Would anyone be interested in a Feminist critique of The Big Bang Theory?

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Inspired by the Friends thread from years ago (was it by SOH?) I watched an episode of TBBT tonight and it genuinely repulsed me.

Howard is a creepy, pushy, sex pest.

Leonard is even worse though. He's the Ross from Friends style 'nice guy'. He's nasty, manipulative, possessive, and in the episode I watched earlier, lorded over and sneered at Penny when she forgot his birthday, then made a joke out of the fact that he'd read her journal, and massively invaded her privacy.

When I first watched TBBT I thought I enjoyed it, but the raging misogyny has put me off. Any other thoughts on it?

Here's another, non feminist non non feminist thought about TBBT.

Various AS people I know/ know of loathe it. They, male and female, see it not in the ways discussed here but on the lines of unacceptable humour aimed at people with a neurological difference, as unacceptable as in former days people laughed at those with mental or physical disability.

And the people on TBBT who normally display those symptoms and are more the butt of the jokes, even expressing their mysogenistic viewpoints, are in this case male.

One of the reasons I enjoy it is because it is multi layered. I don't think Leonard is supposed to be the nice guy. He is complex and often not very nice but more attractive than done others. His childhood was screwed up, and I agree about the view of his mother being potentially misogynistic, but equally there are some people like that.

I find it misandrous, there are no good men. With some misogyny. But very cruel to those on the spectrum. In 20 years time will we still find it funny?

Uriah, the book The Rosie Project is similar - ripping the piss out of a man with Asperger Syndrome. Yet lots of people on the spectrum claim to have enjoyed it. I don't get that at all. It seems blatant cruelty to me.

You are right about there being no good men. Penny's occasional neurotypical boyfriends are nothing but dumb oafs, albeit good-looking with six-packs etc.

That is an excellent point about in 20 years time will we find it funny. I suspect it will be viewed with distaste. Rather like the way we are now looking at film/tv from the 90s.

It is a series that seems to have got worse. I remember enjoying the first few series, found them genuinely funny and didn't dislike the characters beyond what was intended (I.e. Always found Howard a creep)

But the later series are indeed loathsome. I particularly find the evolution of Amy as a character grim. Went from being a match for Sheldon (intellectually) to portrayed as desperate enough for sexual attention that she would trick and harass. The episode where she pretends to be ill was very unpleasant, both in her treatment of Sheldon, and the way she herself was portrayed.

Green, if you liked Community and Parks (both of which I love) you might try and track down Party Down. It's only two short seasons but it's sharp and funny and just really, really good. Has Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Jane Lynch, Megan Mulally, Ken Marino and lots of other known faces.

I also like Veep, although that is quite caustic - more Larry Sanders-ish than Parks-ish - and Silicon Valley.

I shall go back to lurking on this thread now, because I have never watched TBBT. I'm enjoying the analysis though and the snark lobbed at the sixth-form debate team captain

Oh brilliant! I thought Exhalted was a clever person doing a perfect mimic of Sheldon. But no!
Hurrah for the perfect specimen coming and telling us how wrong we all are!!

Also thanks Shadow and yoko for interesting insights.

Awesome - I'm going to follow up on all these recommendations!

Zoe and Wash in Firefly was a good relationship - comfortable, they fit together - a very well written/played established pair, totally different people but clearly working.

Mal and Inara seemed to be written as the opposite - two people you think should work, but just seemed to continually rub each other the wrong way - I couldn't ever get on board with the idea of them becoming a couple because they'd written both characters such that it clearly wasn't going to work (I feel like I could see old relationships I'd had myself in there - so wanting something to happen, but when it did, it just wasn't right)

So the poster who wants all the empirical evidence so s/he can evaluate and assess it in order to reach a non-biased viewpoint, since s/he is so much better and thinking and logic than everyone else, thinks the answer is to 'disengage your brain'?

I think we should ignore a poster who has come onto a board with which s/he is clearly in opposition from the outset, and discuss the programme anyway.

