Why is the guy always the wacky on TV?

[Pronounceable]

There's a lot of quirky/wacky/zany male-straight laced female leads in X of the week shows. From Castle to Lucifer (I think this kinda goes waay back to Moonlighting but I barely remember that as a wee kiddie), it's always the lady who plays the straight man for the other lead's shenanigans. Is this some subconscious sexism thing? Since the woman can't be the clown because reasons?

Anyway I don't overly care about that angle, the title is totally misdirective. Are there any series where the guy is playing the straight man instead of the gal? Two buddies or 3+ ensembles or 1 star+supports don't count. Gotta be a series that exists primarily on the chemistry of male and female leads.

Is this just not a thing? Do these things not exist at all? I wanna see funny women annoying straight mans ( ba dum tss*). That can't be too much to ask.
*I'll be here all week.

[Dienekes]

New girl I think it's called is a sitcom about a weird girl in an apartment. I think she's the wacky one. I dunno I've only seen 1 episode.

Kimmy Schmidt has kimmy as the wacky one with her (still weird) roommate Titus usually being the straight man.

Parks and Rec has Leslie Knope as pretty out there in most of her dealings. She usually plays off of Ron Swanson, and Ben Wyatt as straight men. But she takes the straight man role when dealing with Andy.

[SaintRidley]

Sexism. Women are supposedly not funny and exist only to nag and annoy men. Men in these roles look like buffoons, but they are also presented as being fun, so it cuts less deep for them (also there are a wider availability of roles not slotting into this dynamic for them, as opposed to very slim pickings for comedy roles for women). Almost always the case where you have a family comedy with the father as the male lead.

Slowly getting better on this front, With some shows with female leads, but not sure if it's getting much better in the family comedy set.

[snowblizz]

Sexism.

Exactly, because portraying a woman as the whacky silly character would get you yelled at. Put any minority character in that position and you run the risk of being accused of denigrating them. Don't do it and you still get yelled at.

[AGD]

One old sitcom, where the woman was the wacky one and the man was the straight one, that comes to my mind, would be "The Nanny".

[PhantomFox]

Or to go further back, I love Lucy

[Dienekes]

One old sitcom, where the woman was the wacky one and the man was the straight one, that comes to my mind, would be "The Nanny".

Oh yeah if we're going by old sitcoms: I love Lucy.

Lucy was the weird one, Ricky was the straight man.

Edit: Well played PhantomFox.

[Chen]

Bones has the woman being the "weird" one compared to the super straight laced guy. Somewhat opposite of Castle.

[Zalabim]

I think there's a tendency for the bigger star in the show to get the more proactive role in storylines as well.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Sexism. Women are supposedly not funny and exist only to nag and annoy men. Men in these roles look like buffoons, but they are also presented as being fun, so it cuts less deep for them (also there are a wider availability of roles not slotting into this dynamic for them, as opposed to very slim pickings for comedy roles for women). Almost always the case where you have a family comedy with the father as the male lead.

Slowly getting better on this front, With some shows with female leads, but not sure if it's getting much better in the family comedy set.

Cause it is totally not sexist to portray men as Idiotic Morons Obsessed with sex, who can't focus on a task long enough to get it done correctly and only succeed without help from their wife or children by pure luck or just fail abysmally.

Not at ALL sexist.

[Kitten Champion]

Happens a lot in anime. The male lead is notably generic - that in itself has become a cliche - while the female cast around him is lively and eccentric.

I believe making the male lead an eccentric - supposedly charming - character (in an otherwise serious work) seems to be primarily there to sell the character to the female demographic. Changing that character's gender is more of a risk, I guess? Deviating off the proven ground.

[Razade]

Cause it is totally not sexist to portray men as Idiotic Morons Obsessed with sex, who can't focus on a task long enough to get it done correctly and only succeed without help from their wife or children by pure luck or just fail abysmally.

Not at ALL sexist.

