CW: Discussions of misogyny and sexism, mental health, and abuse. No major spoilers.

Header image from The TVDB.

What does it mean to “have power over someone”? Men frequently have power over women. And yes, this includes relationships. Women–for decades–were expected to essentially give up their autonomy, their interests, and their well-being for the sake of their husband or boyfriend. Even today, this attitude–of self-sacrificing women and entitled men–permeates a great deal of heterosexual relationships in the world, either strictly enforced by culture or implicitly enforced by society’s incredibly warped view on gender relations/the gender binary. And of course media has reflected this since Day One basically, with some notable exceptions. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Of course the media we consume is going to reflect the status quo of whatever society/time frame we’re living in, right? This obviously isn’t always the case, with fictional media often pushing boundaries and barriers for shock value, art, or social justice. Despite the horrific treatment of women in Hollywood that continues to this day, most major social movements–in both real life and fiction–couldn’t have gotten off the ground if it wasn’t for female intervention. So naturally women–mostly heterosexual women–are taking over the big screen and the small screen. Can’t walk three feet without stumbling into a female character who is actually more than just a sexy lamp. Although this was inevitable, it also represents a definitive cultural shift in the West. Women are no longer decoration. And women putting up with crappy partners and deeply unequal relationships in which they’re expected to do ninety-percent of the emotional and physical labor? Relationships in which women gain very little satisfaction while also taking on the responsibilities of a mother to a grown adult man? These are fading fast from the mainstream, with some women choosing to forego dating altogether. And fictional media reflects that, showing us a more nuanced approach to female empowerment. Women are taking back the narratives that have been forced on them for centuries and daring to question if those narratives were ever okay.

Kevin Can Fuck Himself–or as it is often stylized, “Kevin Can Fk Himself” or “Kevin Can (bleep) Himself”–deals with one such narrative: the woeful tale of the Sitcom Wife. The intelligent yet often belittled and eternally tired woman slaving away to deal with her man-child of a husband. For decades, this story–the story of the Nagging Wife and Fun-Loving Husband–has been used as a way to model a comedic–yet also very real–relationship dynamic for heterosexual couples. She’s responsible, anti-fun, and often unreasonable in her attempts to curtail her husband’s behavior. He’s quirky, excitable, and always reaching for some new scheme. And most importantly, the world revolves around him. No matter how badly he screws up, everything always works out in the end and The Wife ends up looking like a Grade A Idiot for complaining. But despite everything, she stays with him. She irons his socks, does all of the cleaning, cooks his meals, etc. Expecting The Husband to actually take care of himself is often used as a punchline. She leaves him alone for the weekend and wacky hijinks ensue as The Husband attempts to do simple household tasks. Unfortunately, he’s just so dumb and coddled that he can’t even wash his own shirt for the big job interview! But gosh-darn-it. That’s just how men are, isn’t it? So stupid and unable to take care of themselves, while The Wife is just so smart and naturally able to take care of a household with little stress! (sarcasm) On the surface, this tired trope might seem feminist. After all, it’s casting The Wife as the smarter of the pair. But in reality, it’s actually shackling The Wife to her society-deemed role as a Mother. The mother of a selfish and reckless man-child who has no desire to learn simple tasks because his mommy-wife will do it for him. The Wife is expected to perform domestic duties with a smile on her face. And if she doesn’t? Well, she’s a shrill harpy bitch, right? (sarcasm) It’s not that The Wife is smarter and more responsible than her husband by chance. No, the two of them have been regulated into certain roles. The Wife is “naturally” better at domestic tasks than her idiot husband because she was socialized to be, and the Narrative sees nothing wrong with this. It’s how things should be, according to the story. It’s not empowering, it’s simply a reflection of social roles. It is presented as humorous because it is–despite the accuracy–still somewhat of an exaggeration. But at the end of the day, the relationship works. Through all the fights and tantrums, The Wife and The Husband love each other. Despite her griping, The Wife submits to her husband’s every sexual need–even though there’s no way he even knows where the clitoris is, yet alone how to play with it–and he brings her flowers sometimes. And if she doesn’t want to have sex with her entitled man-child of a husband? Well, she’s obviously a rude shrill harpy bitch! Doesn’t she know that five seconds of unsatisfying PIV sex with no clitoral stimulation is a cross all Good Women must bear, lest they be shamed? (sarcasm) This dynamic is presented as both inspirational and functional. “But it’s just a show!” you scream. “It’s not real! It’s supposed to be funny!” This is true, but there are many relationships like this in real life. And this was especially true at the time shows like this were the most popular. Remember, when this genre first really took off, it was around the time that things like martial rape and spousal abuse were still widely practiced and legal in the United States. While casting The Husband as an idiot who needs his Wife to keep him on the straight and narrow was a bold choice, this was done over a backdrop of extreme misogyny in the USA. Misogyny and homophobia and transphobia, which often worked their way into these shows.