TBBT is indeed a misogynistic show. Bernadette earns money and is academic, but why on earth give her that stupid squeaky voice? I suppose one might argue it's to puncture expectations that all bright women are unattractive and unfeminine. It doesn't work.

The representation of Amy is the most troubling of all. She's been unpopular and unattractive all her life (and was unfortunate enough not to get raped at a frat party ), and is so desperate to belong and to be attractive that she wants continually to touch up Penny, to have 'romance' with Sheldon, and even for Raj to fancy her ...

Twg, I can't bear TRP.

I can't either, Uriah. I can't believe they're supposed to be making a film of it. Surely it would fall foul of every piece of Disability Discrimination law that exists in the world.

Oh god. Not one for our family then.

Again, I think the first two series were much more positive about the men, the spectrum, the women. So I now just watch repeats.

Has Exalted been expunged? Who is going to educate us now?

John Gadalecki who plays Leonard is very handsome in real life

That is pretty much all i can add to this thread

Thank you

Jim Parsons is a most wonderful person as well.

I'm sure they are both wonderful and handsome irl. Simon Helberg's Batman and Christopher Walken impressions are also a wonder to behold, plus he looks like a pocket Dave Grohl, which is nice.

It comes down to whether modern comedy evolves slowly out of the old or completely reinvents itself with due regard to rejecting all the basic tropes it's relied on before.

For god sake a pocket Dave Grohl? I don't think so.

I do enjoy your contributions to this thread, VW.

Thanks!!

Isn't TBBT quite very much like other programmes, be it dramas/comedies/thrillers? For TBBT I am preeety sure the writers mean for us to laugh at the male characters, not with them. Not see them as role models to be aped, rather 'losers' with attitudes and values to be avoided. And there is so much comedy to be mined from Penny's put downs of the whole geekyness of it all ( she is portrayed as the sane, Joe and Mary Public one) and from the bromance of Raj and Howard. (though what the basis of Bernie and Howard's relationship has sneaked past me). The writing of Amy's character and the shit and beyond-reason patience she exhibits is questionable. Though the "It's a tiara!!" scene is gold. I used to love watching BBT until the last series which seems to have lost a lot of it's bite.

Rosie Project - I read that too - imho it didn't rip the piss out of people with learning difficulties at all. It (albeit kak-handedly) give an insight into some of the thinking process and struggles these people meet. It wasn't supposed to be a 'study'.

all obv imvho

At last, some common sense.

I hated The Rosie Project. I just couldn't understand what she saw in him.

I've just skimmed read the sequel for a book club and he's still a dick.

"Learning difficulties" is an interesting term in the context of both TBBT and The Rosie Project.

I really don't get that at all Pan. In fact I get the complete opposite.

Penny has become much more stupid as the series have gone on, in an almost Baldrick fashion, and the last season I watched, we were definitely supposed to laugh at her and her inferior intellect. Amy's character has been written by a man who seems to think that you can't be beautiful and outrageously clever, and yes, we are supposed to laugh at her being rebuffed continuously by Sheldon, not because Sheldon understands that clever women can't be pretty, but because we're supposed to think that he's above those things, and he still isn't.

The premise could have been good. Geeks could have been cool and funny and interesting. Instead it's become a pantomime, complete with the ugly sister... it's horrible.

Also, the Sheldon character, if it is supposed to be a person on the spectrum, has been written by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. There's none of the nuance and gentle humour that's present along with the difficulties. They missed a trick there. Still, could be worse, could be like that fucking awful Derek programme.

What is it you don't get? You'd think that the characters are supposed to be looked up to and 'followed'? I would be exceedingly rare that such people are drawn with that purpose. Satire/pastiche and general mockery are always used to make a point, surely? The poet Swift from 1600s ( I think).See Alf Garnet from the 1960s? It only isn't allowed to work if it's taken purely on face value.

The writers/producers have always rejected that Sheldon is 'on the specrtrum' so they would have no difficulty with defending that they don't know what they are talking about.

And I'm not sure at all that Penny has been portrayed as becoming increasingly dim? But it would be difficult to measure unless we all sat down together and watched all gazillion episodes with note books.