The Fool

The similarities between each of the characters are vague. The portrayal of The Fool in the media is typically very obvious and recognizable. They are commonly in shows as a bungling father figure in sitcoms and other movies. Just about all of my examples are male characters and typically are hopeless when it comes to parenting their children or dealing with any sort of problem in their professional life. Most of the time they have a strong standing in what they believe in, and are not afraid to express how they feel. An example of this is Dorian from Scrubs, most the time he openly expresses what he feels, even though later on he may regret it. This is the same with Homer, as well as Peter from family guy.

The Unique example I have is The House Bunny and Legally Bond. They are the only examples on the list where the main character is a female, and the primary stupid character of the movie. In most the other examples, the male is the dumb one while the female, or wife in some cases, is the one who holds things together. Also in most cases, the main character has moments of “wow I was stupid”, and in the house bunny, she doesn’t have a self-realization moment that changes the outcome at the end. Another thing is on most shows there is a decent reason for the gibberish this group says, With Kelso, most the time he just runs into a scene, says some stupid line, mocked and leaves. He has no reason; his character also doesn’t stand for some firm moral ground to base his attitude on certain subjects around. On the show, my name is earl; the character is a normal man who gets thrown into unreasonable circumstances that cause him to act out of the norm. This is different because most the characters skew the plot themselves.


The consequences of the media portraying these figure in a way such, as this is broad. It makes people assume things that are not fully true. Just because a dad might have made a mistake does that make him into Homer Simpson? On the flip side of this, to link a character such as Peter from Family Guy to someone in real life, you need to find someone that almost wants to be that bad of a father figure. It is unrealistic in most standing that normal people could relate to the negative views on some of these characters. What connects people to these characters are the every day situations they are put in. None of these shows/movies have something totally out of the ordinary start out the plot of the episode, but it’s the characters own personality that shapes the rest of the show. Because these characters have such out of the ordinary mindsets but are thrown into these situations we can relate to, making that connection (even though there isn’t a direct connection) is all the easer. Although, does that make a slightly dysfunctional family the same as Malcolm in the middle? For that reason the consequences of portraying this group in the media can change the perspective on a normal family drastically