Married with Children as a Parody of Men's Rights Activists

MovieBob

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Married with Children as a Parody of Men's Rights Activists

#NOTALLBUNDYS

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Jan 12, 2012
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Note to the editor: It should be "Polk High" in that first line on the first page, not "Pol High". As well, the last paragraph has weird formatting: it cuts from the middle of one line, and the words, "Century MRA fringes predicted with eerie accuracy" are repeated at the end.

OT: Interesting article. One of the weird flukes of popular culture (and history in general) is how we can look back and tie two things together that somehow echo each other, like Chris Rock predicting OJ Simpson's book.
 

Something Amyss

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Well, no. It didn't really predict anything. Orwell didn't predict Fox News, Hollywood didn't predict 9/11, Kids in the Hall didn't predict Glenn Beck, and this didn't really predict MRAs. I doubt anyone saw this becoming a real thing. It seems too stupid to become a real thing. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to friend zone this article.
 

Falterfire

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This would probably be more interesting if you had gone a bit more in-depth on what exactly the NO MA'AM organization did in the show. I'm very familiar with the whole MRA mess, but this article didn't do a terribly good job of highlighting any ways to connect it back to the show. The troubling aspects of MRA run much deeper than just husbands who feel henpecked and enjoy a good drink, but that's all the article mentioned.
 

C.S.Strowbridge

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Cracked.com had a three-part Rom.com video series about the inner workings of a dating site. In the second part, we see interviews with several people on the site, what they said in their interviews, and what they really meant. Two of male characters are eerily like Elliot Rogers. He's owed sex and hates women for not thinking he's worthy, but also is incredibly picky about women he wants.
 

hermes

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Except their take on criticism makes every thing a target. Truth, NO MA'AM was an over the top parody of clans based around machismo and ignorance, but the portrait of feminists groups was so equally over the top (with Al's yuppie neighbor being both the butt of many jokes and the most vocal member of the group) in its representation that you can't help but agree with some of NO MA'AM points.

Its the "Magneto" argument all over again. We know they are a bunch of insecure, ignorant (yet charismatic) cavemen living in Chicago's suburbia, and we are supposed to think of them as "the losers" by default, but their opposites are so cartoony vocal and misguided champions of political over-correctness, that you can't help but thinking: "hey, maybe they do have a point..."
 

Mr. Q

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I watched Married... With Children but I never really enjoyed it. I may have laughed at one joke or two but the majority of the show was just repulsive. As for why I watched it, I can't say. I could use the "watching a train wreck" excuse, but I think it was mostly due to being a teenager and lacking a refined pallet for television. Or maybe I wanted to hurt myself mentally (I was going through a rough patch in my life, BTW).

As for the Men's Rights Activists, be it the fictional parody on a 90s sitcom or the disgusting reality we face today, it is definitely one movement that needs to be dumped into a mass grave alongside other outdated concepts and empty ideas. I'd call the MRA as outdated as the Betamax, but the Betamax still has a functioning purpose in the world.
 

youji itami

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Mr. Q said:
I watched Married... With Children but I never really enjoyed it. I may have laughed at one joke or two but the majority of the show was just repulsive. As for why I watched it, I can't say. I could use the "watching a train wreck" excuse, but I think it was mostly due to being a teenager and lacking a refined pallet for television. Or maybe I wanted to hurt myself mentally (I was going through a rough patch in my life, BTW).

As for the Men's Rights Activists, be it the fictional parody on a 90s sitcom or the disgusting reality we face today, it is definitely one movement that needs to be dumped into a mass grave alongside other outdated concepts and empty ideas. I'd call the MRA as outdated as the Betamax, but the Betamax still has a functioning purpose in the world.

I was laid off on the 19th December last year, 119 staff in my department 42 white men the rest women or non white men all 42 white men were 'let go' because it's easier as women and non white men can and do sue every time for 'discrimination'. This is a thing now.
 

Vegosiux

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This is about as legit as Nostradamus having predicted pretty much everything. Of course if you dig deep enough, find a few pieces that fit, disregard the rest, and the context, and the time and place something was created in, you can derive all kinds of alleged prophetic ability from it.

But these things, I call them "coincidences".
 

Burnouts3s3

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I don't think the NO MA'AM movement was ever meant to be taken seriously. Everytime they tried to do something, whether it'd be to start a church or get Psycho Dad back on the air or hijack a daytime talk show, it always ended in failure. Really, they just the mad rantings of a man left back in the old ways of thinking, a Willy Loman but much sillier (is it any wonder that one of the episode titles was 'Death of a Shoe Salesman'?)
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

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Andrew Siribohdi said:
I don't think the NO MA'AM movement was ever meant to be taken seriously. Everytime they tried to do something, whether it'd be to start a church or get Psycho Dad back on the air or hijack a daytime talk show, it always ended in failure. Really, they just the mad rantings of a man left back in the old ways of thinking, a Willy Loman but much sillier (is it any wonder that one of the episode titles was 'Death of a Shoe Salesman'?)
So how does that differ from the MRM? Most of the time the noise that comes from them are the rantings of men left behind in the old ways of thinking and unable to cope with a society in which their gender doesn't instantly transfer privilege onto them. Just like Movie-Bob I've also seen Al Bundy reflected in the MRM, though I always chalked it up more to coincidence than some kind of stroke of genius from the show runners.
 

