The Big Bang Theory (CBS) (Discussion/Spoilers).

Insulting Stereotypes.

Imagine if there was a show with five very horrible stereotypical gay men living in a house together doing stereotypical gay things that was meant to make fun of gay people, and show how inept that lifestyle is. Because if you replace gay with geeky, that is what this show is!

I tried watching this again last night, because someone whose opinion i respect a great deal (he's the one who got me into The Wire, for god's sake) recommended it to me.

It took roughly five minutes for me to yell at the TV and another five before i turned on the spanish soap operas for the remaining twenty minutes before HIMYM.
 
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Dr.Strangefate said:
Insulting Stereotypes.

Imagine if there was a show with five very horrible stereotypical gay men living in a house together doing stereotypical gay things that was meant to make fun of gay people, and show how inept that lifestyle is. Because if you replace gay with geeky, that is what this show is!

I tried watching this again last night, because someone whose opinion i respect a great deal (he's the one who got me into The Wire, for god's sake) recommended it to me.

It took roughly five minutes for me to yell at the TV and another five before i turned on the spanish soap operas for the remaining twenty minutes before HIMYM.
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Oh please. Don't feed that BS.

It's only insulting if you make it insulting. No one on this show is actually writing this to be a bunch of dickheads or anything like that. They're just trying to be funny by taking the stereotypes and making them into jokes. They're not actually being like, "Oh, what a bunch of stupid nerds! Let's make fun of them because we're better!"

If it's not your cup of funny, then that's just it. It's not your kind of comedy. It's not here to insult anyone in any shape or form, so please don't bring that garbage here.


People need to stop taking this show so seriously!!!
 
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I Agree with Ice.

Besides most sitcoms have stereotypes. Comedy as a rule uses stereotypes, Sure there are exceptions, But bust use them as it's easier to write stereotypes , More comedy moments can be created from say the socially awkward , nerdy stereotypes than if they had a charracter who was pretty normal but just liked a few geeky stuff.


The show shows these extreme geeks trying to get girls as let's face it if they were normal geeks like in real life then chances are they would get a girl and the whole struggle but never reaching it, thing they have would be lost.


How so many can be offended by a stereotype for comedic purposes I just don't understand. The same stereotype has been used in Simpsons with comic book guy , Friends with Ross and so much more.
 
SSJmole said:
The show shows these extreme geeks trying to get girls as let's face it if they were normal geeks like in real life then chances are they would get a girl and the whole struggle but never reaching it, thing they have would be lost.
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But that's the point. Females aren't characters, they're quest objects.

Honestly, I wasn't offended so much as frustrated. I think part of it might be because people are supposed to see a little bit of themselves or people they know in the stupidity of comedic characters. But Penny's the only female character who has ever expressed any goals or desires of her own, and it's usually for the purpose of setting up a conflict or joke with Leonard. The girl that Kim makes out with has no lines.

There are no female geeks or professors. I mean, inserting a woman like that just for the purposes of diversity would probably be just as bad, but I don't think I've even seen a female member of the faculty wandering around in the background.

I dunno. Maybe I'm being too sensitive and taking this too seriously. There were a lot of daughters there, so they obviously weren't saying that none of the (all male) professors could get married. The characters' jackass behavior isn't portrayed favorably or rewarded. But something about it just gets under my skin like nothing else.
 
It just shows that whoever is writing the show doesn't understand the people they are parodying. And yes that is a weakness in the show that goes deeper than the fact that some people find it funny. Most comedy, good comedy, is universal. And when it's insulting (and insulting humor can be very funny, look at Arrested Development) it needs to be done intelligently, and with a good understanding of who these people are. The only smartness in this show is when they explain things, and then they don't even use that intelligence for humor, they just turn very complicated processes into crass jokes.

I don't think anything i said before was unreasonable, and there is nothing wrong with taking bad television seriously, because it pollutes our culture.
 
TwilightEL said:
But that's the point. Females aren't characters, they're quest objects.

Honestly, I wasn't offended so much as frustrated. I think part of it might be because people are supposed to see a little bit of themselves or people they know in the stupidity of comedic characters. But Penny's the only female character who has ever expressed any goals or desires of her own, and it's usually for the purpose of setting up a conflict or joke with Leonard. The girl that Kim makes out with has no lines.

There are no female geeks or professors. I mean, inserting a woman like that just for the purposes of diversity would probably be just as bad, but I don't think I've even seen a female member of the faculty wandering around in the background.

I dunno. Maybe I'm being too sensitive and taking this too seriously. There were a lot of daughters there, so they obviously weren't saying that none of the (all male) professors could get married. The characters' jackass behavior isn't portrayed favorably or rewarded. But something about it just gets under my skin like nothing else.
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There is a female geek , She works with Leonard her name was Leslie.

