Just saw that one the other day (in it, we also learn that Otis hit his mother-in-law badly enough to send her to the dentist for treatment (he was aiming at his wife - but missed)).
Cringe. But I did stress “occasionally” and “inconsistently.” I might not have bothered to post it, though, if I had had that particular incident in my catalogue of memories. Yeesh.
I don’t see how you can interpret Howard and Bernadette’s relationship that way. It was the other way around: Howard was always belittled for making less than Bernadette, she would “joke” about giving him an allowance, she would control what he spends money on etc.
No problem. I think that Otis is supposed to represent a more extreme version of the attitudes that Andy is learning from Opie not to have
Maybe “belittles” isn’t the right word to describe how Howard treats Bernadette. True, she absolutely belittles him for making less money than she does, while for him, it’s more that he always struggles to view women (other than his mother) as more than two-dimensional sex objects and/or housewives.
Also, as she’s one of the few people who’s actually shorter than him, Howard seems to often throw short jokes at her.
But still, domestic violence wasn’t taken seriously back in that era. It was a lot more common and, for the most part, accepted. At worst, it was considered unfortunate but a private family matter.
While so many adults were freaking out about how songs like “Puff the Magic Dragon” and Anne Murray’s “Snowbird” might me about drugs, no one blinked an eye at the horrific lyrics of The Beatles hit “Run for Your Life”.
I’d rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man
You’d better keep your head, little girl
Or I won’t know where I am
You’d better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man
That’s the end, little girl
Sometimes I’m astounded at the stuff that was normal when I was a kid.
And at the time, it might have been written off as a fairly insignificant joke about the stereotype of the mother-in-law who’s relentlessly overbearing, with the unspoken implication that as such, she probably had it coming.
Today, you could have characters talk about something like that happening, but Otis should be truly regretful about it, and Andy should say something like “Damn, dude, you need to get some help. Seriously.”
WTF?
Was this a big hit of theirs? (I hadn’t heard it before, though I’ve heard lots of Beatles hits)
It was on Rubber Soul, but was never released as a single. FWIW, I’m a big Beatles fan, but this is one of my least-favorite songs of theirs.
It may not have been a huge hit, but it got plenty of airplay. And that’s not a selective lyric, the whole song is equally horrible.
Apparently, it’s their least favorite song, too, from various interviews from back in the day.
ETA: From wiki: “Since release, the song has garnered a mixed response from music critics. Lennon designated it as his “least favourite Beatles song” in a 1973 interview.”
Quite so. And while domestic violence wasn’t off limits to discuss sex still was. Heaven forbid a child get the notion that the husband beating his wife might also have sex with her.
Anne Murray and Snowbird? I never really listened to the lyrics but it assumed it was about mayonnaise on white bread sandwiches. Is nothing absurdly pure and wholesome anymore?
I often find changing social mores challenging.
Recently, there was some issue of Dr. Seuss books with unfavorable material not being published, and many people - on these forums, IIRC - said the representations of Asians/Africans was inappropriate. Some people suggested they should not be included in libraries.
And then there are the repeated instances of blackface or questionable representation of Blacks, with such info being edited out of TV shows/films.
All right - I go along with that. That was then, this is now.
But I have a hard time figuring out how these things are fine to air and laugh at: Barney - seducing drunk women; Ralph Kramden - threatening spousal abuse (tho - wink wink, we all KNOW he didn’t MEAN it!); or Otis - yes, the humor of a substance abuser.
I’m not advancing any particular position. Hell, I’m just trying to figure out what my position IS (and to avoid having too many people criticize me for being a Neanderthal.)
Barney was one of the main reasons I never got into HIMYM. Excuses about the story being told from the POV of an unreliable narrator don’t mean that I wasn’t watching a total creep being presented as a great friend and mostly good guy apart from the creep thing, as if that wasn’t that big a deal. There are too many real-life men who get away with that sort of thing.
The Seuss heirs, who still control the copyright, decided not to continue publishing the six books they considered inappropriate, because the representations were pretty hard not to call racist. Those were never his biggest sellers and all but one were virtually unknown, which probably helped. I’m not sure cancel culture really applies when it’s the copyright owners themselves who decide not to publish something any more.
We listen to the Beatles Channel on SiriusXM, and I hear that song no less than eight days times a week.
Did they? Because I saw that episode on Netflix only last year.
Barney was supposed to be over the top. What next, you guys will think that Wil E Coyote is unaffected by gravity until he notices that he has walked off the cliff face?
And for the slow learners, the few times Barney has a chance to do something (sexually*) unethical, he absolutely refuses to do it
Howard is expressly shown as a loser in TBBT.
*non sexually unethical things he will do without second thought.
They pulled it on June 26, 2020. You can check Netflix and Hulu, it’s not there. It should be S2E14.
You can see it (if you pay for it) on Youtube, but that’s about it. In fact, even trying to find a clip of the specific scene in question is hard.
Having said that, I think “Community” didn’t pull the episode, but rather Netflix and Hulu pulled it. As stated, you can still get buy it from Community’s Youtube channel, and I see it on Amazon’s (for free, started playing as soon as I clicked on it).
Hmm, you’re right, I must have seen it earlier than last year, then. Who knows what was when, the last two years.
We went on a Community binge a while back, having never watched it when it was on; I remember watching the AD&D episode (on Netflix) and maybe a week or two later hearing it was taken down.