4 ms·

Like a lot of people have said, modern shows are very much into the everyman male lead. Bryan Cranston's character in Malcolm in the Middle, Ed O'Neill's Al Bun

Like a lot of people have said, modern shows are very much into the everyman male lead. Bryan Cranston's character in Malcolm in the Middle, Ed O'Neill's Al Bundy, Tim Taylor playing, once again, the affable rough-though-bumbling dad. The thing is these are all prime-time sitcoms and comedies. There's just as many popular shows where this isn't the case. Dramas rarely have this sort of soft, incorrigible-but-loveable archetype. I'm not super-current on my media, but Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, Mad Men... most everything on HBO, Showtime, AMC, and FX run with strong, deep, emotionally complex male characters who grow and discover themselves, alongside the female characters. And the male characters in these dramas are, on the whole, much more identifiable and aspirational.

humanrebar 11y ago
> Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, Mad Men Those characters are aspirational? They're almost all murderers, thieves, adulterers, or worse. I wouldn't want my son to be anything like any of those characters. Part of the problem with the antihero-as-role-model is that it also conveys that being interesting is important. And to be interesting, it's good (or at least OK) for a man to have significant character flaws. So many soon-to-be-men think having your crap together is boring and thus unattractive. And many women think falling for a flawed man and fixing him is a romantic notion.
- mattlutze 11y ago
  Yeah, aspirational was probably the wrong statement there. Your son probably shouldn't be like any character on television, whether that's the antihero or bumbling means-well-but-worth-nothing comedy father. But Interesting doesn't require character flaws. Those exist in characters in stories to provide space for developmental arcs -- space for us to see them grow and change, something we all want to do. They exist to make a point out of a story. And these folks are so identifiable because we all sometimes feel like a not-put-together person. Heck, look how popular Breaking Bad, or House, M.D. were -- Laurie and Cranston were insanely popular in those roles because in their ridiculousness they reflected traits many people understand. Though I doubt their performances encouraged any meaningful percentage of the nation's fathers to start cooking meth, or medical professionals to treat people for lupus. The story for a lot of these characters is that you can look like you have your shit together and still have space to learn, grow, evolve. Sure, it's in the context of murders and whatever because there's more drama there than "guy that goes to the office and has an ongoing feud with his HOA". But that doesn't invalidate the story, or directly encourage the audience to adopt the superficial story components.

humanrebar 11y ago

> Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, Mad Men Those characters are aspirational? They're almost all murderers, thieves, adulterers, or worse. I wouldn't want my son to be anything like any of those characters. Part of the problem with the antihero-as-role-model is that it also conveys that being interesting is important. And to be interesting, it's good (or at least OK) for a man to have significant character flaws. So many soon-to-be-men think having your crap together is boring and thus unattractive. And many women think falling for a flawed man and fixing him is a romantic notion.

mattlutze 11y ago
Yeah, aspirational was probably the wrong statement there. Your son probably shouldn't be like any character on television, whether that's the antihero or bumbling means-well-but-worth-nothing comedy father. But Interesting doesn't require character flaws. Those exist in characters in stories to provide space for developmental arcs -- space for us to see them grow and change, something we all want to do. They exist to make a point out of a story. And these folks are so identifiable because we all sometimes feel like a not-put-together person. Heck, look how popular Breaking Bad, or House, M.D. were -- Laurie and Cranston were insanely popular in those roles because in their ridiculousness they reflected traits many people understand. Though I doubt their performances encouraged any meaningful percentage of the nation's fathers to start cooking meth, or medical professionals to treat people for lupus. The story for a lot of these characters is that you can look like you have your shit together and still have space to learn, grow, evolve. Sure, it's in the context of murders and whatever because there's more drama there than "guy that goes to the office and has an ongoing feud with his HOA". But that doesn't invalidate the story, or directly encourage the audience to adopt the superficial story components.