Have you noticed this, on almost every television show with married couples, there is a fat (usually eccentric) man and a skinny (usually calm and collected) woman. Some examples are:
The Simpsons
Drew Carey Show
King of Queens
Seinfeld (when George married that woman)
Now why is it that I dont ever recall seeing a heavy woman with a buff or thin man. Never! The only movie I can think of where this is the case is My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Bridgette Jones' Diary (and even these women were not hugely big.
Does this mean that it is only acceptable for a woman to marry and love a fat husband, but all fat women are to be shunned? It bothers me.
You know...I was thinking about writing a post about this sooner or later as well.
It's not only on TV sitcoms but on most TV commercials as well.
They always contain a mostly unattractive, overweight dumpy looking guy who has a hot thin wife.
And they always seem to show that the wife has a great ass!
Have you noticed that? They always get at least one shot of her from behind.
Whenever I see a TV ad like that I want to yell out loud, "Yeah right! Like she would EVER be with him!"
Post Edited (07-08-03 19:11)
Maybe they do it because that's how men and women's brains are wired up.
Men are visual creatures by nature. We go by what we see and are stimulated in this way.
While women are more emotional by nature and tend to look for a mate with financial resources who can provide for her and any young she may produce. (though this doesn't apply to all women)
Women will often be more willing to look past physical appearance if it means the male has good economic stability.
After all...if you're a single guy haven't you noticed that most women will ask you what you do for a living within 5 minutes of meeting them?
As to why they seem to show an overweight guy with a thin beautiful wife with a great ass in TV commercials....I would venture to guess that they're trying to get away from the typical TV ad that shows only ultra good looking people.
But they haven't got it quite right yet.
Post Edited (07-08-03 23:25)
maybe they were thin when the married?:)
Yup, I have noticed it too, and it has always bothered me - and I am a slim woman married to a man who is much larger now than he was when we met...
I suppose it's related to the tendency in TV shows and commercials to make the men goofy and inept, while the women are on top of things.
Might also be appealing to some of the couch potatoes watching. Good looking woman with a guy like themselves.
Surprised Evan's list didn't include Family Guy. Peter Griffin is the ultimate example of this: morbidly obese, stupid as hell, and practically insane.
Of course, sometimes it works the other way, with the woman being bigger or fatter than the man:
* GOOD TIMES
* MAUDE
* THE JEFFERSON'S
* ROSEANNE
The answer to this is simple:
CHICKS DIG THE FAT GUYS!!!!!
I've noticed this too but never really gave it much thought.
The Burgomaster wrote:
> Of course, sometimes it works the other way, with the woman
> being bigger or fatter than the man:
>
> * GOOD TIMES
>
> * MAUDE
>
> * THE JEFFERSON'S
>
> * ROSEANNE
>
>
I know in at least Jeffersons and Roseanne, both people were overweight, Tom Arnold is certainly not thin....
I know TV shows also use equal sized partners, but never have i seen Fat woman, thin men.
Thanks AndyC I totally forgot the Family Guy.
Maybe it is a 15th commandment for men to balloon out once they marry.
Evan3 wrote:
> I know in at least Jeffersons and Roseanne, both people were
> overweight, Tom Arnold is certainly not thin....
In the Jefferson's, George Jefferson (played by Sherman Hemsley) was a very small, scrawny man. His wife was fat in the early episodes, but lost weight later on.
Tom Arnold was overweight, but Roseanne was a fat tub of goo. Much more disgusting than Tom.
In the Jeffersons, they were fairly equal about it. There was skinny George married to the more ample Louise, and across the hall were fat Tom and his slim wife (can't remember her name). On the other hand, George was a short, scrawny, balding loudmouth who had only recently become rich, so he was extremely lucky to have Louise. There's a little more to it than fat and thin.
Roseanne was actually married to John Goodman on the show, who was a little more in her size range than real-life husband Tom.
AndyC wrote:
> Roseanne was actually married to John Goodman on the show, who
> was a little more in her size range than real-life husband Tom.
You're absolutely right! My mistake. John Goodman was a fat bastard.
Let's not forget Fred and Wilma!
The two couples on the stupid, unfunny but highly rated sitcom "Yes, Dear" are both fairly evenly matched in terms of physical size.
It doesn't matter if one was larger than the other we always had a phrase for it:
Spaghetti and Meatballs
And for the record the wife and I fit into that, from the day we were married to today.
I still dont like the fact shows do this. I find it very condescending to both genders.
Another show is I Love Lucy, look at Fred and Ethyl, even Ricky was kinda big caompared to Lucy. This seems to have been going on forever.
Can't forget Ralph and Alice, on whom Fred and Wilma were based. Probably has less to do with a conscious pairing than a show built around fat Jackie Gleason. Maybe the success of that show simply led to imitation, and now the fat husband is simply accepted as funny for no reason anyone remembers. Maybe it's just that there have been a lot of funny fat guys.
This goes way back.. Indeed, back to 1964, but thin man, John Qualen, was married to fat woman, Minerva Urecal in The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao."
it's a conspiracy plain and simple!
that and the fact that many writers haven't had an original thought in decades
and just on another note, pretty much everytime when the woman is overwieght, she is a smart alec, full of sharp one liners [eg drew carey show and roseanne, even gilmore girls, don't ask how i know that one]
is this suggesting that all fat women need to have this sort of personality in order to either get a man or to deal with the fact that they are fat thus keeping people at a distance
if so, this is very damaging, as is the idea that all fat men are stupid goofy, but loveable fools
What bugs me about these shows is that no one ever notices or mentions that the slim hot woman is married to a beached whale.
