I’ve spent
the last few days catching up on the most recent season of The Big Bang
Theory. When this show started 7 years
ago I loved it. Finally there was a mainstream network show that represented
nerds like me. It was like Friends but nerdy. Perfect. But as the years went on I started to lose
interest in the show. But how could that
be? The characters were becoming more fleshed out and were actually growing as
people; even to the point of marriage. Now I think I’ve figured it out.
The Big Bang
Theory has a simple premise: nerdy guys meet hot dumb blond chick – hilarity ensues. That joke worked for a few seasons, and then
as audiences actually became invested in these characters, they needed to grow.
And so they did. Except they don’t really grow all that much, with a few
exceptions. The characters are stuck somewhere between stereotypes and fully
fleshed out.
In the first
few seasons, the main focus was on Leonard, seemingly the most level headed of
the nerdy group, Sheldon, the outlandishly socially inept roommate, Howard, the
hopeless and creepy guy, Raj, the ultimate shy guy, and Penny, the “bimbo”. They each filled a stereotypical “nerd world”
role, and played their parts like clockwork.
So the joke still worked. Another
reason the joke still worked, in my opinion, was because the novelty of having
a show “for us, about us” on primetime network TV was still fairly new. But slowly things began to change. Characters
who had been perfect puzzle pieces started to suddenly do things and want things
that they hadn’t before, and it broke the pattern. Leonard gets the girl (Penny) and now the
focus is not on how the nerd guy would never be with a girl like that but on
how they make a relationship work. Fair
enough, that makes for really interesting stories. Howard, who saw women as objects to be won
and defeated suddenly is in love and changes his ways. That was actually really
beautifully done. Sheldon, against all probability, finds himself with a
girlfriend and slowly starts to adapt to caring about someone besides himself. These
things have all the earmarks of plot and character growth, but here’s the problem:
While the characters may be growing and changing, the show that houses them
does not.
With the
addition of Howard’s wife Bernadette and Sheldon’s girlfriend Amy, the show
could now say that it was representing women, and not just a bunch of nerdy
guys. But the women on the show are far
from fleshed out. They are even more stereotypical than the men were in the
first seasons. It’s seen as perfectly acceptable
for geeky smart men to spend their time on fiction, games, toys, comics, etc.,
but not one girl on the show has ever been shown to also enjoy those
things. While on the surface the show
may be saying ‘Look! We have smart women! Yay women! Girl power! Women
scientists! , in reality, those woman are still being used as the butt of a
joke, as if to say those women just don’t understand what us nerds enjoy.
Why is it so
infeasible for a woman to enjoy Star Wars, for instance, just as much as a man? Almost every episode features the guys
talking about the girls or vice versa as if they could never be on the same
page. Comics and movies and toys are for boys, yet all the women enjoy doing is
getting together to drink and make jewelry (yes that actually happened.)
"It sucks being a woman, unless you're making a gay joke."
There are
general women stereotypes, and then there’s specifics. For instance, I feel like the show missed a
great opportunity with the character of Amy.
I like Amy. Of all the women on the show, I think she’s the most
interesting and real, but she could have been much more. She is painfully lonely and isolated but
wishes for the opposite, and yet finds comfort in Sheldon, someone more
isolated from social norms than anyone.
She is the show’s main representation for nerdy women. (I find that Bernadette,
while a scientist, doesn’t usually identify as a nerd) Instead of giving this nerdy girl interesting
quirks and personality, she is more often than not used as the butt of overused
jokes. Her self-proclaimed interests are
harps, Little House on the Prairie, and Medieval poetry (immediately played as
boring and uninteresting for a laugh, of course). Instead of taking the chance to have a smart girl
actually enjoy the same nerdy things as the guys in the show, they made her
purposefully dull and uninteresting.
Because who would ever believe that a girl could be just as fun as a
guy? Talk about fantasy worlds!
The
character of Bernadette suffers from a similar problem. As the catalyst for Howard’s 180 degree
attitude change towards women, she would have to be a pretty strong willed
character, and she is. The problem is,
this strength is portrayed as “bitchy for no reason” more often than not and
results in countless situations for “poor Howard” to now be henpecked at every
turn (to replace all the rejections he used to get from all those mean women
who didn’t like being disrespected. What bitches.)
I still like
certain aspects and characters in this show. It’s not devoid of humor, though I
do believe it was much funnier in earlier seasons. I feel it could be a lot funnier if it
dropped some of the stereotypes that it fights so hard to hammer into our
brains. One character that comes to mind is Stuart, the helplessly lonely comic
book shop owner. I would love to learn
more about this character, but unfortunately every time I see him on screen I’m
supposed to be laughing at how pathetic and lonely he is. Except we never
really learn enough about him besides being socially awkward to explain where
that loneliness comes from. Raj’s
loneliness comes from blatant character quirks that the show has delved into
and pulled apart; even resolved in an attempt to further his character’s
story. But Stuart, after seven seasons,
is still the butt of the same joke every time we see him. “Nerds are pathetic
and lonely, don’t be a nerd.” Wrong.
THAT nerd is lonely and has low self-esteem. Guess what, lots of nerds do. But it’s not what defines them as a
person. Those traits are parts of a
larger whole, only a small part of what makes up a well-defined, real human
being.
Seriously, show writers, you're just going to ignore the kickass
cosplay and make another 'Lonely and pathetic' joke?
And that is
where my problem with this show stems from.
It started out by filling in stereotypical silhouettes that the average
Joe on the street could identify as “nerdy”.
But when you find an actual nerd on the street and actually begin
talking to them, 9 times out of 10, you will realize after 5 minutes that that
person is so much more than just one thing. Just like you would if you went up
to a sports jock, or a business executive, or a busy mother of six. This show started with cookie cutter people,
and as it tried to fill them in, realized they were losing the easily
recognizable “nerd” shape they started with, so reverted to the same cookie
cutter jokes. The world, apparently, is
not ready to see fully fleshed out human beings with hopes and dreams in
cosplay without being given permission to laugh at them (as opposed to with them) and call them inferior
or “other”.
Am I saying
that no one can laugh at a nerd? Of course not. I am one, and I do it all the time.
Hell, usually at myself. But there’s a
difference between having a sense of humor about your and others’ quirks and
only showing one side of a group of people and making it the butt of a joke. To go back to a comparison I made earlier,
the show Friends was about six
friends with different personalities facing the world with six different points
of view and coming together despite those differences. The Big Bang Theory comes pretty close to doing the same thing. But
instead of telling a story about a group of friends facing the world with all
their quirks and differences who happen to be nerds, it is a show about nerds
who attempt to be part of the everyday world but they’re nerds so that can’t be
allowed to happen. There will always be something about these characters that
keeps them from fitting in except with other nerds (Penny being the
exception). It paints a picture of nerd
culture that is unfair and inaccurate. Nerds are part of every corner of
society and believe it or not, can lead perfectly normal lives without that
aspect of their personalities taking over their lives completely.
I'm glad this show exists and I hope it gets better, but it has a long way to go in regards to accurately representing the group of people it capitalizes on.