Fiction is never simply fiction. It is a reflection of the times we live in and what is considered “acceptable”. Back when The Simpsons first aired, being gay was still illegal in the United States. While The Simpsons broke the mold in several ways–including having an entire episode dedicated to Homer facing his homophobia–it should be pointed out that one of the ways it broke the mold was by showcasing a real American family. Overworked husband and wife with their unappreciated smart daughter and trouble-making son. Homer was naive and childish, but ultimately a good husband trying his best. And Marge always tried to work with him, instead of endlessly complaining. The two of them were clearly a victim of the botched middle class American family dream.Yikes. It really says a lot that a husband and wife loving each other and trying to work as a unit was considered “subversive” for its time, doesn’t it? And not just Homer and Marge loving each other and working as a unit. Early Simpsons gave us a brutal take-down of work and family culture in America, showing us how that “perfect family on TV” was an impossible dream. Marge’s struggles as an unappreciated housewife and mother were brutally real and Homer’s deep dissatisfaction with his mediocre life were touched on extensively. Homer and Marge lament not being able to afford luxuries for their children, including a fancy school that would have nurtured Lisa’s deep intelligence at an early age. Instead, Lisa channels her creative energy into her saxophone, but also struggles to find intellectual stimulation in her surroundings. Throughout the series, Lisa grasps at any and everything that might give her this intellectual stimulation, but it’s always fleeting. And Bart is a tragic case of a smart happy young boy turned trouble-maker after being chastised for his “thinking outside the box” behavior early in life. The school system failed Bart, sending him spiraling into pranks and destructive behavior as his good behavior was both literally and metaphorically beaten out of him by teachers and fellow students. Needless to say, this wasn’t the ideal vision of American life that was present on television. But it was a more realistic portrayal. And in a weird way, The Simpsons laid the ground-work for shows like Kevin Can Fuck Himselfto eventually take the stage.

Kevin Can Fuck Himself takes the traditional Sitcom Wife and subverts it beyond recognition, showing us the jarring truth. In the happy family sitcom world, Allison is bright and deeply in love with her man-child husband Kevin. But in the bleak real world, Allison is deeply unhappy, mentally unstable, and on the edge of having a breakdown. Detached from Kevin’s POV, Allison dislikes both her life and Kevin with a burning passion. But up until the start of the series, she’s been too cowardly and hopeful of a better future to attempt an escape. This whole thing turns around after Patty–Allison’s neighbor and Kevin’s only female friend–reveals that Kevin blew the entire savings account. Yep, Kevin and Allison have no savings and Allison is the last to know. Allison ends up spiraling and–in one haze of anger–decides that it’s time she took matters into her own hands. And that is the basic premise of the show. While Allison isn’t an entirely sympathetic character, her frustration over Kevin’s actions and her inability to just throw away the relationship feel very raw and real. Allison is treated with way more sympathy than the average Sitcom Wife. Probably because she isn’t your average Sitcom Wife. She is an intentional bastardization of this trope. Much like The Simpsons lambasted “traditional” sitcom/family shows with its satire of American life, Kevin Can Fuck Himself takes a more dramatic and less comedic approach to this. It’s not even satire. It’s more like a peek behind the veil, alternating between Allison’s point of view and Kevin’s. The world immediately shifts whenever Kevin walks into the room, becoming brighter and less realistic. The laugh track plays and the tone flips from darkly serious to playful. This tonal shift is intended to be abrupt, but also it showcases how Kevin and Allison live in separate realities. While Kevin’s is carefree and simplistic, Allison’s is more bleak and complicated. This is important, because it showcases a fundamental difference in how Kevin and Allison process the world: Kevin never worries about anything and the world literally brightens when he enters the room. He hardly ever takes anything seriously, so the world around him appears childish and funny. On the other hand, Allison feels trapped. Her world is multi-dimensional and full of drama. Cheating, drugs, fertility issues, etc. And it really highlights just how detached the stereotypical Sitcom Husband was from reality and how the only real grounding factor in his life was the stereotypical Sitcom Wife. Yep, the Wife who sucked all the joy out the room by being a…responsible adult? By being frustrated over her husband’s terrible childish behavior? And it’s not like Allison is above these tropes. In fact, one of Allison’s main character traits is that she’s just too gullible and nice for her own good. She’s actually a bit similar to Kevin in that regard. But unlike Kevin, Allison lives in the real world. And in the real world, there are consequences. It’s an interesting dichotomy. While Kevin gets away with his insane schemes, Allison has to fight and struggle and accept setback for every little thing she tries to do. Similar to how–in real life–women often have to bite and claw and scratch to gain any recognition or power. And when they do gain power or recognition, there are instantly hordes of people attempting to tear them down. Allison embodies this, as a naive but determined housewife desperately grasping for her own autonomy. The problem is that Allison–at first–doesn’t seem to realize that she has autonomy. She believes herself to be at the whims of other people, namely Kevin. The second she realizes that she does have some measure of control, Allison uses her power to advance her own plans.

