If I watch an action movie, I am not intimidated by or identify with the cool guy in the movie because I'm not the guy they're portraying. When sitcoms and commercials emasculate and defame the everyman, I know they're talking about me.
daaaaaamn man. You're telling me you don't identify Jerry Seinfeld, you identify with George Costanza?
Because when I've seen men get emascualated or mocked on TV, it's due to some jackassery on their part, and I don't feel the need to empathize. Isn't that true for you as well?
If there's an over-riding theme in media regarding men that I would report, it's that the consequences they experience are a result of their actions. I'd call that just as far from the truth, but an otherwise pleasant lie.
When I see the stereotypical sitcom dad, he keeps fucking up to telegraph to the audience that he's a fuckup, AKA Barney Fife, not to be a morality play "don't do this or this will happen." Barney can't not be a fuckup because that's his identity. Andy is a well-rounded character, he's not even perfect, sometimes he plays the fool and you learn the lesson, so it serves the morality play function. The dad on My Three Sons is near-perfect, he's the opposite of Barney Fife, his identity is that he's an inhuman archetypal father-figure. I Could see how this could be intimidating, but at least it's something to aspire to. From my perspective, the first two have mostly disappeared from television and most male characters that I would identify with are made to be Barney Fifes. There are also a lot of characters I don't identify with at all, I don't think anybody is supposed to identify with any character in Seinfeld, they are all supposed to be nigh-sociopathic. The audience is invited to laugh at all of them.
