MARRIED WITH CHILDREN: "THE WEAKER SEX" (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

Though Peg Bundy is legendary for her skills in man-bashing, in most episodes she confines herself to verbal abuse. The tenth-season episode "The Weaker Sex" shows Peg getting her Tough Girl Side on.

Even before Peg signs up for self-defense classes, not surprisingly at the behest of Marcy, Al regales one of his co-workers with his contempt for the very idea of women being independent of male protection. Despite all of Al's carping at the humiliations of marriage, clearly he gets some validation from the idea that he can protect his family with his greater male strength.

Peg gets her way of course, and Al seethes while his wife and Marcy practice their kung fu on the hapless Jefferson. (Marcy also gets turned on by battering her husband, though he claims that he's been effectively neutered by the karate games.) Kelly tells Al to take Peg to a movie to defuse her enthusiasm for martial arts, and Al reluctantly escorts his wife to "The Bridges of Madison County." Al is spared that fate when a pickpocket tries to lift his wallet, but he suffers a worse blow to his ego when Peg cold-conks the thief in full view of many eyewitnesses-- including a TV news-crew. In no time, Al is scorned by all of Chicago as a wimp dominated by his wife, and even Jefferson gets in several shots at Al's manhood.

Jefferson offers a solution. He arranges for a stunt-guy friend to offer an insult to Peg at a local dive, giving Al the chance to vindicate himself by clobbering a masher. But after much byplay, Peg once again un-mans Al by clobbering the stunt-guy herself. Once again local news scorns Al's lack of manhood. 

Kelly gives Al his redemption by bringing over one of her worthless boyfriends, giving Al the chance to punch the dork out. Actually, one never sees the media redeem Al, since the episode ends with Al asserting his masculinity. But for perpetual loser Al, any act of pointless violence is as close as he can get to a victory.

Prior to this episode, Peg Bundy was sometimes seen punching out other women, and she even clouted Al once or twice, but her transformation from couch potato to kung-fu kicker verges on being a fantasy (especially since it never comes up again). Al's embarrassment by his wife is prefigured by a scene wherein a burly woman throws Al around like a rag doll, and Al's son is similarly humiliated by a huge woman who implicitly ravishes him and carries him away to a fate worse than death-- one of the few times Bud gets tortured without either Peg or Kelly bringing the calamity about. Just to keep up MWC's quota of bodacious babes, though, the writers and director Amanda Bearse throw in a gratuitous scene at the dive where two hot girls beat up some scruffy bikers.