Is the Big Bang Theory racist?

[Banquet_Bear]

@Superhal

When I heard the premise, I thought the jokes would be about nerds. I was a nerd, and we had great jokes. I read a list of BBT quotes online, and I thought they were great and those were what I was hoping for.

In the episode I watched, the skinny one got drunk at the end and sang some kind of Jewish song while playing the piano. Why didn’t he sing the theme song to the TV show Spiderman? Or Shatner’s spoken word Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? These would be funny, nerdy, and non-offensive.

My point is that the humor is based on racial stereotypes. Real nerd humor is about making you look stupid. It’s highly personalized for the target and the best ones are when you guess the perfect reference that is within the target’s range of knowledge. If you have to explain it, you’ve failed.

I wanted smart and funny, what I got was lame and offensive.

These quotes are great.

But, from what I’ve seen, there’s not many of them in the entire run of the show, and maybe 1 in the two episodes I watched (I believe I saw the “one lab accident away from being a supervillain” line.)

…you should watch harder. There are geek references all through every episode. And virtually nothing you could call “offensive.”

[Princhester]

@Sevencl

Why is it offensive to sing a Jewish song?

Exactly.

Superhal, I think the problem here is that you regard mentioning anything to do with any culture other than your own as being offensive. Og knows why. The problems doesn’t lie with the show, it lies with the relationship between your knee and your chin.

[Banquet_Bear]

@Grapefruit

The jokes are pretty much run-of-the-mill current sitcom type humour. I don’t think the show itself is racist because they tell a few racial/cultural jokes. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re not. I certainly don’t see any integrated racism… like the way they portray the Asian guy on Two Broke Girls (I only saw a clip, but that left a “WTF” taste in my mouth).

BBT is a show for people to harp about how clever it is just because the writers throw in science/comic book/someone being socially inept references from time to time. People watch so they can say “Oh hey, I’m socially awkward, but I like what these guys like, so this is proof that we’re funny and likeable!” It makes them feel good about themselves. I mean, that’s what sitcoms are supposed to do, but sometimes it gets irritating that people don’t realize it’s not a show for smart people, it’s a show for people who think they are smart.

…incorrect: and pretty offensive to boot. Why can’t you simply say “I don’t like the programme”? Why do you have to insult the people who do?

[Bryan_Ekers]

@woodstockbirdybird

I’d disagree, having seen more episodes. As I said in post #2, it’s easy humor, which is to say, hacky. I’ve never laughed at a single thing on the show, unless groaning now counts as laughter. I’d recommend Community for people who like geeky humor, but it’s been my experience BBT fans don’t tend to go for it, for whatever reason.

Community is certainly the far more clever show. Heck, even Frasier could satisfy nerd-humour more than BBT does. Or perhaps I’m just put off by my random sampling of episodes that contained far too many instances of “let’s introduce yet another neurosis for Sheldon as this episode’s source of conflict.”

[colander]

Well, I liked it a lot. It was real funny when the man got hit in his balls.

[Superhal]

@Sevencl

Why is it offensive to sing a Jewish song?

Because they’re supposed to be making fun of nerd culture. If I wanted to see Jew bashing, I’d watch John Stewart.

@Banquet_Bear

…you should watch harder. There are geek references all through every episode. And virtually nothing you could call “offensive.”

Maybe I just got really unlucky in the two episodes I did watch. It’s in syndication now on TBS, so I might give it another chance.

[Superhal]

@Bryan_Ekers

Community is certainly the far more clever show. Heck, even Frasier could satisfy nerd-humour more than BBT does. Or perhaps I’m just put off by my random sampling of episodes that contained far too many instances of “let’s introduce yet another neurosis for Sheldon as this episode’s source of conflict.”

I’ve never seen it, but I can tell already that I would love it if only for Senor Chang.

[Princhester]

@Superhal

Because they’re supposed to be making fun of nerd culture. If I wanted to see Jew bashing, I’d watch John Stewart.

So you are still unable to articulate why singing a Jewish song is “Jew bashing”, I take it?

[Alessan]

Maybe I’m being overly sensitive. I don’t know. But to me, the Howard character is like something out of Der Stürmer. Josef Goebbels couldn’t have written him better.

[Superhal]

@Princhester

So you are still unable to articulate why singing a Jewish song is “Jew bashing”, I take it?

Arrgh. Ok. A show is advertised as being about nerd culture. If they poke fun at hannakua, samoan tribal tatoos, hindu religious beliefs, etc. I am not into that.

Throw me your favorite joke, and I will racial stereotype such that it is no longer funny to you. Please include your ethnicity just so it will hurt that much more.

