin) and an elementary school teacher (Lily). The men are no less mature than the women.
The Middle: Mike's the controlled, competent dad; Frankie's the nutty mom. Enough said.
30 Rock: Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin are competent and mature; Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski play nuts.
The Office: Again pretty mixed gender on the straight characters vs. comics, though more male comics than female.
Better With You: One guy's a slacker, the other's a hotel manager, the two young women are both somewhere in between.
Raising Hope: Everyone's insane.
So at least in TV comedies, I think we have a pretty good amount of gender equality at this point.
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Date: 2011-01-14 05:12 pm (UTC)From:BBT: I don't know if I'd call Penny a ditz, though she was certainly written that way early on. She's very savvy, and while she doesn't keep up with the guys in science, I think she can think rings around them in other ways. I especially like that Bernadette is also a scientist.
I actually wish Kunthrapali and Walowitz weren't so cartoony in their characterizations.
HIMYM: I love, love, love this show's gender equality. Lily and Robin are allowed to be smart and sexual and as raunchy as the guys. I also appreciate that they are two women allowed to choose their reproductive paths without those choices being value judgments on their characters. Even Robin's child-aversion is presented as "Not for me, but fine for others," not OMG NO CHILDREN EVER. (Even when it veers to the latter, they pull back.)
Barney has become a little too cartoony, but I think they're sorta trying to pull that back as well.
I rarely watch either show and grind my teeth from a gender perspective.
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Date: 2011-01-14 06:15 pm (UTC)From:Certainly, and pretty much every female supporting character has been sharp (even the Vegas prostitute Leonard and Raj get to cheer up Howard!) Leslie Winkler, Dr. Barnett, Leonard's mom, and Amy Farrah-Fowler are all in the guys' intellectual weight-class (and in my favorite twist, the actress who plays Amy Farrah-Fowler is actually that smart), while Sheldon's mom is wiser than any of the main cast.
One other cool thing about every show I listed, and kind of unique to modern TV comedies: None of the main characters are wholly perfect or wholly flawed (particularly impressive for Modern Family's cast of 10 including 4 children). How did we end up with a set of 8 still running TV comedies with entirely three-dimensional casts?
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Date: 2011-01-14 06:23 pm (UTC)From: