Men don’t get a fair break in popular culture. Notice the comic books of old, the Turner Classic Movies comedies, even today’s sitcoms: Most of them show men — incorrectly — as inept, overweight, bumbling, pathetic creatures ever in need of a woman’s guidance.

An old comic strip, by today’s standards politically incorrect, was named Denny Dimwit. It began as part of the Winnie Winkle strip and featured a youth with a long ears, a pointed head and a hat to match.

And even Maggie & Jiggs, also called Bringing up Father, featured a wife who referred to her mate as “Insect,” and often pelted him with crockery.

The hardest my wife Bonnie ever laughs is when watching a movie such as “The Big Lebowski,” with Jeff Bridges, in which there’s a lot of he-man posturing but little action. If women had been in that situation, Bonnie — and virtually all women — would believe, the situation would have been handled differently.

The film “O, Brother, Where Art Thou?” features George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson as escapees from a prison chain gang. They bumble. In an early scene, Clooney, the only one of the three capable of abstract thought, hops a freight while the others, chained to one another, run alongside the moving train. The last one in line stumbles, yanking the others down with him. And jerking Clooney entirely out of the boxcar.

Would the scene have been so gut-wrenchingly funny if played by women?

Certainly not. They would not have needed to escape, as they wouldn’t have been imprisoned in the first place.

And it’s enjoyable when women watch Richard Bucket (pronounced “bouquet”) get steamrolled by Hyacinth, his strong-willed spouse on PBS’ “Keeping Up Appearances.”

Yeah, men get shortchanged in pop culture and literature, as lacking intelligence, courage and stick-to-it-ive-ness. The circulated e-mail that’s doubtless arrived in everybody’s in-box asks what would have happened if it’d been three wise women who came from the east at the Nativity.

Well, instead of gold, frankincense and myrrh, the women would have taken practical gifts, helped with the delivery and remained to clean up the manger. And, to hear the distaff version told, one would think the wise women would have arrived earlier and used a cell phone or GPS instead of following a star, or at least they would have asked directions.

By the way, the nativity scene, especially in the Deep South, often is painted with the three magi dressed in firefighter garb, with hoses and axes. Why this attire? Well, the Bible says the wise men came from afar.

But away from fires and back to public perception of males in pop culture:

Early TV series such as The Life of Riley, Gomer Pyle, USMC and even Green Acres customarily limned the males as objects in need of correction. Was there ever a female counterpart to Dagwood, for example?

A modern variation of the eternal question, “If a tree falls in the forest …” asks, “If a man says something in the forest, and there’s no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?”

• • •

There’s hope for us males. What has been needed is a clear declaration of what we may call “Guys’ Rules,” which try to give our side of the story and possibly elevate our status in pop culture. Because I received this set on the Internet, I’ve no doubt it will become as ubiquitous as the Nigerian Bank e-mails, all of which are destined to deposit at least $5 million in my personal bank account. Several such installments are due as early as this week.

So, for the good of huMANity, here are a few rules to level the playing field:

• Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down.

We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about your leaving it down.

• Sunday sports. It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

• Shopping is not a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

• Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

• Anything we said six months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after seven days.

• If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

• You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both.

• Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.

• All men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

• When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine.

Really.

• Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or a zone defense.

• I am in shape. Round is a shape!

Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight. But did you know men really don’t mind that? It’s like camping.

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