The male image has been so pulled down by situation comedy in the last 15 years, it is frightening. I don't like what has happened to the American male.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The general image of a man in an American sitcom is like a complete moron. You'd think the industry was run by a feminist cabal.
American comedies especially are all about these men being browbeaten by their wives and it's impossible for me to watch.
So much of male heterosexual comedy can be steeped in a gay panic. A lot of juvenile comedy is predicated on that.
Whether you look at 'Glee' and its normalization of gay identity or you look at the work of Martin Scorsese and the Italian-American community, American culture is able to take these stories, which are seen as marginalized, and just turn them into American stories. And you don't think twice about it.
We grew up watching Woody Allen and Albert Brooks movies, and we see this neurotic, annoying, unlikeable male at the center of a story, and people root for him anyway. I think that's really what we have been craving as women is the hero who doesn't look perfect and doesn't act perfectly.
A lot of these American actors have this - in my view - misplaced view that they have to look like Action Man. The trouble is, they all run the risk of being interchangeable.
Oh man, there's no shortage of craziness happening on the American landscape right now. I'll turn on the TV every day or check out the newspaper, and there is something to find humor in or something to find absolute fear in. Either way, it makes for good comedy.
I think multicamera comedy is a much-maligned American art form.
When the target audience is American teenage kids, you can have problems. My generation prized really fine acting and writing. Sometimes you have to go back to the basic principles which underpin great visual comedy.
I guess there's nothing funny about a guy who looks conservative and has it all together, but it's satisfying to see a conservative guy crumbling inside, and I think a lot of American comedy has cottoned on to that.