There’s an interesting disconnect in perceptions of how men are presented on TV. Feminists look at TV and see that the heroes and most of the other characters are overwhelmingly men, and say “That’s misogynist!” Sensitive men look at TV and see that the defining qualities of maleness are crudeness, stupidity, and irresponsibility, and say “That’s misandrist!” And what’s really fucked up is that both are true.

The key is that there are three genders on TV. There used to be two: Normal People and Women. Now there are three: Normal People, Women, and Men. Of course, all Normal People are still male.

The fact that “normal” means “male” is extremely well-established, but I recognize that it may come as news to some. So, briefly, Simone De Beauvoir pinned the problem down, and it is still the default in media today. (If you only read one of these links, make it that one.) It holds up under large numbers and it’s not just in movies. Think about how when you see a TV show with a bunch of different characters, it’s easy to tell who the central protagonist or the leader is: look for the handsome white guy. You’ll be right almost every time. Or, even simpler, ask yourself why, out of the many rats with speaking parts in Ratatouille, not one was female. Then ask yourself why you didn’t even notice that until it was pointed out. Hint: it’s the same reason that, as a child, you didn’t notice that there were no girl Muppets on Sesame Street.

Okay, we done debating male-is-default-normal? Good. Moving on.

Characters labeled Normal People are your heroes, your detectives and space adventurers and doctors and whatnot. They usually have a female counterpart, the lady-detective or girl-space-adventurer or chick-doctor, but that’s understood to be a special subset. Those characters are labeled as Women, and therefore not Normal People. Of course, decades of feminism have made some progress in the characterization of Women, so that female characters have several different types of characters labeled Woman to choose from.

Characters labeled Man, however, have two choices. You can be a dumb, smelly, irresponsible, knuckle-dragging fuckup with no interests other than beer, sports, and tits, or (and this is what blows my mind) you can be mocked for not being that. That’s it, those are the options. Sucks, don’t it?

Astute readers will notice a contradiction here: aren’t all those Normal Person doctors and detectives and space adventurers also men? Well, yes, of course they are, but they’re not Men. They’re Normal People, and the fact that they’re male only comes up occasionally, in which case they pass through Man characterization for a moment. I’ll illustrate this with a scene from the hit show Space Doctor Detectives:

Sergeant Doctor Captain: Look out, team, the serial killer has infected our technosystems with cancer! Dr. Black: Damn, yo! Lt. Woman: Cancer? Sergeant Doctor Captain: (grimly) Space cancer. Lt. Woman: *sob* My mother was serial-killed by space cancer! That’s why I became a Space Doctor Detective! Dr. Black: I did it to get out of the ghetto, G! Sergeant Doctor Captain: I just… hate space, and all its criminal diseases. Lt. Woman: Oh, Sergeant Doctor Captain, you’re so manly! Sergeant Doctor Captain: Well, I am only a man after all! Grunt fart sports boobies fried food! Pardon me while I scratch myself indelicately and fail to comprehend something obvious! Fart! Lt. Woman: Oh, you men, I swear! Sergeant Doctor Captain: Now, quickly, activate the Medical Police Laser! We’re going to laser the technosystems! Lt. Woman: Which technosystems? Sergeant Doctor Captain: (grimly) All of them.

You’ve seen that scene a thousand times, and so have I. Smart, capable, badass heroes turn into idiot sitcom husbands for thirty seconds, just because the writer was momentarily reminded of their maleness. There’s also usually an eyeroll by the female characters at how gross and stupid men are, right before they go back to trying to land their man.

So those are the three genders of TV and most movies: Normal People, who are heroes and leaders, Women, who are various types of Woman-creature, and Men, who are repulsive adolescent pigs. Let’s take a moment to look at how this plays out for viewers.

Female viewers, give up on being the leader and try to get a man. They’re smelly and disgusting and you shouldn’t much like them, but you’re scum unless you have one. We have provided some manless Woman characters as examples, and you will note that they are unhappy and widely disliked.

Male viewers, at all costs, do not mature beyond the age of 12. You are not supposed to, and we will mock the shit out of you if you attempt to grow up. Responsibility, courtesy, and human decency are unmasculine, and so for some reason is healthy food.

Gender-atypical viewers, fuck off. You don’t exist.

Normal Person viewers, I’m not sure you exist either. Most everyone watching is going to fall into one of those other three categories, and absorb the relevant messages to whatever extent they’re going to. In theory, one could see the Normal Person characters as aspirational figures, people that every straight white cisgendered able-bodied neurotypical American middle-class educated male might one day hope to become. I’m not sure how much water this theory holds; even those of us in that narrow minority don’t generally become crimefighting medical prodigies with lasers. (Dammit.) After all, even if we did, we’d still be immature, smelly, and stupid by virtue of being male, we’re assured.

Incidentally, I note that this model is reflected in another sexist contradiction in the real world, where women are going to college in greater numbers than men, but high governmental and business positions are still overwhelmingly male. Young men absorb the idea that they’re not supposed to study or think about stuff, and everyone absorbs the idea that white guys are supposed to be the leaders. Nobody thinks about it, any more than the screenwriters question it when they’re banging out this week’s episode under deadline; we’re just dimly aware that this is how things are, or how they’re supposed to be, or… something.

In short, this tri-gendered system based on unexamined assumptions is incredibly toxic. It’s toxic on every level, it’s toxic from every angle, it’s toxic to every person. I think just typing about it gave my fingers cancer.

Space cancer.

[Edited to fix a broken link.]