You will be informed, I suspect very soon, that a "majority" cannot be the target of sexism because sexism is only something done to people not in power or that you are correct to say what you say is sexism but it is also perpetrated by a predominately male power base and thus placing yet more female leads who are funny, practicle and in charge will also help to remove your complaint. Of course both positions are fatuous but people still make them.

[ThinkMinty]

There's a lot of quirky/wacky/zany male-straight laced female leads in X of the week shows. From Castle to Lucifer (I think this kinda goes waay back to Moonlighting but I barely remember that as a wee kiddie), it's always the lady who plays the straight man for the other lead's shenanigans. Is this some subconscious sexism thing? Since the woman can't be the clown because reasons?

Anyway I don't overly care about that angle, the title is totally misdirective. Are there any series where the guy is playing the straight man instead of the gal? Two buddies or 3+ ensembles or 1 star+supports don't count. Gotta be a series that exists primarily on the chemistry of male and female leads.

Is this just not a thing? Do these things not exist at all? I wanna see funny women annoying straight mans ( ba dum tss*). That can't be too much to ask.
*I'll be here all week.

Star vs. The Forces of Evil, off the top of my head. She's a magical princess from another dimension. He's the "safe kid" who knows strip mall karate. They fight monsters.

[SaintRidley]

Cause it is totally not sexist to portray men as Idiotic Morons Obsessed with sex, who can't focus on a task long enough to get it done correctly and only succeed without help from their wife or children by pure luck or just fail abysmally.

Not at ALL sexist.

Whoosh.

That was part of my point. It's a sexism that cuts both ways. Women can't be funny because they only exist to nag. Men are dolts, but kind of loveable in their doltishness. It hurts a bit less, though, since it's not like there aren't a ridiculous abundance of roles for men to portray non-doltish husbands, and even the doltishness is played off as a lovable irascibility more than an actual problem.

[ThinkMinty]

Whoosh.

That was part of my point. It's a sexism that cuts both ways. Women can't be funny because they only exist to nag. Men are dolts, but kind of loveable in their doltishness. It hurts a bit less, though, since it's not like there aren't a ridiculous abundance of roles for men to portray non-doltish husbands, and even the doltishness is played off as a lovable irascibility more than an actual problem.

Homer Simpson's portrayal, as it's evolved over the years, can show you how this evolved over the past quarter century, even.

[Ramza00]

Stargate SG-1 with the main lead Col Jonathan Jack. O'Neill (that O'Neill with two lls, there is another O'Neil with one L and he is not that very funny). O'Neill leads SG-1 a 4 person team with him, Samantha Carter (the wacky nerd, worm-hole astrophysicist, yet captain in the air force), Daniel Jackson the language, religion and archaeologist expert, and Teal'C the human/alien hybrid called the Jaffa.

O'Neill special ability was he used to be in the Special Forces for the Air Force and they used him to do Covert Missions where he had to Parachute behind enemy lines and O'Neill had to do nasty things. In Stargate he is now doing the same job except no parachute and it is instead him walking through a wormhole created via an alien artifiact.

Now O'Neill is often making humorous quips but a large part of it is to show how much he is outside his element, the quips are often smarter versions of the saying we are not in kansas anymore, or are forms of sarcasm at the situation that O'Neill can't change the situation such as he can't punch someone nor order someone who works in the equivalent of the intelligence branch of the pentagon that does not follow his chain of command.

He also mocks the villains since the villains are a form of parasitic snake that inhabit human hosts and pose as human mythological gods with the aid of advanced technology which they use to emulate magical powers.

-------------

Contrast this with Samantha Carter who is actually kinda normal some of the time but gets all wacky when science and technology is involved.

[ben-zayb]

I'm guessing it's more of a local media problem? Surely not the case where I came from, where being of a specific sex or gender isn't required to be a wacky character, although we still get occasional subtle deprecating humor based on sex and gender stereotypes of such characters. Additionally, being good at comedy or having an actually funny script apparently isn't a requirement in playing these "wacky" characters.

