You know how on sitcoms, the husband is usually fat, dumb and funny while the wife is smoking hot? (See, King of Queens; Yes, Dear; According to Jim; Family Guy; Roseanne…wait..I mean…um, NOT Roseanne) The other night, my roommate and I were discussing whether Ted from How I Met Your Mother fell into this category. My roommate thinks that no guy who looks/acts like Ted could ever get a girl as hot as Robin and that real life girls don’t think Ted is as “hot” as we real life guys think Robin is. It is clear that Robin is a smokeshow, but is Ted only on the show to make kind of goofy guys falsely think like they have a chance with girls as hot as Robin? Personally, I obviously have to hope that a somewhat nerdy guy with short, black hair who constantly throws out pop culture references can somehow manage to date a girl like Robin in real life. I am not certain that any of this made sense.
Take this out of the television prime time sitcom genre and see it happen time and time again in movies (namely involving the frat-pack). How does Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen, John C. Reilly, and Jason Segel have the show stopping model conveniently fall in love with them every time? It’s the culture that perpetuates itself as boys grow up seeing these models play out in their tv/movies/books, work at being funny/interesting/earnest (as opposed to hitting the gym), and eventually get paid to write screenplays and film treatments that play out this fantasy that boys see on the screen and want to grow up to be, and so forth. However, it’s hard to criticize this cycle as I’ve obviously bought into the whole Ponzi scheme myself.
