In the article “Beauty and the Patriarchal Beast” a core examination of the various sitcoms is that, despite goading viewers to laugh at sexist remarks and comments from male main characters, the lack of repercussions for these characters and their eventual success by the end of most episodes reinforces these remarks and stereotypes. For example, in the King of Queens episode “Bun Dummy”, Doug remarks that he doesn’t like Carrie’s new bun hairstyle and makes direct fun of it. Carrie appears strong and keeps it up and remarks back at him. Later though, Doug pays her friend to tell her her bun is bad. After this fails, Doug directly tells her he doesn’t like her hair, but she only takes it down after Deacon tells her he doesn’t like it. The reality is that Doug only wanted Carries hair down because it looked exactly like the hairstyle a passed away librarian wore which is shown at Doug’s class reunion. If Doug had just came out and said that it looked similar to the hairstyle of his passed away librarian, then things may have been different. However he just insults her, goes behind her back and attempts to deceive her, and directly asks her to stop without giving any reason. The problem for viewers is that Doug doesn’t get consequences for his actions and instead Carrie is painted as the fool when she defeatedly takes down her hair after seeing the librarian’s. This subtly reinforces Doug’s actions despite them being immature and negatively reflective of the unintelligent, middle-aged sitcom father. On the other side, Carrie’s strong confidence in herself and her choices is undermined and broken down when she surrenders the bun.

Having watched a few episodes of Parks and Rec, a good example of a show dealing out consequences to their characters pertains to Andy Dwyer while Chris and Ann are beginning their relationship and Andy still had feelings for Ann. He frequently makes inappropriate, demeaning, or bragging comments in front of the pair creating uncomfortable situations. Later in the episode however, Andy and Ann have a serious talk with Andy in which Andy feels genuine guilt, not as any sort of joke either. The consequences dealt to Andy keeps the audience from subconsciously seeing Andy’s actions as normal and reaffirms that his actions should be laughable. When a sitcom uses gender stereotypes and roles for its jokes, consequences for immature or sexist characters are necessary for ensuring the show doesn’t contribute to the problems it jokes about.