EDIT: Also, you mean you don't often see the tired cliche of zany, manic pixie dream girl characters in TVs? I'd call that a good thing!

[Yora]

I have the suspicion that it is related to boys of my generation being told "don't hit girls" and girls being told "just hit the boys back". If a girl starts a fight, the adults still blamed the boys.

The only way to get out of that no-win situation is to not fight girls at all. Just ignore them until they get tired of talking to a wall, and you'll be fine. When seen from the other side, this makes this makes it appear like men often don't listen or forget things they've been told, and do things they feel like doing even though previously they agreed not to do them.

Men of 25-35 aren't stupid or deaf. We heard it. We just chose to ignore it. It's a bit like civil disobedience. And if it looks like stupidity, you might even get away with it.

That was part of my point. It's a sexism that cuts both ways. Women can't be funny because they only exist to nag. Men are dolts, but kind of loveable in their doltishness. It hurts a bit less, though, since it's not like there aren't a ridiculous abundance of roles for men to portray non-doltish husbands, and even the doltishness is played off as a lovable irascibility more than an actual problem.

This is our survival strategy: The loveable dolt.

[Noldo]

Old sit-com(?) Dharma & Greg was built on the very premise of interaction between overly serious male lead Greg (played by Thomas Gibson) and his crazy hippiesque wife Dharma (played by Jenna Elfman)

[Psyren]

So we're all forgetting this lady I assume?

Spoiler

Show

[snowblizz]

So we're all forgetting this lady I assume?

Spoiler

Show

No but Friends is an ensamble cast piece with 6 characters, which breaks several of the original posters criteria.

Can't believe I didn't think of Dharma and Greg though.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Don't forget the infamous Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

[BRC]

Sexism. Women are supposedly not funny and exist only to nag and annoy men. Men in these roles look like buffoons, but they are also presented as being fun, so it cuts less deep for them (also there are a wider availability of roles not slotting into this dynamic for them, as opposed to very slim pickings for comedy roles for women). Almost always the case where you have a family comedy with the father as the male lead.

Slowly getting better on this front, With some shows with female leads, but not sure if it's getting much better in the family comedy set.

I think it's a matter of respect. Ideally, the Audience should have about equal levels of respect for all the Show's leads, whether it's a a comedy or a more serious drama.

However, I think Audiences are more forgiving of a Male character's faults than a female character's faults, and this comes from two angles. If a Male lead (like, say, Homer Simpson) is clearly less intelligent than the female lead (Marge), it's fine, the joke is that he's an idiot. However, if the Woman is an idiot, and the butt of the jokes, then they get attacked from two sides. Some people see the character's continuing stupidity or incompetence as annoying. On the other hand, some people will see the show as sexist for making it's female lead an incompetent buffoon, contrasted with their more sensible Male counterpart.


Now, to answer the OP's question, the best example I can think recently is Gravity Falls.

Gravity Falls centers around a pair of twins, Dipper and Mabel, who at first glance fall very much into the Sensible/Wacky dynamic. Dipper is serious, intellectual, and focused on solving the mysteries they face. Mable is goofy and fun-loving. The show makes it work by taking a more complex look at the Twin's relative intelligence.

Spoiler: Blabing about Gravity Falls. Not really any spoilers

Show

What it basically comes down to is that Dipper is neither more logical, nor more intelligent than his sister. He just has different priorities.
He's not so much an Intellectual, as he is a pseduo-intellectual who wants to APPEAR mature and intelligent. Meanwhile, he causes just as much trouble obsessively tracking down mysteries as Mable does goofing off. Meanwhile, while Mable treats things with substantially less Gravitas than her brother, she's unconcerned with appearing Mature, and her goofy antics rarely actually cause problems.

[Razade]

Whoosh.

