# How I Met Your Mother - Is Barney no longer acceptable/funny? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [April 25, 2022, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425 "2022-04-25T18:07:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/201 "2022-04-28T21:48:10Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m not very familiar with HIMYM, so I’m not in a position to say if Barney’s antics would be perceived differently today than when they originally aired, but something that might have come across as “comic bad” twenty years ago can very easily be perceived as “just regular bad” due to changes in societal attitudes. You bring up the proper point. I didn’t find Barney’s antics to be acceptable behavior in real life when the show was first on, and I don’t think many people did then either. It was funny then and still is. He is not seen as repellent because he is also funny, other aspects of his life are shown, and rational people don’t believe his part on the show should be judged on the basis of his behavior being real. But that doesn’t mean they accept him as a person of good character they would like to emulate. People may be more sensitive to how close the show is to the line, but I don’t think the line has changed. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/202 "2022-04-28T21:49:19Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Who ARE these woman? I mean, even if it is Milwaukee, it’s not that large that you don’t know who these woman are. What do they do the rest of the time? Are they in your classes? What do they do when they aren’t being summoned? Someone would know them. Generally, Fonzie pulled this trick while at the local diner, so the women were people who were at the diner - and since it was a local diner, and Fonzie was there all the time, most of the women were probably people who knew him. I don’t know if that helps or not. Anyway, Fonzie is a much better person than Barney, but I like both of them as characters (even if I probably wouldn’t enjoy being around Barney very much). Then again, I liked the program “Todd Margaret” even though Todd is an awful person. I enjoy the discussion of how Barney is portrayed so that the audience likes him, even though an objective description of his behavior would make the audience liking him seem unlikely (it’s a mark of good writing and acting) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/203 "2022-04-28T21:49:50Z")
Sorry, but you’ll have to tell me what parts of the Bro code are unacceptable. I don’t remember anything much except the rule not to have sex with the woman your best friend is in in love with and wants to marry. Did your friends think that was a bad idea? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/204 "2022-04-28T21:51:34Z")
As for Fonzie, what is more common on TV, a man snaps his fingers and adoring women follow him anywhere, or a woman snaps her fingers and adoring men follow her anywhere? It’s usually the latter, and the men are not foolish teenagers, they’ve been otherwise established as successful, intelligent, productive men who become mindless zombies at the sight of an attractive woman. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/205 "2022-04-28T22:06:12Z")
As far as the scene where Barney tries to hook up with the married woman by telling her that her husband is cheating on her: This comes in Season 8, the episode The Over-Correction. (I have never seen it and am basing this on the online descriptions) Barney has broken up with his stripper fiance Quinn, whom he did not trust. He has done a 180 and is dating warm, nice Patrice. Robin breaks into his apartment to find his “Playbook” of how to pick up women. I believe this eventually makes its way to Patrice, so she can see what kind of guy Barney really is. The scene in question is done in flashback while looking at the book. Barney’s scheme at the time fails because the woman he tells wants them to kill both of their spouses. Barney is put off by this and moves on to attempt his ploy with other women, which is never shown. So the elements seem to be that at the time of the episode, Barney is trying to turn over a new leaf. In showing this flashback, the show is trying to show “The Worst Of Barney”, and they are trying to show something new, not a recycled clip. So it has to be somewhat shocking, and the joke is that the woman’s response to Barney’s inappropriateness puts even him off. It’s just good shorthand to show how bad Barney had been, **in the past** , and how he’s trying to be better. So the bit makes sense to me in that context. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/206 "2022-04-28T22:18:56Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Sorry, but you’ll have to tell me what parts of the Bro code are unacceptable. I don’t remember anything much except the rule not to have sex with the woman your best friend is in in love with and wants to marry. Did your friends think that was a bad idea? I probably have to dig out my copy, but generally have the term “bros before hoes” is now seen as very problematic. Granted Barney didn’t originate that term. Bro culture is pretty passe as well ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/207 "2022-04-28T23:55:14Z")
Let’s talk about one of my pet peeves from a a show I love. **NCIS** Tony DiNozzo has a lot of the same views on women as stated above while still being held out to be a lovable character. But what always got me was the blatant workplace harassment that went on. In nearly every episode, especially in the Kate\Ziva years, Tony would do something that would be cause for immediate termination in nearly every company in America. (ya know, by someone not in upper management) He would go through her purse, go through her desk, answer her cell phone, try to break her password on her computer to read her e-mails…not t mention the inappropriate comments. Hell, even McGee would have a cause to go to HR with. Yet, he is never disciplined or even warned. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/208 "2022-04-29T02:40:19Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > @Ann_Hedonia you make a point that rings true- none of this is real, and the entire genre is at its core centered around people acting in awful ways, which is why I continue to find this show funny (at least the first handful of seasons). But there’s an ongoing and unresolvable question in the arts about how which fake stories we tell and how we tell them shapes our view of the real world. It’s odd to me to answer “that character does some really bad stuff and probably wouldn’t be written that way in the current climate” with what seems to amount to “lighten up, that’s just how the medium works/worked.” I think the horribleness of the characters and situations in those sitcoms was a distancing mechanism in some ways, it kept us at arms length from too much empathy and made the characters less real, and that’s what allowed us to find it funny. And the “ladies man” and “easy girl” are comic tropes that have been around for forever, and I don’t read too much into them. What I do think had a significant effect on social mores were the mainsteam attitudes and characters on these shows….that’s why I keep coming back to Frasier’s 57 girlfriends and Elaine’s 29 boyfriends and News Radio’s Dave and Lisa hooking up on the first date and the trope of the third date as “the sex date.” I think those things worked their way into society and set a pace that a lot of singles weren’t comfortable with. And I wonder if we may be pulling back from that, in the media if not in real life, but I don’t watch much new TV so I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/209 "2022-04-29T06:41:25Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > Tony DiNozzo […] the blatant workplace harassment that went on […] he is never disciplined or even warned. That’s just [art imitating life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Weatherly#Sexual_harassment)… (I know, different show, just the actor reference was too good to pass up) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/210 "2022-04-29T22:11:17Z")
[As I recall, most of Barney’s “deceptions” were so over the top that it would be difficult believing any woman would take them seriously](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha-iSmRYkBQ). None of them struck me as “rapey”. They are pretty hilarious though. [(Some more from the Play Book)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpDk-BqcSYo) What might be unacceptable about Barney is some of the “no fat chicks”, “dude, you’re gay” humor that’s fallen out of favor. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2022, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/211 "2022-04-30T10:12:28Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Barney has broken up with his stripper fiance Quinn, whom he did not trust. He has done a 180 and is dating warm, nice Patrice. Robin breaks into his apartment to find his “Playbook” of how to pick up women. I believe this eventually makes its way to Patrice, so she can see what kind of guy Barney really is. [That was only Step 8 of Barney’s16 step Playbook play to propose to Robin.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diQ2wdwbBqI) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2022, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-met-your-mother-is-barney-no-longer-acceptable-funny/963425/212 "2022-05-01T22:24:11Z")
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