[Nava]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

2. Worse than that, the main woman on the show was a bimbo. “Geeks,” the show suggested, “are dudes. Dudes are smart. Chicks are dumb but pretty.” (I understand they introduced a smart girl in a later season; by then they’d lost me as a viewer).

@Sevencl

I don’t think it’s fair to accuse a show of saying “girls are dumb” because the only female main character at the time happened to be dumb.

But she wasn’t. She looks like a bimbo but it is pretty clear very early on that she is not dumb at all. She’s not a scientist (neither is most of the world, duh), but… ah. Maybe the problem is that I did live with a few real bimbos. Their memories make Penny look like the smartest person in the world. She knows when she’s being insulted with big words (my former housemates wouldn’t have) and doesn’t accept it, and while she does dumb things sometimes (who doesn’t?) she’s conscious of it.

The joke is on you guys.

[njtt]

@XT

I like it, though I havent seen all that many episodes. My wife watches it though, and I’ve caught a few and found them humorous. I think what people in this thread are viewing as ‘racist’ is really what a lot of technical people and nerds\geeks actually act like. To me the funniest thing is how the scientist guy looks down his nose at the engineer…which has been my experience though much of my working life. If they had some EE’s disparaging IT engineers and assuming they knew more about networks because they have a ‘real’ degree it would be pretty much spot on.

It may lack engineers looking down on other types of engineer, but it has the theoretical physicist looking down not only on the engineer, but also on the experimental physicist (not to mention all branches of science apart from physics).

And I think you probably do have to be quite a nerd to really get the joke in that. The general audience probably only understand it as an aspect of Sheldon’s pervasive narcissism, but it really does reflect (and humorously exaggerate) something real in nerd culture.

[Alessan]

It’s basically that Howard is both an *incredible *loser, and *incredibly *Jewish (in the sense of how Jewish culture is perceived by non-Jews). Correlation may not prove causality, but it can strongly imply it.

[Superhal]

@Alessan

It’s basically that Howard is both an *incredible *loser, and *incredibly *Jewish (in the sense of how Jewish culture is perceived by non-Jews). Correlation may not prove causality, but it can strongly imply it.

Arrgh. No. What I am trying to say is that the BBT makes jokes out of offensive racial stereotypes.

[Alessan]

No, it thinks offensive racial stereotypes are funny. Not the same thing.

[njtt]

@Alessan

Maybe I’m being overly sensitive. I don’t know. But to me, the Howard character is like something out of Der Stürmer. Josef Goebbels couldn’t have written him better.

Howard’s awfulness has much more to do with him being a nerd than with him being a Jew.

Anyway, he is not a villain. He is one of the good guys in the show: the characters you are supposed to end up liking and sympathizing and even identifying with. That is hardly what Dr Goebbels was after. (Admittedly it took me a good deal longer to learn to like Howard than Leonard, Raj or Penny.)

[Superhal]

edit: Sorry, Alessan is supporting my view, not arguing with me.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@silenus

Show is hysterical. 4 of the previous 5 posters have zero sense of humor and would be total wet blankets at any social affair whatsoever, and nobody ever wants to sit at their table at lunch, for good reason.

You think the show is hysterical? Given that, your assessment of my own sense of humor is…pleasing. Thank you.

@Nava

But she wasn’t. She looks like a bimbo but it is pretty clear very early on that she is not dumb at all. She’s not a scientist (neither is most of the world, duh), but… ah. Maybe the problem is that I did live with a few real bimbos. Their memories make Penny look like the smartest person in the world. She knows when she’s being insulted with big words (my former housemates wouldn’t have) and doesn’t accept it, and while she does dumb things sometimes (who doesn’t?) she’s conscious of it.

The joke is on you guys.

Oh. Well, then, ha! ha! ha!

She was clearly written as a bimbo and was on the show as eye candy. Not being willing to accept being insulted with big words is pretty weak sauce.

Edit: Agreed with folks mentioning Community. Now there’s some REAL geek humor. No more realistic than Big Bang Theory, and also touches on plenty of racial stereotypes, but it’s done in a funny manner.

[Telemark]

@Alessan

It’s basically that Howard is both an *incredible *loser,

He’s a PhD, married to a gorgeous woman, and a friggin’ astronaut. How do you get “incredible loser” out of that?

[DrFidelius]

He’s not a PhD. He’s an engineer, I think he only has a Masters.

Anyway, saying “But it is not an accurate representation of either Geek or academic culture” is a very Sheldon-esque response to the show.

(And laughing at someone who is clueless enough to express racially or sexually insensitive statements is not the same as laughing at the statements themselves. In the most recent eposode, no one in the audience agrees with Sheldon’s belief that women are hormonally driven bags of emotions. The joke is on him, not on the target of his statements.)