Redd the Sock

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If you're attacking MRAs, you might want to pick something other than this. Al's past glory was nothing compared to Peg's. She never grew out of her cheerleader mindset that said all she had to do was look pretty and put out and get provided for. Al put food on the table, she wanted to eat out and never cook. She wanted a maid, he needed to get a second job. He put away cash to buy a new car, she dug it up from the back yard for lotto tickets. Al rarely if ever got treated like a person (at least after the first season when the show stopped playing it straight) but rather a cash machine you got to blame for your life sucking. Marcy wasn't much better as the show progressed her from sweet and naive, to someone that actively looks down on Al for his status, and into a more active nemesis that almost seemed to take joy in crushing his. By the time NOMAM came about the show was a parody of its own parody, but if you truly stop and look at how Al was treated by the people in his life, can you blame any push back he might try to make? It doesn't paint the idea of an MRA as a bad guy, but an understandable push back against an idea that feminism that has a vision of equality in which a man's opinion, thoughts, desires and dreams don't matter so that women can be happy.

Whether that's accurate in reality today is a different question, one I really don't want to tackle right now.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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yeah, definitely a weirdly prophetic concept. Like Married, the MRA is a complete joke just because it's completely stupid. These are mostly men who just can't evolve and thus are going to be left behind. These kind of guys are going to become extinct and they're just making the process more painful than it needs to be.
 

V4Viewtiful

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Redd the Sock said:
If you're attacking MRAs, you might want to pick something other than this. Al's past glory was nothing compared to Peg's. She never grew out of her cheerleader mindset that said all she had to do was look pretty and put out and get provided for. Al put food on the table, she wanted to eat out and never cook. She wanted a maid, he needed to get a second job. He put away cash to buy a new car, she dug it up from the back yard for lotto tickets. Al rarely if ever got treated like a person (at least after the first season when the show stopped playing it straight) but rather a cash machine you got to blame for your life sucking. Marcy wasn't much better as the show progressed her from sweet and naive, to someone that actively looks down on Al for his status, and into a more active nemesis that almost seemed to take joy in crushing his. By the time NOMAM came about the show was a parody of its own parody, but if you truly stop and look at how Al was treated by the people in his life, can you blame any push back he might try to make? It doesn't paint the idea of an MRA as a bad guy, but an understandable push back against an idea that feminism that has a vision of equality in which a man's opinion, thoughts, desires and dreams don't matter so that women can be happy.

Whether that's accurate in reality today is a different question, one I really don't want to tackle right now.
In conclusion women suck and don't do enough of it ;)

Anyway, when I watched the show it did sometimes feel Al's nihilism and anger where to often justified like "He may me Bad but they're worse" sorta thing.

I for one don't like what feminism has been allowed to become over the years, alas it could be worse.
 

Toilet

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It's kind of sad that the general view of MRA groups are labeled as hateful, misogynist and ridiculous where some groups like Fathers 4 Justice, Save Indian Family Foundation and National Coalition for Men actually do some good work. It's almost like how those tumblr feminist don't represent the entirety of feminism as a whole just how a single angry guy with a gun doesn't represent all MRAs.

Also just because I like to draw parallels: Valerie Solanas = Elliot Rodgers.
 

blalien

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Toilet said:
It's kind of sad that the general view of MRA groups are labeled as hateful, misogynist and ridiculous where some groups like Fathers 4 Justice, Save Indian Family Foundation and National Coalition for Men actually do some good work. It's almost like how those tumblr feminist don't represent the entirety of feminism as a whole just how a single angry guy with a gun doesn't represent all MRAs.

Also just because I like to draw parallels: Valerie Solanas = Elliot Rodgers.
I agree. The only thing worse than asshole MRAs are people who won't acknowledge that sometimes they make some good points.
 

Zorg Machine

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There should be something in this article about the sane side of mens rights activism (not that any sane person would use that name) as there are legitimate problems that need to be brought up. While the majority of MRA's do seem to be merely opposing feminism and women's rights the fact is that a significant portion of domestic abuse is towards men (even legitimate studies show as high as 30-40% of domestic abuse victims are male in USA) and most organizations focused on helping domestic abuse victims focus solely on women.

Men generally have it easier than women, MRA's are often assholes and the idea that feminism is pushing down men below women is ridiculous but (and this is a big but) saying that talks about mens rights is silly and anyone saying that men have specific problems that need to be dealt with is a sexist is beyond stupid.
 

V4Viewtiful

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Toilet said:
It's kind of sad that the general view of MRA groups are labeled as hateful, misogynist and ridiculous where some groups like Fathers 4 Justice, Save Indian Family Foundation and National Coalition for Men actually do some good work.
I actually knew someone who was in fathers for Justice (threw my dad), he contributes to some of it's funding. Nice guy, his ex filled his sons head with rubbish till one day he was 13 and found out the truth. I think he didn't talk to his son for 5ish years and he Paid for her high standard of living while she was married to another (richer) dude.

Men are browbeaten by the law quite often when children are involved.
 

FogHornG36

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White knights! TO THE RESCUE!

Just so everyone knows, there is no evidence that links that kid that shot up the school to MRA, the closest thing the could come up with was being subscribed to a pickup artist's channel on you-tube, but like most "feminists" research is not required, and facts can be sexist.

If you want to know what a real MRA looks like, look here.

https://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat/videos
 

Lady Larunai

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Sadly both sides have both good and generally idiotic views especially with each having thier "boogeyman/woman" fears

And sadly it is a game of sides because you can't disagree with anything without being labeled some kind of uninformed biggot misogynist manhating potato puppet.

I have my likes and dislikes of both sides but I find it's better to eat popcorn and call them all idiots from a distance.