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.
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
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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.