Liberal Talk Radio

Proving once again that it has a direct line to the little voice inside my head, Slate today publishes an article on sitcoms featuring fat men and their gorgeous wives. His main examples are According to Jim and King of Queens, two shows which I found utterly repellent the few times I watched them, and for exactly the same reason the article implies: why do these fat, infantile men date these knock-out women?

My first reaction is that, well, most of this stuff is written by men, and so it acts out male fantasies, and Matt Feeney seems to agree. But he takes it one further:

But it’s not just men watching these shows, and, as Alessandra Stanley suggested in a review of the country western sitcom Rodney, it’s not just a male id they express. As the bitter, recent book The Bitch in the House and the extreme popularity of the delightful, tendentious Desperate Housewives seem to indicate, the war of the sexes has shifted from the workplace back to the household and the bedroom. In portraying husbands as lousy parents, marginal breadwinners, and repellant sexual partners, the fat-husband sitcoms convey a persecution fantasy that rises from the same swamp of resentments as these books do: “Yes, I’m supercompetent and I even look great, despite all the crap I have to deal with, and, yes, that’s my husband over there, the fat, useless one scratching his nuts.”

Interesting. Not sure I totally buy it, but I think it adds a layer to the debate.

Also, I’d like to point out a couple of other similar sitcom situations. First, there’s George from Seinfeld, who was always dating women more attractive than he, but what was brilliant about that show was that it was George’s obvious neuroses that turned them off. He was never a likable charachter. Second, there’s Peter and Lois from The Family Guy. Now, I won’t go so far as to call Lois, an animated character, hot, but she’s definitely smart and well put together, and it’s difficult to watch the show some times because I don’t buy AT ALL why she stays with this yutz.

I guess she’s just acting out a female persecution fantasy.