whereas a woman has to be seen as a sexual creature at all times to be acceptable.

If, however she is outside of that image, then whatever her flaws are become her character. The ugly woman, the fat woman, the annoying woman. No more than characters based on exaggerated faults.

Males are this hillarious, childlike influence and are the comedic out put of most shows. They make mistakes and get through them, they have character, people love them for who they are blah blah blah.

Which is great and all…. but how come the chicks don’t recieve such tolerence? See, a guy can be something other than a sexual image i.e funny, smart etc
whereas a woman has to be seen as a sexual creature at all times to be acceptable.
If, however she is outside of that image, then whatever her flaws are become her character. The ugly woman, the fat woman, the annoying woman. No more than characters based on exaggerated faults.

The hot-babe-with-fat-loser syndrome does has some basis in reality - like the country music scene. Dates all the way back to Hee-Haw and beyond. Another reason to hate country music.

Some exceptions though: Superhero comics are directed mostly at male audiences, and most of the male heroes are pretty buff - only the villains are pudgy.

I find pudgy male characters tend to be kind of stupid, which may be another reason why the women are thin and the men fat. TV commercials have driven home the pattern of woman is smarter shopper than man (catering to mostly female buyers, of course) for decades, and now it is part of the culture. Fat just goes with that, I guess. TV needs some really smart fat guys.

Marge has made me personally laugh too many times to count, and I believe Lisa is in fact one of the characters that large numbers of hard-core Simpsons fans routinely name as their favourite. Not as many as Homer (and maybe Bart…but didn’t the whole Bart thing cool off somewhere around 1993 or so?), I grant you, but she has a freaking huge fanbase.

Maybe you’re talking about people who watch the show sporadically or watch it mainly for the jokes involving burps and/or butts?

Seriously, when have you EVER seen an episode of the Simpsons where Marge or Lisa have ACTUALLY made you laugh or have increased viewer ratings? But what about their male counterparts, Homer, and Bart? Can we EVER stop hearing on and on about them in the media? Bart was voted the greatest cartoon character in Time Magazine! Runner up was Mickey Mouse NOT Minnie Mouse. And guess what… there WERE no Female runner ups!

So basically, Men rule the world (well in the media anyway). There are more more shows based on them, more commercials, more cartoons, etc. Most of the episodes, plots, jokes revolve around men. Men do MOST of the funny stuff, while women sort of just sit and nag from time to time.

Infact the male character has become SO powerful, that the female character itself to represent ACTUAL fat women becomes obsolete. If Homer gets fat, it doesn’t mean he’s making fun of fat men, he’s making fun of fat people in general. This is to the extent which Men have generalised everything.

Btw, there MAY be much more adult cartoon shows that tried the fat women thin man thing, but haven’t really achieved that much recognition as ‘The Simpsons’ or ‘Family Guy’ yet. I’ve noted though, that in Children’s cartoons, the FAT women is more used than the fat man.

TV shows based on LIVE actors are different

Take for example ‘Home Improvement’ Tim is ALWAYS in great shape, and he teases his slightly pudgy wife Jill about her weight from time to time. In Frasier, both Daphne and Ross get fat on seperate occasions.

Drew Cary show features an episode where his girfriend pigs out and gets FAT. Let’s not forget Friends, where Monica (though skinny now) is CONSTANTLY reminded how fat she WAS.

I personally think women are MORE humiliated, degraded, and USED in the media about their weight than men. I mean just look at the hype that surrounded when whats her face starred the main role in ‘Bridget Jones Diary’ had to gain all that weight. They made a MOVIE solely about one fat women and how fat she was in ‘Shallow Hal’ (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that starred a Fat man about how fat he was). And the TABLOIDS (ouch) Kate Winslet, Geri Haliwell, Kirstie Alley, all hounded and eaten up alive by the media, and television shows about their weight.

I could go on all night!

Ampersand, I think you hit the nail when you said that SOME cartoons like Simpsons and Family Guy, Flintstones, (Barney is NOT fat by the way and neither is Betty that thin… not according to the Movie) but you REALLY have a LOT more to look around a before you say the same about Sitcoms, or fat women in the media in general. Fat women will ALWAYS be made more fun of than men. Hell we even have an expression made out of fat women

‘It ain’t over until the Fat lady sings.’

Well it’s over now… (sigh)

P.S.

Ooh please check out my website by the way, especially if you’re an FA looking for some Fat girl cartoons and stuff.

American culture would and, in fact, does find fat women threatening.

Two women walk into the room; one woman is overweight, the other one is supermodel thin.

Which woman will intimidate the guys more - the thin woman, or the heavyset woman?

Which woman will the other females react more strongly to?

Really? They make fun of Ann? The couple of episodes I’ve watched, she struck me as a perfectly ordinary looking girl. Which fit in well with the perfectly ordinary looking cast.

It’s a running joke on the show that everyone disapproves but no one is going to say so to George Michael’s face.

I notice there is a sketch show about to debut on Spike TV that features a fat female cast member. While fat men are often seen in sketch comedy, fat women are few and far between. The only one I can think off the top of my head is Lori Beth Denberg on Nickelodeon’s All That. And while a fat girl on a kids sketch show is two kinds of unheard of, they seemed to keep her around just to play adults. Her’es hoping Sarah Baker can fare better.

Lisa Simpson’s chubby, and the episode aired on 11/21/2004 had her worries about her weight as a major plot point. (Two good bits were the girl models at the department store disappearing when they turned sideways, and the store dressers complaining that the mannequins didn’t look right - and then planing material off the mannequins!)

However, adult Lisa has been portrayed as thin, except for the fantasy where she was married to Ralph Wiggum when she thought she was turning stupid.

Two other female characters from Fox Sunday Night of note: teenage girls Maeby and Ann from Arrested Development. Maeby is medium-sized and smart - too smart, a budding conwoman. Ann looks a bit chubby, and is also from a fundamentalist Christian family, but isn’t portrayed as offensive in any way (her parents are a different story…)

And that’s one reason why, IMHO, we don’t have female central characters who are adults and pure Id unless, as many people have pointed out, there’s something wrong with them. The Mom role is adult by definition. The impulse-driven hubby role is childish. (Fat is often seen as a marker for childishness too, BTW.)

If one of the points of this comedy set-up is to define wayward husbands as willful children, the job is easier if they’re a-sexual, because that hides the most prevalent form of waywardness. It also allows watchers to think of it as mere infantilism, and that can make it easier for the women to simply soldier on, as it were. Boys will be boys, seems to be the basic storyline.

Also, fwiw, I’ve heard many actresses comment that comedy is harder than drama. The Oscars may praise dramas more highly, but comedy is more difficult.