I’ve recently started watching The Big Bang Theory reruns, not in order. So I’m just wondering a couple of things about Raj and his inability to talk around women:
In the cafeteria scenes, I often see women in the background at other tables, and yet Raj is happily chatting away. Now, I know it’s all in his mind, and I’ve seen at least once when a woman came up behind him while he was talking and he didn’t stop until he became actually aware of her. But surely in the cafeteria we can’t be expected to think that Raj somehow just doesn’t see the women around him. So I’m wondering if this has ever been addressed in the series or is it just some sort of a wink from the producers that we’re supposed to not question?
In some later episode or two, where I came in late (to the episode itself), I’m pretty sure I remember seeing Raj talking to Penny. Was he drunk and that’s part of what I missed by coming in late, or is there some point in the series where he actually overcomes his problem?
When he was thinking he could only talk to women when he was drunk, it was pointed out to him that he was drinking alcohol-free beer at one point and had no problem talking to a woman, and so he discovered it was all in his head.
Women at other tables didn’t count. Only the ones actually interacting with him. Of course, now that trope is past, especially since Yvette the vet was in the picture.
By the way, I looked in my Tamil dictionary and found that குநிரப்பள்ளி Kutirappaḷḷi apparently means ‘horse town’ (compound of குநிரை *kutirai *‘horse’ and பள்ளி *paḷḷi *'town), which would be spelled as “Koothrappalli” in the casual sort of transliteration of Tamil usually encountered. Whether I’m right or wrong, the name is clearly of Dravidian origin as opposed to Indo-Aryan.
Actually, even before he was cured, he did once manage to squeak out the word “sorry” to Penny, while sober (and he knew it). It probably helped that she made clear to him that she would castrate him if he didn’t apologize.
I believe it was also noted that Raj could talk to large groups which happened to have women in them, as in a lecture, but not when he had to make eye contact or speak directly to them.
When Penny first meets Raj, Howard says that Raj couldn’t talk to women. But later it is stated that he can’t talk to attractive women. But it somehow morphed back into (almost) all women.
In S01E07 The Dumpling Paradox, Raj has a line “Oh, sure. Cut the foreigner in half. There’s a billion more where he came from.” when Penny is standing a few feet away.
Clearly Raj could talk to his sister and mother. Not sure about the extent of that exception.
Being on the Physics Bowl team, he could answer questions in front of a crowd that included Penny and had Leslie Winkle near him.
So the writers basically didn’t care when his selective mutism was in effect. It’s a effect of the Law of Funny.
It was a phenomenon apparently based on a real person they knew. So I guess they exaggerated it, but it is probably as random and unpredictable in real life.
Speaking as someone who has had problems interacting with other humans a lot in my life there was absolutely no logic to what I could or could not do on any given day. Brains are capricious and frustrating as hell. Mine anyway.
If I remember that scene right, I interpreted that as Howard hitting on Penny (“Oh, he can’t talk about attractive women [like you]”)
Was he aware penny was there and did he have a beer? I seem to recall he spent a lot of the first 4 seasons with a beer bottle in hand so he could talk.
I think he just can’t talk to women he wants to sleep with, but since he’s ultra-desperate, that’s every woman he’s not related to.
I think that’s just that he isn’t talking TO women.
Frankly I miss the “not talking to women” bit because some of the funniest lines in the series were when Raj would whisper something, and Howard would audibly respond. It was a good bit.
Now it’s like “lolz Raj acts like he’s gay but he’s not” and that’s dumb
I agree. The Raj character is less funny now, and the pseudo-gay stuff isn’t very funny, but, really, they had to fix him up with a girlfriend, or a decent possibility thereof, before the series ends, or it would just be sad, and that would be difficult to do convincingly with his mutism problem still in place.
My favorite Raj joke was when he woke up in bed with Penny, and she (and we) thought they had had sex, and he still couldn’t talk to her.