Yes very weird stuff, unlike the conventional narrative we've typically seen across the media which is that men are simple-minded buffoons incapable of boiling an egg.
This is completely normal and good.
The "men are simple-minded buffoons" media is mostly comedy, and mostly resonates because we have, indeed, all been simple-minded buffoons at some point (who among us has not failed to boil an egg at least once? It's relatable).
But I can also name off the top of my head media where men are geniuses, and smart, and kind, and wise, and brave... And some of it isn't even Star Trek.
Honestly, if you're typically seeing men as buffoons across media, you may want to change your subscription services.
It's specifically fathers and not men - men are the heroes in countless movies, but only rarely are they such as fathers unless the movie needs to pluck your heartstrings.
I think part of it is that dads are fine being the “lovable buffoon” - even Bandit plays such. But underlying it is a seriousness that is always present but rarely seen (the “enough of that game” line in Daddy Putdown, for example).
Everyone knows the sitcom dad, and yet dads rarely strongly complain about it. Even in this thread it’s more praise for Bandit than anger at Homer’s portrayal.
> Even in this thread it’s more praise for Bandit than anger at Homer’s portrayal.
Initially, and more-or-less consistently for the first 7-9 seasons or so before it switched format and kinda became a straight (if goofy and heightened) version of the thing they'd been satirizing, The Simpsons was a satire of the standard family sitcom format developed over the preceding decades (with roots going back to radio).
At least in those seasons, the characters should be immune from criticism of being too stereotypical (for TV) since that's exactly what it was deliberately leaning into and satirizing—it's a combination of played-straight (and amped-up, even, for Homer) sitcom tropes with subversions of other tropes, with the latter mostly revolving around introducing more-"real" (if still played for laughs and caricatured) characters to the family sitcom format, especially when it comes to authority figures—the principal, teachers, mayor, et c.
> ...men are simple-minded buffoons incapable of boiling an egg
...and yet these buffoon sitcom dads almost always have a huge house in the suburbs, even when they have a stay at home spouse - who's way out of their league.
It's almost as if it's a deliberate depiction for a blank canvas of a character, similar to the plain-jane central character with no personality in YA novels who inevitably gets involved in a love triangle involving the hottest guys (one bad-boy and one nice guy). Being formulaic doesn't make it anti-${DEMOGRPHIC}.