That was part of my point. It's a sexism that cuts both ways. Women can't be funny because they only exist to nag. Men are dolts, but kind of loveable in their doltishness. It hurts a bit less, though, since it's not like there aren't a ridiculous abundance of roles for men to portray non-doltish husbands, and even the doltishness is played off as a lovable irascibility more than an actual problem.

Well that took all of ten minutes. There are days I curse this gift of calling things before they happen but today is not that day.

[Psyren]

I believe another example of kooky female lead is Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

No but Friends is an ensamble cast piece with 6 characters, which breaks several of the original posters criteria.

Fair enough

[Rodin]

I have the suspicion that it is related to boys of my generation being told "don't hit girls" and girls being told "just hit the boys back". If a girl starts a fight, the adults still blamed the boys.

The only way to get out of that no-win situation is to not fight girls at all. Just ignore them until they get tired of talking to a wall, and you'll be fine. When seen from the other side, this makes this makes it appear like men often don't listen or forget things they've been told, and do things they feel like doing even though previously they agreed not to do them.

Gah, I remember running into that attitude in middle school. A couple of girls decided to do that old playground classic, one kneels behind you while the other shoves you backwards over the kneeling person. They did that to me, and I immediately got up, chased the shover down, and swept her legs to dump her on the ground.

I was met by utter horror from all my classmates, who had all seen the whole thing (and laughed when I was tripped). Because I was a boy, she was entirely entitled to knock me to ground with absolutely no consequences, and any form of retaliation was just not kosher.

On the plus side, I didn't get tripped any more after that.

[Hytheter]

Gravitas

Pun intended? :P

I think you might be selling Dipper a little bit short, but you're mostly right overall.

[SaintRidley]

Well that took all of ten minutes. There are days I curse this gift of calling things before they happen but today is not that day.

You may want to try rereading. The words I said and the words you think I said don't seem to match up.

[Jayngfet]

Because people will complain if you don't.

From what I recall Parks and Recreations began with Leslie being the funny man to Ron/Tom/Whoever's straight man. But after the first season the crew heard that people thought she was "ditzy" and she got more serious and the aformentioned two got played for an increasing amount of gags. Amy Pohler tries to get her share of gags in but there's a pretty notable shift by about halfway through season two from "Leslie takes this stuff way too seriously and tries something ridiculous, everyone else reacts" to "Leslie is both the most capable and least insane person actually working there(if we don't count Ann, who was always meant to play straight man)".

Fundamentally, a big part of being wacky is being stupid. You need to be able to fall for comedically obvious ploys or do something clearly insane for a joke to work as the clowny funny man of the dynamic, and generally speaking men have a bit larger of a leeway to fail in societies eyes while still being amusing. Which is clearly evident in ensable casts as well. Half the gags in friends, especially early on before they could riff on their own mythology, are the guys doing some ridiculous gag based on trying to be macho or dealing with other guys being guys, like the stupid way guys act when they're caught in a situation involving a girl they have no chance with(like Jill Goodacre), or dealing with other guys in a cartoonishly macho territory dispute(like the coffee shop seats bit). You even got the same bits with newer ensembles like Community, where half the gags early on were Troy and Ahbed having a weird bromance or Pierce doing something ridiculously inappropreate(Or Chang being well... Chang). Obviously in both shows the female characters had jokes, but there wasn't the expectation that they were these insane mile a minute cartoon people.

Being a gag character means being able to fail and have something utterly blow up in your face and for it to be funny.

[sktarq]

A girl being wacky will be called ditzy

but also young men have two "classic" ways to gain social acceptance. Be good at sports or be good at making people laugh. We are used to the class clown being a guy. This makes it very easy to translate those people who we meet in life into the art of TV scripts. Din't help that girls who make everybody laugh in school, for many years at least, were treated . . . poorly (a dirty joke from a guy means he was an adolescent but a dirty joke from a girl means she's a slut in some schools but not in others)

so thus a good "wacky" woman is somewhat harder to write - which leads to them being more rare.