Steve Craig from the University of North Texas wrote in his 1993 journal that Sam is a parody of "traditional male values" and of a negative stereotype of masculinity. Craig wrote that Sam's attempts to define and exemplify "his version of masculinity" are satirized throughout the series "to explore gender identity" without threatening the viewer's own definition of one's own gender. In his 2011 book "Primetime Propaganda", Ben Shapiro, an American conservative commentator, called Sam "a dog, a feminist caricature of men", and a cultural representation of the "lower-class conservative," in contrast to portrayer Ted Danson, who identifies himself as liberal. Glen Charles, a creator of "Cheers", considered Sam "a spokesman for a large group of people who thought that women's movement was a bunch of bull and look with disdain upon people who don't think it was".