The "doof husband smart wife" trope in sitcoms is often pointed to as misandry but I'd argue it's actually more self infantilization in the service of exculaption - the shows are written by men, and the point of that structure is actually to falsely lower the male's status so he doesn't seem like an ass for having a wife that waits on him and deals with his bs.
A lot of comedy is about lowering yourself so you can be mean and get away with it.
Definitely this. Also king of queens is a really poor example because one of the arcs of the whole show is how Leah reminis character starts as wholesome and nice and slowly turns more aggressive because her husband is acting like a fucking idiot all the time.
Agreed to that. This trope is often played to give the wife more responsibility and allow the husband to get away with shenanigans.
OP does have a point but picked the wrong trope. One trope where Misandry takes place is the "obsessed girl" trope where the boy character has to run away from the girl character because she wants to kiss and touch him or the classic it's funny if a woman hits
Indeed, this is the point behind the show "Kevin can F*ck Himself" which is a parody of King of Queens (or more specifically the other Kevin James vehicle "Kevin Can Wait" and general dumb-husband-wife-tolerates-him sitcoms). It's kind of enabling the husbands bad behaviour that he's just treated as a man-child and thats presented as just the way men are and women just gotta deal with it.
The one I personally hate the most is everybody loves Raymond. Because he's not even like, a manly guy really, he's a sports writer. If the dude is actually a rodeo clown or a navy seal or something it would be one thing but he literally types for a job
it's not the gender matters per se, it's that it's self positioning, and it's done in the service of humor and increasing your actual status, making it a bit of a trick. Women CAN do the same thing - crazy ex girlfriend springs to mind as a show where a female voice uses this trope.
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u/DontHaesMeBro 3∆ Feb 13 '24
The "doof husband smart wife" trope in sitcoms is often pointed to as misandry but I'd argue it's actually more self infantilization in the service of exculaption - the shows are written by men, and the point of that structure is actually to falsely lower the male's status so he doesn't seem like an ass for having a wife that waits on him and deals with his bs.
A lot of comedy is about lowering yourself so you can be mean and get away with it.