Coming back to The Simpsons, the infamous/famous episode about Frank Grimes actually covers this exact dynamic. Frank spends the entire storyline freaking out about how Homer is the dumbest person alive and how Homer doesn’t deserve any of the stuff he has. Although Frank comes off as an ultra-judgmental prick, it’s easy to see where he’s coming from. Frank Grimes is a complicated character and very divisive in the Simpsons fandom. Ultimately, the Frank Grimes episode deals with the concept of success and how the least worthy people often climb the ladder, leaving the more worthy–like Frank–clawing for power in a deeply flawed social and economic system. This is pretty much Kevin and Allison’s entire dynamic in Kevin Can Fuck Himself: Allison is leagues smarter than Kevin, yet she has fewer friends and less opportunities than her adult-kid of a husband. She is marginally kinder and more giving, yet it is Kevin who has new experiences and friendships and success fall into his lap at every turn. They’re two sides of a coin: The Wife beaten down by society’s expectations and the robbery of her autonomy at the hands of a boorish man vs. The Husband who enjoys the full spectrum of life experience with zero consequences. Kevin is okay with his mediocre life because he has friends, a decent home, and all of his wants and worries are being taken care of by Allison. On the other hand, Allison doesn’t have, well, an Allison.Allison exists as another prop in Kevin’s life, much like his Best Friend and his Dad and his One Female Friend. But Allison is more than a prop, it’s just that Kevin can’t conceive of the people he cares about having a life outside of him.

Shows like The Simpsons really laid the groundwork for this more modern interpretation of classic tropes. Satire isn’t just satire. It attempts to examine these ideas and where they come from. Good satire should deconstruct. While Kevin Can Fuck Himself isn’t strictly satire, it is a deconstruction. But it’s not the only one. The show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend deconstructs the whole concept of “romantic comedy”, as well as going deep into a subject that is hardly ever openly discussed: mental health. Particularly the mental health of women. Why is this important? Because Rebecca is the very definition of a “crazy woman”. Impulsive, mood swings, destructive, and reckless. Throughout most of history, mental health care for women has been decidedly lacking. “Female hysteria” was literally a “one size fits all” diagnosis for women who acted in any way considered “unfit” or “unruly”. It was an easy way for a husband to get his wife tossed in a mental institution so he could re-marry. Or a father could use it as a convenient way to get rid of his rebellious or disobedient daughter. Women were diagnosed with “female hysteria” for tons of reasons, including reasons that contradicted each other. For example, a woman could be diagnosed if she experienced a sudden drop in her libido. But women who “enjoyed sex too much” could also be slapped with a diagnosis of “female hysteria”. Pretty inconsistent, huh? That’s because it was literally misogynistic bullshit with no actual psychological or scientific basis. Women who stepped out of line in any way–such as wearing pants or wanting orgasms–were tossed in these disgusting mental institutions, in which they were often beaten, tortured, and subjected to various forms of sexual abuse. Not to mention a lobotomy was a common treatment for women’s poor mental health. Yes, women literally had their frontal lobe removed and were turned into emotionless robotic sex and domestic slaves to be used by their husbands. All because they dared to enjoy sex or wear pants or experience depression. It was basically “I diagnosis you with normal human emotions!” and off to the brain surgeon they went. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend–as a series–treats women’s mental health with a lot more sympathy than early doctors, needless to say. The show revolves around Rebecca Bunch and deals with some heavy issues. Including loss of identity, over-medication, manic episodes, and obsessive behavior. Most importantly, none of Rebecca’s behavior is made out to be “cute” or “quirky”. It’s genuinely destructive and hurts the people around her, as well as herself. Rebecca uproots her entire life to chase after a guy she barely knows. And around Season Three, the show really starts to dig into why Rebecca is the way she is and how she can be helped. Despite her horrible actions, Rebecca is treated with sympathy. The show even implicitly points out how Rebecca’s status as a woman effects the way her mental health issues are viewed. Nothing Rebecca goes through it taken seriously until she sets her professor’s house on fire. Even at the trial, her own mother dismisses the whole thing as “she’s just a girl in love”. And later, it takes a suicide attempt for everyone in Rebecca’s life to truly come to grips with how terrible Rebecca’s mental health is. So Rebecca is neither treated as a helpless victim or a “crazy lady”. She also isn’t treated as harmless, which is a common trope surrounding women and mental illness in fiction. Women in fiction are hardly ever perceived as “threats”. Rebecca is a threat to people around her because she’s naturally charismatic, can make friends easily, and easily manipulates people into doing her bidding. This is a more honest take on women’s mental health that doesn’t disregard Rebecca’s problems. There is a short story known as The Yellow Wallpaper–which is a fantastic small read–that actually portrays what mental health care for women was like in decades past. Spoiler alert: the story is rather disturbing and is told from the POV of a very mentally unwell woman.

