Boys are so funny when they try to think...

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That was the legend on a purse marketed to young girls that we saw at the mall yesterday. It also had a picture of a rabbit pointing and laughing uproariously.

I've noticed that on the shows sozlet watches, the girls are always smart and capable and the boys are bumblers. Just now we were watching "Blue's Clues" (usually utterly safe from anything iffy) and there was an experiment with magnets, seeing what magnets would and wouldn't attract. There were four kids, four attempts. At the end of it, sozlet said to me, "The girls' experiments always worked, and the boys' didn't." I remembered that something similar came up on "Curious George," too, another nice show. (Kids in a classroom tried something, the girls succeeded, boys didn't, sozlet commented.)

After this latest comment, I asked her "are girls smarter than boys?" ...

Laughing

She changed her answer. The first time she said some variation of "yes" but I couldn't remember exactly what she said, so I just asked her again. This time she nodded, paused, and then said, "At least that's what I feel like but I think that really they're the same" (while making the sign for "equal").

Hmm.

Anyway, has this gotten out of control? Obviously my anecdotes don't a trend make but I've seen a LOT of this, those are just the examples I can think of right off. Have you noticed it? What do you think the implications are, if any?

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It's been out of control for years. Watch any "family" sitcom and you'll see the same thing, but worse. The guy is always made to look like a complete dumb **** and his wife/girlfriend/whatever is always telling him what to do and why he's an idiot when he inevitably screws up.

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kickycan wrote:

It's been out of control for years. Watch any "family" sitcom and you'll see the same thing, but worse. The guy is always made to look like a complete dumb **** and his wife/girlfriend/whatever is always telling him what to do and why he's an idiot when he inevitably screws up.

So what's your point?

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kickycan wrote:

It's been out of control for years. Watch any "family" sitcom and you'll see the same thing, but worse. The guy is always made to look like a complete dumb **** and his wife/girlfriend/whatever is always telling him what to do and why he's an idiot when he inevitably screws up.

That's 'cause sitcoms are about relationships, not about fixing cars.

Go find a rerun of "Junkyard Wars," and stop watching sitcoms....

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Sozobe wrote:

Boys are so funny when they try to think....

Is it the tongue between the teeth, or the squinty eyes?

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http://www.familieslink.co.uk/images/stupid2.gif

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http://i17.ebayimg.com/02/i/06/4d/a1/44_2.JPG

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Overcompensation for past injustice?

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Past, Hell. It's always been that way. As in "Father Knows Best" Donna Reed, et.al.

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That's what I'm thinking, George.

I mean, past injustice, for sure, but I'm not liking the overcompensation part.

Should I picket in front of the store?

It's just a joke, right? :-? (I'm trying to think of how I'd react if it were "Girls are so funny when they're trying to think" -- er, that'd make me funny, wouldn't it -- and I'm sure I'd be outraged but I don't know if I'd picket the store.)

Kicky, what do you think should be done?

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roger, so you're saying it's not new?

There was a review in the Onion recently of "Family Ties" that said in part:

Quote:

Still, the main reason to watch Family Ties in 2007 is to witness a dynamic we don't see much on TV these days, between two likeable, intelligent, decent men with opposing approaches to life. Today, men on sitcoms are largely geeks and oafs, equally petrified of anything feminine. On Family Ties, men ran public-TV stations and read the newspaper, and though most episodes ended in copouts, with Fox's conservatism safely neutered and Gross' liberalism overwhelmed by his paternalism, at least they were allowed to feel.

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/59140

(Kicky's comments reminded me.)

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Guys, let's give the women this one.

Not being able to drive is painful enough for them...wait, they actually think they can safely pilot automobiles...

This commercialization of males being dumb is outrageous!

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sozobe wrote:

roger, so you're saying it's not new?

I dunno about Roger but I don't think it's new. I think it's more of an "It's all that's left...".

Lucy did it with Ricky too but some of it always fell back on Lucy's antics. Archie was a bigot and Edith let him now it on occassion but she was a ditz.

In most sitcoms now all of the laughs are at the expense of the guy. Laughing at a woman's failings is largely no longer acceptable (unless it's by another woman...). Race and religion are out too. What is left is the remaining social rule that says it is OK to still laugh at the foibles of men.

I don't think there has been any planned effort to make things that way. Everything else just became off-limits.

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The Life of Riley, which began on radio and migrated to TV in the 1950s- Riley was always the bumbler in the family.

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sozobe wrote:

roger, so you're saying it's not new?

Hardly

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I agree, fishin', in that I don't think it's planned, mostly just process of elimination.

If all those other things are unacceptable, though, should this be acceptable?

Is it OK that my daughter thinks girls are smarter than boys? (Even if she recognized a trap when she saw it? Laughing

)

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I think fathers have taken the biggest hit, most are buffoons compared to their wives and kids. I think it hit a low with "Married With Children" , a show I found more painful than funny and rarely watched. Even shows that I think are funny like "Everyone Loves Raymond" tends to make Dad the dope. What happened to the good old smart dads like Charles Ingles and Pa Cartwright?

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They died.

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sozobe wrote:

Is it OK that my daughter thinks girls are smarter than boys? (Even if she recognized a trap when she saw it? )

I think real life still trumps the media. We are constantly being fed ideas about ourselves and others via TV, computers, magazines, videos etc. All we can do it encourage our children to think for themselves and apply their life experiences to their common sense.

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Boys are so funny when they try to think...

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