Salon's review of two shows about middle-aged guys who still act like frat bros reveals that while we often complain about roles for women in TV and movies, roles for men aren't that awesome either. Here are some exceptions:

First, a description of the problem. Salon's Heather Havrilesky introduces her review of the TV shows The League and Men of a Certain Age with this depressing assessment:

[W]hile it's still unnerving to observe the casual arrogance of a gaggle of young men in their prime — their baseball caps molded into the perfect C shape, their boxer shorts peeking out above their low-slung jeans, the almost prissily self-aggrandizing set of their broad, hairless shoulders — watching that same smug spirit butt stubbornly from within the cramped confines of adult life can be surprisingly poignant. Because even as the older guy's guy accepts the responsibilities and burdens of demanding wives, pesky children, gigantic mortgages, tedious jobs and arthritic knees, even as he gives in to the perils of prostate checks and surrenders to the burden of acknowledging people's feelings and succumbs to the unbearable reality of neurotic teenage offspring and little motorized devices that yank the stray hairs out of his nose, there's some small part of him that is never completely at peace with this shackled, neutered state. Something deep inside him can still feel that tacky, spilled-beer floor under the soles of his shoes, some part of him can hear the faint strains of "Louie, Louie" playing on some quad far, far away, some stubborn cells at his core can still smell the Polo cologne and the cup-a-noodles heating up in the mini microwave.

Are these really the choices for men? "Louie, Louie"-loving frat boy or "neutered" married guy? Yes, I'm aware that television offers men plenty of chances to solve crimes, diagnose obscure ailments, and bed beautiful women — but personality-wise, many TV men seem pretty arrested. Women may have hookers, victims, and doormats to choose from, but guys have assholes, man-children, and slobs. But there are a few awesome men on television, a few who — aside from the flaws every human being has — a boy would be lucky to grow up to be.