OK, so I was late to watching the show, just because there are so few shows that I watch, but TBS is now airing the reruns nightly, and the first-run episodes are good for a 1/2 hour of exercising while watching on the CBS iPad app.
And a while ago, all my friends were posting links to articles about why The Big Bang Theory is bad, bad, bad, because it makes fun of nerds, and, secondarily, discourages women from entering science because one of the two female scientists has a high-pitched voice and the other is just as nerdy as the men. Oh, and thirdly, one of the characters appears to be not just a nerd but an Aspergery nerd, so in laughing at him, we’re mocking the disabled.
I’d link these articles but, like I said, it was a while ago that everyone was yapping about it. But here’s the thing: all shows exaggerate characters. When, many years ago, Will and Grace featured a very gay gay man in the character of Jack, I don’t recall anyone being upset that gay men were being mocked. And TV has had loads of “dumb” characters: Joey (and, to a lesser degree, Phoebe, and even Rachel) on Friends comes to mind. Or (this’ll show my age) remember Newhart, with “I’m Larry, and this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl”? Or even Penny, the dumb blonde on The Big Bang Theory?
(OK, the lack of examples is a good illustration of the fact that I don’t watch much TV. I also have never seen a single episode of Breaking Bad.)
Anyway, these are real characters. I’ve also read various snippets about the fact that work to get the science right, whether in a plot or even in the every-present dry-erase board.
Sheldon, yes, does fit the characteristics of Asperger’s Syndrome — but that’s part of the charm. Perhaps earlier episodes were different, but sometimes the entertainment is his awareness of the fact. Howard is, in earlier episodes, overly interested in sex, without succeeding; then he manages to get married (but I’ve missed these intermediate episodes). Raj longs to date but struggles to actually talk to women. And Leonard is the most “normal” of the four — but all four of them enjoy science fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, video games and other classically geeky pursuits.
And the women? Well, if I scrolled through a couple months of old facebook feed, I could probably find the article that complains that girl’s STEM role models are limited to squeky-voiced Bernadette and nerdy Amy, but it’s silly to imagine that they could have had a socially adept, attractive, fashionably-dressed love interest for a character such as Howard or Sheldon. (We’d, of course, then hear the same complaint as when The King of Queens paired a thin curvy woman with a tubby man.) And Amy, of course, has her own history — as in a recent show about a scavenger hunt, in which she says, “just for clarification: this is a real scavanger hunt, not a prank on me, right?” She’s been friendless and made fun of for most of her life, so is enjoying actually having friends. (Though I don’t know how they managed to develop the storyline that she and Sheldon paired up, they do show them spending time together.)
Of course, maybe I’m too much of a nerd myself — maybe if I was more socially adept, I would perceive any number of slights, ways in which the show intends for its viewers to laugh at rather than with its characters. . .
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In