I think an enormous part of it is that HIMYM has a clearly unreliable narrator and is taking place in Ted’s memories decades in the future. As such, things are often played up for comic effect and aren’t always entirely true to life. Think about how stories get embellished over the years; for a personal example, there was an event when I was a RA in college where I stopped a person with a hand to his chest and told him in no uncertain terms to go away in a hurry. Not threatening, not violent, just firm. Yet over the 20 years since I graduated, my friends have embellished it into picking the guy up by his shirt, threatening to beat him half to death, etc…
So Barney’s absurd womanizing is probably about as “real” in the show universe as his silk pajama-suit or any number of other outlandish Barney things. And as such, not really creepy, as it’s all with a sort of wink & nod, and not intended to be realistic, but cartoonishly embellished for humorous purposes.
Sam Malone was played straight, and even though not quite as absolutely creepy as Barney, the fact that it’s NOT played for laughs is what makes it creepier.
Huh. It’s funny though, since 2004, lying about being a Red Sox pitcher is the kind of thing a doctor, a pilot, a military guy or a skydiver would do to get laid.
**bump - **Yes, that’s what I meant, too. The unreliable narrator aspect of HIMYM and the fact that Sam was portrayed as a legitimate Type are what I was after.
Within the context of the show, we’re expected to take Sam’s behavior ‘seriously’. Barney is played straight up for laughs; even the other characters on the show take everything he says and does halfway tongue-in-cheek. That makes Barney’s behavior less ‘creepy’ despite the fact that it’s objectively far more reprehensible.
Arguably, that just makes his friends creepy as well for thinking it’s funny. I mean, he IS shown to actually be doing this stuff and taking women home, not just making silly quips.
I disagree that Sam was truly played “straight” – when he sees a beautiful woman enter and jumps over the bar to talk to her, it’s obviously done for comedic effect seeing as how it’s a sit-com and all. Everyone is an exaggeration of their traits.
I think your use of ‘targets women’ and ‘women fooled by Barney’ shows that Barney is creepy.
Barney lies to women and kicks them out after he’s had sex once. Any woman who wants a relationship is going to be upset by that.
Two episodes come to mind:
the one where Barney tries to sleep with a different woman every night for a month (‘Barney’s Perfect Month’)
the one where Barney is constantly being hounded by one of 64 women he upset ‘The Bracket’
I think an even more relevant piece of evidence that Sam is less of a creep, is the fact that from what I recall, the women in Sam’s life all seem to not be hurt by him. Aside from his relationship with Diane and Rebecca, the “one night stand” women all seem to know what they are getting with Sam. They seem to be on friendly terms even. He has all their numbers in his Black Book and he can call all of them anytime. They may not always be available for a fun night, but they are approachable. I recall one instance where he calls one and she leaves her sleeping boyfriend at home and goes out with Sam.
Now that is not necessarily morally right, but it does lend to Sam’s credibility of being honest in his intentions. He’s out to have fun and the ladies know that and don’t seem to care.
This is 100% a product of it’s time, and I don’t think it should be considered in the “Who’s worse” contest, but Barney is absolutely accepting of gay people, bi people, etc. whereas Sam is (as was standard for sitcoms at the time) a raging homophobe. It’s part of their respective eras, but it’s still kind of jarring to see Sam freaking out about the idea of catching teh gay cooties.
Again, it was ok at the time and it’s actually nice to see how bad it used to be see how far we come.
I don’t know whether it’s really accurate to compare Barney Stinson with Sam Malone. Comparing Barney to Dan Fielding (Night Court) might make more sense.
Yeah, I just recently watched this episode. Sam was shocked, but not homophobic. He supported his friend shortly after finding out. It was Norm and the other regulars that were making the big deal about Cheers becoming a Gay Bar because Sam supported his friend.
Sam may have been freaked out by teh gay, but all the way back in Season I he was supportive of a teammate who came out, and told Norm, Cliff and the others that if they weren’t happy, they could leave. (The episode actually won an award.)
And during the final season, Sam sought therapy for being a sexual compulsive, which Barney never did.
ETA: At least the others remembered the same thing I did.
As mentioned upthread, Barney had a 64-team bracket in order to determine which of the multiple women he jilted would want to follow him around and sabotage him. And they had to spend an entire day narrowing the field to only 64 women.
And let’s not forget the Ho-Be-Gone (Patent Pending).
My rewatch of Cheers is mainly to watch the Frasier episodes, so I haven’t seen that one since it came out (if I saw it at all). I’ll have to check it out.
That said, at least during the Frasier years (say, seasons 3 up) Sam freaks out at the idea of anything resembling teh gay. Like hugging another guy (even in a guy-hug way) or stuff like interior decorating. I grant you that episode that you and others have talked about sounds pretty damned progressive for the early '80s, but there’s still a ton of seasons where he’s not progressive, he’s normal for his time.
I just figured out why, for me, Sam seems more rapey. He won’t give up. Rebecca has made it clear for ~39 episodes that I’ve rewatched that she’s not only not interested in him, but actually grossed out by him. None the less, he makes pretty crude sexual remarks about her and/or propositions her once an episode at least, he’s crawled into bed with her when she’s sleeping once or twice, he’s forced kisses on her*, he’s stalked her multiple times, he’s tried blackmail…actual “I’ll tell your boss you did such and such unless you go to bed with me” blackmail. Sam is seriously stalkery.
Barney generally make a play, if it doesn’t work or the girl says “Eew, no”, he’ll shrug and move onto the next woman. And his plays are cartoons.
Or
Or the Lorenzo Von Matterhorn or The Scuba Diver or dozens of others.
All gross (but really funny in the show’s context) and all rape-by-lying, but at least Barney understand that no means no. To Sam, no means “I guess I need to find a way to force her”.
*And not in the one-forced-kiss-1940s romantic way. I don’t remember the trope name but the girl says “You disgust me. When I fall in love, it’ll be because I find a man I have chemistry with.” and the guy says “How about THIS chemical reaction”, forces a kiss, she struggles for half a second and then joins in eagerly.
Closest example I can think of for Sam was him pretending to be impotent (though he had misgivings about it) in order to get a psychiatrist to try to “cure” him (Season 7, “What’s Up, Doc?”)
I’m quite fond of this clip, featuring a pre-Newhart Julia Duffy.
It’s the “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” syndrome. He’s supportive of another guy being gay but is terrified of anyone confusing him as one.