I have been thinking about it this last week. A lot of the cases that came to mind are ones I didn’t think were great to analyze. Like, relationships in like LOTR[1] or Vinland[2] probably aren’t great examples (though they’re not irrelevant either I guess). I’ve been watching The Pitt recently and was paying attention – both good and bad relationships have been shown, though we only see a narrow slice since the show is written as real time (one season of 15 episodes (each about 1hr long) corresponding to 15 hours of an ER shift). One good relationship shown recently involved a wife at the palliative care stage with a very supportive husband. I thought that was notable but also seems intrinsically unfair. That said, I don’t think looking at a single moment like that is a great way to judge fairness; one of the reasons for relationships IMO is mutual security and a kind of agreement that if one party gets sick, the other will still support them (which goes both ways). If one party reneges on that, then it seems obviously unfair.
I haven’t watched much parks & rec. I did watch some of the office a long time ago.
Other things that came to mind: I watched The Diplomat recently. That has some interesting dynamics but the main character’s marriage is kind of a mess from the start. There is a bit of latent sexism shown, and maybe some non-deliberate sexism from the writers.
I try not to watch a lot of TV these days because I tend to binge it which interferes with life.
If either you or @anonymous105 have more suggestions of popular TV/movies that might help.
Although I did see this asmongold-reacts-to-meme short about LOTR the other day which is maybe worth talking about: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lPo_l7H07Ho ↩︎
I watched Vinland some months ago but was paying attention to how women were represented at the time. There are some interesting things there I think and my impression is that it doesn’t try to shy away from how things were in like 1000 AD (it’s set around then, like 1013 on). Characters are complex and flawed. I think the viewer (or reader of the manga) is meant to go on the same kind of journey that Thorfinn (main protag) does which starts with violence, anger, injustice, etc in season 1, but becomes a lot more pensive and pacifist in season 2. there are 4 seasons planned (which closely map to manga of the same structure), I think S3 is about gathering others and S4 is about journeying too Vinland (modern day Canada). ↩︎