Recently started watching Ted Lasso. Just finished Season 1. Really enjoying the show. But it's got me thinking about gender representation.

**SPOILER ALERT**

It's my parents who pushed me to start watching it, and in recent years, they've been falling into the mainstream progressive democrat focus and narratives on the culture war. We watched the first two episodes together, and spent like half an hour afterwards talking about Ted Lasso himself as a character. They sang his praises, mainly enamored with all the ways he's an underdog secret social genius. I agreed with them, and joined in with all the appreciation for his good qualities and the creative ways they're depicted. But I also pointed out how it's really obvious from very early on that the writers want you to recognize the extraordinary features he possesses that everyone around him takes much longer to notice, and also that those features are incredibly unrealistic. And as I've finished the first season, that unrealism has only grown more profound to me.

  • He reads people near-flawlessly.
  • His moral compass is near-flawless. Combined with the people-reading, this results in him never wronging anyone, even by mistake, while navigating incredibly difficult social situations with high levels of conflict and intrigue.
  • Except he does, a couple times. But in the context of his divorce, which only drives this point home further. And he always makes up for it immediately and in some genius fashion that puts the person he wronged in a better position than they were in before.
  • His divorce is implied to be because he's so damn perfect, his wife found it suffocating. Once he figures out it's what's best for his wife's well-being, he lets her go, out of perfect love for her, after of course doing marriage counseling and respecting and applying the advice of their counselor. This is depicted as hard for him, but seemingly just as much due to caring so damn much about his wife and kid as due to personal grief. And it's faaaar easier for him than it would be for the average person. He procrastinates on signing the divorce papers for only a couple days, and doesn't procrastinate on having the conversation with her at all.
  • The night he signs the divorce papers, he's (imo) taken advantage of by a predatory woman (she literally forces herself into his room) while incredibly emotionally vulnerable after a night of drinking. In the aftermath, it's made clear that it was the only one-night stand of his life and he's incredibly uncomfortable with what happened, but he still shows impeccable respect and decor for the woman the following morning, even as she bluntly tells him she's going to spend the rest of the day wracking up a bill for him and take his money for granted. And it only takes a 5 minute conversation with his friends to get over it because "they both enjoyed it", also making it clear to the audience during that conversation that he's confidently capable of pleasing an experienced, sexually adventurous woman despite having no experience outside of his only marriage. And so long as a woman's happy, everything's fine, I guess, and that was the only question that needed to be resolved for him to move on.
  • His confidence and bravery are impervious as he dives through hostile social situations like Doomguy swimming through acid in a hazmat suit, except for gratifying, sexy moments of vulnerability that are perfectly positioned to further highlight and romanticize his perfect qualities.
  • Nothing is shown about his interests or life outside of his marriage and love for coaching, except for one incident where he reveals being an ace at darts in the process of white knight rescuing a woman from social distress, again also with flawless people-reading skills. Or extremely basic social activities like drinking that serve to further polish up that perfect portfolio of god-tier social qualities.
  • His interest in coaching doesn't even have to do with the sport. He just loves helping people to become their best selves, and that's all he cares about.
  • He's got the energy of a 6 year old who just chugged a can of soda, all day every day forever, and in the apparent absence of any other interests, this enables him to be hyper-focused on soaking in every detail of every person he interacts with flawless mental presence, synergizing with his people-reading, transforming further into lightspeed wit. A wit he applies with unfailing humor that almost always has an element of vulnerability to it.
  • Every aspect of his character is built around making him the perfect being of positive emotional engagement.
  • Seriously, nothing about his character would work if he didn't have a constant level of energy that literally no real adult has.

Finally getting to the point - obviously, this character is a fantasy. And that's fine. I honestly don't have a problem with that. The show feels good, and the character presents the audience with positive opportunities to learn and grow. It's given me some good introspection on things I could do better when I'm in a leadership role at work or as a parent. I don't think characters in stories always have to be perfectly fleshed out and humanized in every way, if it doesn't serve the story, and idealized characters can be great for examining life lessons or serving as inspiration.

There are 2 things that bother me, and neither are the fault of the show's writers.

I get the distinct feeling that women watching this probably *don't* see Ted Lasso as an idealized character. I'm guessing there's probably a lot of female viewers who imagine he is what most men could/would be if they just... embraced vulnerability, "being themselves", had confidence, respected women, were less egoistic, etc. That he is the realistic picture of a man free from toxic masculinity and patriarchy. But he is clearly a fantasy written above all for women. I don't think I need to elaborate on the problems here. Granted, I could be misjudging how women are on average perceiving this. I just can't help but draw the connection to what I usually see when women describe what kind of help they think men need or how men should be better. They describe Ted Lasso. So now we have Ted Lasso... and no human being could actually be this character.

And what prompted this post in the first place was, as I watched the show, the thought grew in my head throughout that... this is dead on a male counterpart to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Which has over the last 20 years become one of the most shit on tropes in media. I did a little searching to see if anyone else had connected this character with that trope, and found a couple examples. Honest Trailers labeled him "Manic Pixie Dream Dad", which is perfect. And found an Elle article making note of the rise of "Manic Pixie Dream Boys", shitting on the trope because... drum roll... it's depicting men as worthy of being put on a pedestal for doing the bare minimum. And I don't personally want to shit on the trope in any way. I think Manic Pixie Dream Boys or Girls are fine. The only problem I have is this pretty clearly demonstrates how it's acceptable for women to have fantasies, but not men.

Just thought I'd throw this all out there, because it might generate some interesting discussion. I'm sure I'll get through Season 2 over the next few days. As I was browsing a bit before making this post, some of the talk I saw makes me think it might obsolete some of my comments.