Fat dumb husband and will hot bitchy wife
The not so Modern Family.
Every protagonist needs a love interest. Key phrasing “as common”
It is unfortunate how prevalent it still is for a show to try and make every single character have a romance arc.
And it’s kinda funny how the two shows that come to my mind first with aromantic characters are anime, and I don’t really watch anime.
Sidenote: It’s also funny that the two seem kinda aroace and aroallo respectively lol
- Disastrous Life of Saiki K: Psychic main character is annoyed by basically everyone especially when those people are obsessed with romance/attraction because he doesn’t relate. (Basically zero fanservice, stupid humor, fourth wall breaking, very relatable. I highly recommend)
- One Punch Man: Main character is hero who has become bored because he’s too strong for fights to be a challenge. Shows no interest in anyone whatsoever but occasionally wears a hoodie that says “oppai” on it. (Also funny and just stupid lol with some good fight scenes. Unlike SK, it has quite a bit of fanservice though the bisexual kind where nearly naked men get sexy camera pans too lol)
There was a period in the 90s where we were starting to have gay characters, but them being gay was often the joke. Friends is a great example of this.
I hate how Ross’ wife turning out to be a lesbian was somehow a failure on his part. But that said it was pretty important for representation at the time. Lots of people wouldn’t watch the show at first because it had gay people.
Blackface, and its derivatives.
A lot of Trekkies seem to forget that it was used in multiple TOS episodes (The Savage Curtain has the worst example where its quite plainly done to make ‘Kahless’ look more evil.)
And don’t even get started on the ‘Talons of Weng-Chiang’ diehard defenders from the Doctor Who fandom that refuse to acknowledge how racist the serial is, starting with a blatant yellowface caricature.
Damsel in distress