That Big Bang Theory thing
So I spent some time this afternoon and evening thinking about the essay about The Big Bang Theory (TBBT)--a show I've watched more-or-less since the beginning--that's making the rounds on social media. The essay posits that this show about four super-brainy geeks is actually a show that makes fun of nerds, not a show that loves them. The essay posits that it's the ultimate manifestation of mainstream disdain for nerdy enthusiasm and social awkwardness, and that it further ghettoizes geek culture. It posits that the show's point-of-view character is Penny, the "normal" girl, and that the audience is supposed to laugh with her at the nerds, rather than laughing with the nerds at themselves. I spent a lot of time researching and starting to write a long exegesis analyzing all of this and then, tonight, realizing that I just didn't feel like writing the encyclopedic refutation I originally had in mind (three paragraphs in, I realized that if I continued, the resulting analysis would be worthy of--dare I say it--Dr. Sheldon Cooper*), I decided to approach it a little more simply.
I disagree with the essay at a pretty fundamental level. I don't think that Penny is the viewpoint character; it is clearly and obviously Leonard, the best-socialized of the four main male characters. He is Penny and the audience's facilitator into the geekier universe of Raj, Howard, and Sheldon, but he's also Raj, Howard, and Sheldon's facilitator into Penny's more mundane world. He's a person of both worlds and is befuddled by navigating them both. That's where a lot of the comedy in this show comes from.** When the audience laughs at a geek reference, it's partly out of recognition of something beloved and familiar; it's partly because we each in our own way identify with having a deep enthusiasm (whether it's which issue of a comics some character last appeared in or which baseball game was the last in which some player played for some particular team); and it's partly because each character is doing something so signally in character that it provides entertainment, delight, or surprise.
I'm not saying that every joke on TBBT is good-natured. Some things are funny because they're mean; that's the nature of comedy, and there's not a single sitcom on television that isn't cruel towards its characters, whether the jokes are about weight, about how long someone has been single, about baldness, and so on. (My God, the jokes about obesity on Roseanne were legion, and yet the Connors' obesity was one of the things that made them most identifiable to the audience. I don't think many fat people objected to the jokes--or if they did, they didn't watch, and missed a key pop-cultural moment in television.) But most sitcoms, including TBBT, are also loving toward their characters. There is a balance. (Howard's character has been treated with real love in the development of his relationship with Bernadette; he's clearly grown and changed.) It should also be noted that the mean jokes aren't just as the expense of the geekitude. There are mean jokes about Leonard's height, Howard's mother, Penny's relative lack of education and her attempts at acting, at Bernadette's astonishing vocal resemblance to Howard's mother. The show is an equal-opportunity insult machine. But also? It does--like the best sitcoms--get at some fundamental truths about being human and being an American in this time and place. Comedy comes from--and leads to--that as well.
In the end, here's the thing: if we can't find a way to laugh at ourselves (in the guise of Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard), then we're kind of missing the point--which is that everyone is socially awkward in one way or another. Everyone is super-geeky about one thing or another. Everyone has had moments of social humiliation along with personal triumph, moments of desperation in dating, cluelessness in friendship, and painful yet transformative growth. I think the original essay writer betrays a sensitivity about his own geekitude in his refutation of TBBT, and that's OK. But I think that there are valuable lessons to be learned from the show by viewing it through a broader lens than he's viewing it through. And I think that geeks who turn off TBBT, while certainly within their rights to do so, are missing something key about the entire TBBT phenomenon: it wouldn't be happening if we geeks weren't a cultural force to be reckoned with in the first place--and that's something that, as geeks, we have always wanted and that we--no question--have achieved.
* For example, the author posits that TBBT is the first show to feature geeks front and center. I started to research the truth of this assumption, since I disagreed with his disqualification of other shows that I thought plainly punctured it. The Lone Gunmen came first. And Chuck premiered the same year TBBT did. 'Nuff said.
** I should note, upon reflection, that Penny is Bernadette and Amy's facilitator to the guys' world and, often, the guys' facilitator to the women.
I disagree with the essay at a pretty fundamental level. I don't think that Penny is the viewpoint character; it is clearly and obviously Leonard, the best-socialized of the four main male characters. He is Penny and the audience's facilitator into the geekier universe of Raj, Howard, and Sheldon, but he's also Raj, Howard, and Sheldon's facilitator into Penny's more mundane world. He's a person of both worlds and is befuddled by navigating them both. That's where a lot of the comedy in this show comes from.** When the audience laughs at a geek reference, it's partly out of recognition of something beloved and familiar; it's partly because we each in our own way identify with having a deep enthusiasm (whether it's which issue of a comics some character last appeared in or which baseball game was the last in which some player played for some particular team); and it's partly because each character is doing something so signally in character that it provides entertainment, delight, or surprise.
I'm not saying that every joke on TBBT is good-natured. Some things are funny because they're mean; that's the nature of comedy, and there's not a single sitcom on television that isn't cruel towards its characters, whether the jokes are about weight, about how long someone has been single, about baldness, and so on. (My God, the jokes about obesity on Roseanne were legion, and yet the Connors' obesity was one of the things that made them most identifiable to the audience. I don't think many fat people objected to the jokes--or if they did, they didn't watch, and missed a key pop-cultural moment in television.) But most sitcoms, including TBBT, are also loving toward their characters. There is a balance. (Howard's character has been treated with real love in the development of his relationship with Bernadette; he's clearly grown and changed.) It should also be noted that the mean jokes aren't just as the expense of the geekitude. There are mean jokes about Leonard's height, Howard's mother, Penny's relative lack of education and her attempts at acting, at Bernadette's astonishing vocal resemblance to Howard's mother. The show is an equal-opportunity insult machine. But also? It does--like the best sitcoms--get at some fundamental truths about being human and being an American in this time and place. Comedy comes from--and leads to--that as well.
In the end, here's the thing: if we can't find a way to laugh at ourselves (in the guise of Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard), then we're kind of missing the point--which is that everyone is socially awkward in one way or another. Everyone is super-geeky about one thing or another. Everyone has had moments of social humiliation along with personal triumph, moments of desperation in dating, cluelessness in friendship, and painful yet transformative growth. I think the original essay writer betrays a sensitivity about his own geekitude in his refutation of TBBT, and that's OK. But I think that there are valuable lessons to be learned from the show by viewing it through a broader lens than he's viewing it through. And I think that geeks who turn off TBBT, while certainly within their rights to do so, are missing something key about the entire TBBT phenomenon: it wouldn't be happening if we geeks weren't a cultural force to be reckoned with in the first place--and that's something that, as geeks, we have always wanted and that we--no question--have achieved.
* For example, the author posits that TBBT is the first show to feature geeks front and center. I started to research the truth of this assumption, since I disagreed with his disqualification of other shows that I thought plainly punctured it. The Lone Gunmen came first. And Chuck premiered the same year TBBT did. 'Nuff said.
** I should note, upon reflection, that Penny is Bernadette and Amy's facilitator to the guys' world and, often, the guys' facilitator to the women.