The takeaway from all of this isn’t necessarily “we need more media created by women” or “we need more media that focuses on women’s stories”, although those are both valid points. The truth is, the media has always been there in some way or another. It is just underappreciated, ignored, or a matter of perspective. Example: imagine if Kevin Can Fuck Himself was told from Kevin’s perspective. The story would look and sound very different, wouldn’t it? It would essentially be another story about an entitled man-child having his creative and free spirit suppressed by his shrill harpy of a wife. Inserting Allison’s perspective into the narrative changes the tone of the story and massively shifts our perception of Kevin as a person. Without Allison’s perspective, Kevin would come off as another harmless bumbling idiot husband character. Knowing that his actions have had a massively negative impact on Allison’s life and her mental health suddenly changes the whole narrative. From Allison’s POV, we view Kevin as what he really is: a manipulative and deeply selfish asshole who is disliked by almost everyone who isn’t on or below his level of asshole behavior. Interesting how these characters shift from harmless to disgustingly awful when the perspective changes. It’s almost like this narrative was always intended to be deceptive and one-sided. Yes, we’re meant to view Allison–and most other Sitcom Wives–as some collective who seek to destroy men’s fun because women are just like that. And men are simply eternal children and women should just deal with it. (sarcasm) It’s a rare one-two punch of misandry and misogyny. But relationships don’t have to be this way, either in real life or in fiction. Peruse any relationship advice forum and you’ll see women who have settled into this routine and are deeply unhappy. Their world looks a lot more bleak and gray, just like Allison’s. There are many couples like Allison and Kevin. And as with fiction, we don’t always get to see the wife’s POV.

References/Further Reading

Kevin Can F**K Himself Shows Why The Laugh Track Needs to Die (Erin Qualey, Den of Geek)

Kevin Can F**k Himself Turned Its Sitcom Gimmick Into A Radically Honest TV Show (Olivia Truffaut-Wong, Refinery29)

How Kevin Can F*** Himself Uses A Multi-Cam Sitcom to Tear Down Toxic Masculinity (Emma Dibdin, Elle)

‘Kevin Can F**k Himself’ Producers Valerie Armstrong & Craig DiGregorio on Blending Genres for AMC’s Wild Dramedy (Christina Radish, Collider)

Don’t have a cow, (wo)man! The Simpsons as the anti-sitcom (Barbara Hamilla, Gonzaga University)

Feminism Ain’t Funny: Woman as “Fun-Killer,” Mother as Monster in the American Sitcom (Jack Simmons, Leigh E. Rich, Armstrong Atlantic State University)

The Simpsons: Why Frank Grimes Is the Show’s Most Controversial Character (Brandon Zachary, CBR)

The Simpsons: Atomistic Politics and the Nuclear Family (Paul A. Cantor, Political Theory)

“Don’t Ask me, I’m Just a Girl”: Feminism, Female Identity, and The Simpsons (Matthew Henry, The Journal of Popular Culture)