Links to vaguely pop, vaguely culture articles over on Dirty Feed. www.dirtyfeed.org ISSN 2754-2807
John J. Hoare
Loading...
I feel I am not using Letterboxd to my best advantage.
letterboxd.com/dirtyfeed/fi...
I remember the days when I thought I was above laughing at TV Offal's Catchphrase sketch.
MWC has what I like to call the Are You Being Served? situation - that you can deal with a lot of dodgy material if you're willing to give women genuinely startling, funny material.
The most sexist thing in the world is Ricky Gervais's stated position that "men are stupid, women are sensible".
At this point, I would again point out how many women work on the show, at least in the early years I'm watching at the moment.
Writers, producers, directors... this is a show which is letting women be funny. I'm not sure this has ever been properly acknowledged!
There's something incredibly subversive and progressive in having Peg be such a terrible, neglectful mother.
Having her be the sensible counterpoint to Al would be horrendously sexist. To have her be a worse parent than him, and letting Katey Sagal play a comedic monster, is thrilling.
Someone in my feed is worried that Married With Children was very much "of its time", and it's so rare that any of that bothers me.
Mainly because I don't hate the version of me from 30 years ago.
I don't actually object to people having grown in the last 30 years, but only if we can acknowledge that some things have regressed in that time too.
Television having mainly decided it's "grown past" broad audience sitcom is a certain sign of regression.
In the episodes I'm watching at the moment, when it comes to the big credits at the end of the episode, there's often more women listed than men.
A shame director Linda Day disappears as a regular presence after S2, because I suspect she's responsible for setting a fair amount of the show's tone.
It feels to me that with all the positive attributes of Married With Children - not least its insistence that if we're doing comedy about a family of shitbags, then stereotyping women as automatically caring about their children is its own form of sexism - that we can deal with a few fat jokes.
I wrote a short thing about one of my favourite moments in Married... with Children.
www.dirtyfeed.org/2026/06/elec...