At least in the (otherwise unfunny) Jim Belushi show "According to Jim" they make references to the looks discrepancy between him and his wife (forget her name, the one who played "Georgia" on Allie McBeal). I think (I don't watch the show but have caught it flipping channels) it may even be a running gag motif.
This at least is tangentially (right word?) realistic.
I wouldn't say it's unreasonable that a fat guy could have a shapely wife. Their friends would have to be pretty superficial to consider it worthy of speculation.
If I remember correctly, the situation in Dr. Lao was of a fat, overbearing wife and a thin, submissive husband. That's an old trick of making the wife bigger to emphasize her dominance over her henpecked husband. She can bully him physically as well as psychologically.
In the case of Jackie Gleason, or of Fred Flintstone, they were that much bigger than their wifes, with oversized bodies and oversized egos, yet it was always clear that the "little woman" was really in charge. I think making the husband fat and homely is not really significant in itself, but part of having a competent, level-headed wife, and a husband who is a bumbling goofball, and source of most of the laughs. It's a formula that works, and they've stuck with it.
There is also a certain simple humour to be found in a mismatched pairing, such as a really tall woman dancing with a really short man.
>(forget her name, the one who played "Georgia" on Allie McBeal).
Courtney Thorne Smith
hey i got a beer gut - WHERE'S MY WOMAN AT!
Thank you!
For me I"M average build woman And I prefer men that are average build or thin. NOt really attractive to guy's that are overweight. Take roseanne she arint not thin girl. Roseanne star of her show she not no thin thing eigher or is her tv husband john goodmen. Only thing right now come to my head I can think of is according to jim Is where jim overwight and his weight thin.
I want to see a sitcom where the husband is smart, kind, and his wife is an overbearing, domineering b***h who always does stupid things. It'd be a nice change of pace.
It gets tiring of women always being right on TV. We all know they're always wrong in real life, don't we?
also family guy and the flintstones
I'm totally with you on this- it's a major pet peeve of mine. I do have *one* example of the reverse though:
Days of Our Lives (stop laughing) had a handsome doctor named Craig who was married to a HUGE woman named Nancy (seriously- probably a good 350 pounder). But alas- they are no longer on the show.
The explanation for this phenomenon is simple. In the examples cited the male is generally a comedian and gets by on his quick wit even if he has a big gut. His female partner on the other hand is cast more for looks, although comedic ability is important she will usually be stuck playing the straight man to her wacky goofball partner anyway.
What about weight loss commercials ? They are quick to show a fat man needing Slim Fast or whatever, but the ladies are always slender.
>What about weight loss commercials ?
Or the commercials for gyms, they're always full of women who look like they just stepped off a runway.
I have noticed this phenomenon occuring in the media as well. However, I think its a matter of art imitating life. I have observed that some big guys who have a little confidence about themselves try to go for slim women, because they figure its beneath them to date a big woman. Alternatively, I have observed big guys who have low self esteem (the most repulsive thing about them is their lack of confidence) try to date anyone who will have them once they have been rejected by those who fulfill societal standstards of what the flavor of the month is ( Lets face it, looks and appearance, its all a ploy to distract women from the real issues in life that they should concern themselves, like poverty, war , community, legislature, etc). Once the big guys with low self-esteem finally achieve the goal of getting a woman, they usually try to keep dating "up" until they get the kind of woman they tried to get in the first place. Ususally they get her, because their confidence levels are higher than they were at first as the result of them finally being able to get more than a few dates.
In a nutshell, I think a lot of fat men think that its beneath them to date fat women no matter how fat the man himself is. Some (a lot of) fat men are just as hard if not harder on fat women about their weight. Some fat men feel they have to prove the worth of their manhood and worthiness of being accepted by the rest of society as a normal red-blooded man and human being by dating a "socially acceptable woman".
In truth FAT or SKINNY, if all that person has to perplex on is somebody else's weight - a person who doesn't even know that they exist in the universe - then that person is pathetic, superficial and out of touch with reality. People need to turn off the T.V. stop living in this fantasy world partially created for them by the media and the rest created as some sort of weird twisted defense mechanism against their own fears and insecurities, and focus on whats real like this big ass war that we are in, the way we are spreading our military across the globe so thinly in efforts to police the world, the special interests of our legislators and the "real" puppeteers/constituents that control them, etc.
You wanna talk about FAT people- lets talk about all the ugly ass people living amongst us who think they are okay and normal because they aren't fat. I'd rather be a fat digusting beached whale than an ugly muthaf*cker. Fat folks can always lose weight if they feel that thats whats right for them. Ugly peolple have to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars just to look "okay" ex. Extreme Makover(except its free). People going under knife to look not much better than they did before, because the real appearance changing comes when they put on make-up, decent clothes, and get a better hair style. Until then,most of those people don't look much different than before. Now make-up, decent clothes, and get a better hair style are things they could have done on their own.
this is f**king bull f**king s**t in real life, the man on the television is some fat dumb slob but the woman is the smart one. but you never see this in real life women want real thin lanky tall men,they dont want fat men. men on the otherhand likw women with a little thickness and its sad. fat women are accepted fat men arent. just look at every couple and you will see. there are f**king clubs for men who like fat women for god sakes I have never heard of clubs for women who like fat or short men,so dont give me this bulls**t about fat women not being accepted. fat and short men are the ones who are not accepted.........................thank you