Children's rights agencies, packed with crusaders who protect little children from physical harm, outraged especially by sexual attacks on children, and wielding powerful laws that specifically bar the infliction of pain and injury upon children, are comfortable neighbors of Playboy in the state of denial. Insurance companies and health care reformers demand that unnecessary medical expenses be eliminated, yet they wink at the hundreds of millions of your wasted dollars which fund the circumcision industry. So, all those factors which usually induce us to deny the validity of men's issues also operate here. The traditional message that it is unmanly to complain blends nicely with the feminist message that men don't deserve to complain. The traditional message that men must protect women blends nicely with the feminist message that helping men is equivalent to hurting women.
Male pain is the only pain which actually brings laughter and applause.
Another factor is that the ubiquitous sight of male pain desensitizes us to it. Violence against males is literally all around us. Relevant, too, is the context of the violence. The main purpose of the portrayal is to get the audience angry enough that it will watch the rest of the story to see to it that the villain is punished for his transgression. Even more poignant, men are the victims of virtually all violence in comedy.