But as for them seeing women like quest objects. It happens but other shows also show women doing the same thing to men. It happens like that in real life too. Some men and women DO want a member of the opposite sex just to have them.

But at least The Big Bang Theory it's not like most shows when they are after them for sex. From comments they have made ect.. It seems like they want to get a girl to have a girl but mainly to prove a point to themselves.

It may indeed be bad to think of women as trophies but think of it like this. All their lives they have been rejected , laughed at and ignored by women. Built up over time it's become more like proving something to themselves if that makes sense. Which is more interesting to watch than say Friends when they had Joey just looking for women to get sex.


I know this won't change your mind and that's cool. I just figured I would try to explain how I see the women on it. Also want to add with Penny and how she interacts with them and is a full charracter the entire show is not about that but that is how the geek charracters are acting.
 
Dr.Strangefate said:
It just shows that whoever is writing the show doesn't understand the people they are parodying.
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Really? Do you know them personally? Because for all you know, and for what it looks like, this is done on PURPOSE. It's just how they want to write the show. That doesn't mean they don't understand.

It's just as if you wrote something and someone claimed you didn't know jack-****. But it's how you wanted it done.

Dr.Strangefate said:
I don't think anything i said before was unreasonable
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It was unreasonable in the way how you claim these people are purposely trying to be jackasses just because you don't like how they write the show.

Dr.Strangefate said:
and there is nothing wrong with taking bad television seriously, because it pollutes our culture.
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There is when people get seriously angry over nothing. Nothing pollutes anything. You just don't like the show. You have your reasons- you don't like how they're portrayed. That's fine. Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. But saying it's because the writers are idiots because they don't know any better? There lies the problem.
 
I like the show. And as far as them parodying geeks wrong, at least one of the characters isn't just a geek, he's a savant. That is why Sheldon is the way he is, not because he's a socially awkward geek. As for the others, yeah, they are played up as being ubergeeks who cannot talk to women properly. Why? Because if they made them act like we do, as real life examples of 'geeks', IT WOULDN'T BE FUNNY!

"Oh look, there is Mike, and he's gone to the comic shop, he's a geek, and buying comic books is funny. Now he goes to his job as a teacher, where nothing funny happens all day, but we all still laugh, as he is a teacher - who is a geek! See him talk to women with NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER!"
 
Just watched last two episodes.


:lol::lol: Tweety pie tawt he saw a Romulan
 
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Because I am without a DVR....I have been forcing myself to watch this show so I don't get wrapped up in something else and miss any HIMYM afterwards.

The only redeeming thing about this show is the one guy's superhero emblem belt buckles.
 
TwilightEL said:
I was yelling this really loudly at the TV the other night, but it seemed like the characters didn't hear me, so if anyone knows their email addresses I'd be grateful.

Hey, jackasses, you know why women don't want to go out with you? Because you view women as a conglomerated hive-mind with breasts. You have no goal other than to "get a girlfriend". You'd all be terrible boyfriends. You don't care about the women's personality, you wouldn't care if they're happy or enjoying the relationship (I'm not speaking from personal experience, but I bet that would make you pretty bad in bed, too), and THEY CAN TELL. Women aren't stupid, you know, even if your pathetic high school psychological hangups have you convinced otherwise.

Of course, there are some women who don't care about being respected and just want sex, but you're too unattractive, out of shape, and cowardly to attract them. (Also see my "bad in bed" comment from earlier.) So you resort to trying to attract girls with your supposed genius, even though you're so stupid and socially awkward that you manage to alienate half the human race. Instead of finding someone whose personality is compatible with yours (AMAZING REVELATION: there are female professors and physicists!), you pathetically drool over every woman you find attractive (I bet you hear the phrase "my eyes are up here" a lot)
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...

Okay this is basically everything I hated about Seth Cohen in the later seasons of the OC. He went from being "the guy who made geeks cool" to "let's poke fun at geeks".

Something tells me I'd hate this show.
 
Pretty good episode last night, but not much "worthy" of a season finale type.


The DVD for season out is likely to be out in September, though nothing final (including no date yet) is set right now.
 
Ice said:
Pretty good episode last night, but not much "worthy" of a season finale type.


The DVD for season out is likely to be out in September, though nothing final (including no date yet) is set right now.
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Cool I'll have to find that online in a minute.

I'll be buying the dvd most likely It's a cool show
 
Ice said:
Pretty good episode last night, but not much "worthy" of a season finale type.
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Just watched it. I think that was a cool end of season episode as we got to see Penny and Leonard got together which bring the season around nicely as he was trying for the whole series to ask her out.

Also Sheldon learning Chinese was funny as hell.
 
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Grrrr I wish this would come on sooner. I keep waiting for it remembering "september" but not the 22nd part
 
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