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Comment by dmlorenzetti | Hacker News Reader

Regarding gender imbalance, it's also true that the women on the Simpsons usually represent the voice of reason, leaving it to the men to bring the idiocy. Presumably giving women more air time on the show would require them to create dumber women characters.

So it's possible that the imbalance in "words spoken" can be partly laid down to a conscious decision that "it's just funnier that way."

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This is actually true for most comedy shows. Like you said, men do idiot stuff and women pull them back on track / are the voice of reason.

I believe this comes from two reasons:

- We are more inclined to believe men try and do dumb stuff. And we're more receptive, culturally, to men having "bad traits".

- TV's main demographic is women. Therefore, the "relatable character" ends up being a woman.

[EDIT] Why is the parent being downvoted? The imbalance may be bad, and the first step in fighting it is to understand why it happens.

In one of my college marketing classes, I've heard something similar as the reasoning for commercials as well.

Yep.

But, there is one thing in TV that is totally men dominated. Sports.

I'm not an expert on the matter, but it's what I've read somewhere.

Funilly, I don't know how the demographics for News Channel are, but I'd expect it to be pretty even.

> I believe this comes from two reasons:

Only one.

Women are wonderful effect.

There's no reason why you couldn't have a male and female character acting out some zany scheme together, with the voice of reason provided by another male or female character.

Picking genders to be "the good ones" or "the bad ones" is lazy writing, no matter which side it ends up flattering.

On the other hand, it was hilarious when Lisa was down because all the Simpsons were idiots and then it turned out that all the Simpson men were idiots but the women were quite successful. Very unexpected, which leads to great humor.

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