http://anibationfantasy2.blogspot.com/2007/03/see-janekill-our-trade.html
I was trying to figure out who the most popular female cartoon character was and ran across this website... Looking at the recent decade's worth of female characters shown in the above article, the American cartoon industry it seems has way too many red heads or goth girls play female leads, and while I did sense some minor character divergence among said leads I kinda wonder why there are so many, and how come you don't see any "average joe" male leads outside of the superhero club, who are only there to make the superhero look super awesome. (keep in mind shows such as Ben 10(?), sixteen, and Total drama Island are excluded from this because the lead roles trade off from episode to episode)
I was thinking along simmilar lines when I saw the Christmas episode of NBC's Chuck. Chuck, the supposedly average guy appears to get stupider, whiny-er, and Girly- er the longer the show runs... It's like the writers don't know that normal people (male or female) get used to new situations or develop coping skills, their cop out is to make the male lead the stereotypical bumbling damsel in distress. And when I say girly, I mean Chuck acts like a twelve year old girl... or at the very least how I perceived girls to act when I was twelve.