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Big Bang Theory: Mostly bad but with a few high points


Ser Scot A Ellison

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On 04/09/2017 at 9:08 AM, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

If they were lionising their behaviour or holding it up as some sort of normality then the video might have a point, but in fact its the opposite. The show is saying 'look at these losers and their backwards behaviour, what a bunch of freaks'
The real victims of this show are nerdy men. The writers have almost no concept of geek culture, and almost certainly hate it and look down on it. Their characters are a big melting pot of every nerd cliche ever and the show asks that you poke fun at them week after week.

The problem is that this is not true. Almost from the start it was understood that the main characters were not losers, but rather super-smart and successful scientists with poor social skills, and this perspective is then constantly reinforced through the show ; it is made crystal clear that the audience is not actually supposed to make fun of the main characters but of their little quirks, which is quite different. Thus, the main point of the video, that social awkwardness is presented as an excuse for mysoginistic or creepy behavior, is essentially correct. Moreover, the argument that it is presented as harmless (even when it violates the law) is also true ; very often the female characters of the show end up accepting or even condoning actions that no sane woman would IRL.

No, the video is correct. And yet it misses the point entirely nonetheless. The whole point of presenting mysoginistic, racist, or even bigoted behavior under the guise of humor is that it allows the show to target audiences that can either make fun of such behavior or relate to it ; the show itself is very careful to always let the viewer adopt their own perspective (over time at least, over the course of a single episode not so much). Because that's one pretty good recipe for a successful show: allowing it to be watched on different levels by different people.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The show is back... So, time to bring this back to life... :D

I am not sure how I feel about the premiere. It is like TBBT bingo. Raj is still depressed, Penny is still mean to Leonard, Sheldon is still Sheldon.

That said, when Mary Cooper said, "that was a mighty achievement", I remembered how great episodes with her can be.

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I watched the Young Sheldon pilot, after planning not to because the entire concept made me cringe - in general, the pedestralization of Sheldon makes me cringe and this seemed an extension of that - but I was surprised to kind of like it. Mostly because, well, its about it being bloody hard to live with Sheldon. There's very little quirky or sympathetic about him, not so much a dedicated obsessive genius or special misunderstood Enderesque geek snowflake as a snotty self-important striver who's main avenue of precociousness is his contempt for his exhausted working class family and who's Aspergers/arrogance mostly allows him to say it out loud. His parents and siblings split the role Leonard will take on later in his life, either having their self-esteem shredded by him or exhausting themselves acting as his advocates and facilitators - and it's all a bit sad, knowing how it all turns out, with Sheldon holding little but contempt for them as an adult (there's no indication that he's even on speaking terms with his brother.)

I should have known I could count on Chuck Lorre to reptitively keep gnawing at the brittle bones of the small humiliations that make up family and friendship like a mangy starving rodent. I was unworthy to have doubted.

(And the English teacher is played by Valerie Mahaffrey, who was the mysterious globe-trotting hobo hypochondriac Eve on Northern Exposure, so bonus points for that!)

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6 hours ago, Datepalm said:

I watched the Young Sheldon pilot, after planning not to because the entire concept made me cringe - in general, the pedestralization of Sheldon makes me cringe and this seemed an extension of that - but I was surprised to kind of like it. Mostly because, well, its about it being bloody hard to live with Sheldon. There's very little quirky or sympathetic about him, not so much a dedicated obsessive genius or special misunderstood Enderesque geek snowflake as a snotty self-important striver who's main avenue of precociousness is his contempt for his exhausted working class family and who's Aspergers/arrogance mostly allows him to say it out loud. His parents and siblings split the role Leonard will take on later in his life, either having their self-esteem shredded by him or exhausting themselves acting as his advocates and facilitators - and it's all a bit sad, knowing how it all turns out, with Sheldon holding little but contempt for them as an adult (there's no indication that he's even on speaking terms with his brother.)

I found the entire thing extremely sad. It wasn't as difficult to watch as some argued, but it wasn't the sitcom we grew to love. We can honestly call it dramedy, for lack of better words. And I sincerely sympathized with his entire family. It is just that childish selfishness and his incredible intellect that so easily suffocate the rest of them. But he does love them and I got all sappy with the taking-off-mittens scene. 

Speaking of which, if my math is right. The year of the show is 1989, right? And he said that he didn't touch his brother 17 years later, if I am correct? That would mean that his first physical contact with his brother was in 2006? And, since TBBT started in 2007, that means that Sheldon's first contact with his brother was a year before we "meet" him. Oh, boy...

 

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