I’m not a Happy Days watcher, but that always bothers me in these shows. 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.
That really says more about the writers - they wish women would just show up like they do for Fonzie. They objectify women not just for their appeal, but they never think about what they are doing the rest of the time. It doesn’t even occur to the writers that this is even a thing.
I don’t know. Maybe she wouldn’t be portrayed at all. Those names weren’t used against her at the time, and they certainly existed. I think she was portrayed as flawed but sympathetic. Herb wasn’t the only male character to find her attractive. No one really called her out on the show at all, it was just something they showed about her. More than likely it wouldn’t be portrayed today, regardless of if particular women still do that type of thing.
It’s funny because it’s structured like a joke. There are a fair few racist and sexist, etc jokes that have great wordplay and timing and the surprise element - hell, there are even holocaust jokes that use humour well - but if there’s an underlying element of racism, etc, that element does not cease to be there because it’s a joke.
Jokes about Barney deceiving someone into sex are still about Barney deceiving someone into sex.
Especially when you consider that particular tune was on the same album as “Norwegian Wood,” a song generally accepted to be inspired by an extra-marital liaison.
Do you think Lorenzo Von Matterhorn was an actual person? He could have said his name was John Smith, it doesn’t matter, people use assumed names, people pretend to be the kind of person they are not, that’s what everyone has to watch out for in the dating game.
I don’t know where the line is, but simple dishonesty isn’t it. I can’t disagree that if the jokes were considered real they’d be very close to that line, possibly over it, but they weren’t meant to be real. I think we might find a problem checking every episode and every one of Barney’s plays, but the none of the specifics mentioned in the thread so far have put him over the line.
So, just to be clear. Knocking on a woman’s door, telling her that her husband was cheating on her with your wife, and asking her to get even by having revenge sex. You find this to be on the acceptable side of the line?
Gotta note as mentioned earlier in the case of Barney we’re not talking about some Old Times thing from the (real not fictional) 1950s but something that was on the air as late as 2014. It’s not like many of the issues we are mentioning were not already in the public discourse.
I suppose it just shows differences in what I grew accustomed to in media, in not being especially upset that Barney is played for “OMG can you believe that” laughs. But that’s just that — standards will change and people more used to the newer standards (or who had always wanted the standards to change) will feel differently.
Reading a lot of these posts I wonder what people would like our television landscape to look like.
Is it to be sanitized of anything that could be considered offensive? Only the most milquetoast shows should be allowed?
It is certainly fine to dislike Barney but should there never be a character that is a womanizer? (not to mention other despicable characters from other shows that might be drug dealers or murderers or a bad parent and so on.)
If that happened on an episode of Law and Order SVU, or in a documentary, I’d be outraged. If someone tried it with me, I’d roll my eyes and laugh at them.
When it happens on a sitcom, I laugh. And like I said before, most 90’s sitcom episodes could’ve been subtitled “Horrible people doing horrible things to other mostly horrible people”. I don’t think it’s any more outrageous than Doug and Carrie breaking up two marriages so they can construct the perfect “friend couple” or Frasier dressing up like a psycho clown and giving his father a heart attack or George Costanza’s relief after he gets out of his impending marriage by accidentally killing his fiancé.
These were all horrible things, and while I would not find it funny at all if people this this in real life, I thought they were very funny when they happened in a sitcom, because sitcoms aren’t real.
Why is it that every time people try to engage with these characters and the ideas behind them everyone screams “you have no sense of humor!” Or “ohhh, censorship, tv would be so boring if you had your way”?
I laughed at Barney’s antics when I watched HIMYM. I enjoyed the show and I certainly didn’t dislike Barney. He is portrayed as a very likable character, after all. For all his success, he is often vulnerable. He has a tragic (but humorous) backstory. At times, his facade falls away and you see him at his most vulnerable and feel bad for him.
Quite aside from that, I also find it worthwhile to talk about what that portrayal and the way we react to it shows about our society. Sometimes what is shown is ugly. That doesn’t mean we need to cancel HIMYM or grab the pitchforks to go after Neil Patrick Harris.
It’s also interesting to think about how society’s sensibilities have changed. There’s no need to get defensive or offended when people go through these intellectual excercises and I don’t really understand the mindset that would be offended.
