I think you are right that the biggest problem is Howard, and the overall misogyny - it’s hilarious when nerds do it because they are physically less threatening than jocks or something?
But a close second is the central premise of the Sheldon character. While essential to almost every funny situation, it is just ridiculous. He has no redeeming features that explain why they all enable his outrageously selfish behavior rather than just calling him out on it and refusing to tolerate it. And perhaps it creates the impression that this is the archetypal neuroatypical person, that the principal distinguishing characteristic of neuroatypical people is extreme selfishness, and that being accepting of neuroatypical people means being a punching bag for their bullying.
An extreme outcome like this is plausible in that household because this kind of thing happens only when the victim of abuse is unassertive and does not stand up to a selfish bully; with a willing victim the bully has no incentive to correct their behavior, and the bullying continues until the victim completely snaps.
My mom adored the show and tried several times to persuade me to watch it. I’ve only watched an episode or two, and it was nails-on-chalkboard annoying. Not a joke in it landed, and the “nerd blackface” might be hyperbolic but it gets at the problem of having nerd culture celebrated by people who aren’t part of nerd culture.
But not, apparently, sufficiently nerdly to understand immunity to infection. Nor to grasp the immorality of shilling for bullshit supplements saying (literally) “trust me I’m a famous neuroscientist”.
Back in the days before video on demand on long airplane flights they’d show a couple of episodes of sitcoms as part of the entertainment. I traveled a lot on business in those times and there for have seen a few episodes of multiple seasons of Frasier, Friends and Big Bang Theory. With the qualification that I may have missed context by not seeing most of the episodes I found Frasier to be a little hit or miss, Friends to be barely tolerable and BBT to be horrendous.
I always look at sitcoms as silly pieces of fluff. Don’t take it so seriously.
They’re actors. It’s a scripted show that was very successful. For whatever reason.
I don’t try to psychoanalyze each character.
I find Sheldon funny in an irritating way. We know to expect it.
Leonard comes off as mostly bumbling through life.
Howard tickles the crap outta me. Mother dominated and looking for love in a slightly creepy way. I loved the robot arm episode. It shows how pitiful he really was.
Penny is window dressing. I suspect she knew that.
Amy is, well, at least she has some handle on Sheldon. Bernadette fell flat.
Raj, I never really got. I liked his little dog tho’.
Can’t think of his character name, but the Comic book shop owner always made me laugh.
Gosh, seems like a lot of socially-conscious analysis for a sitcom. I thought this was a fairly funny (at times) show with an interesting concept (socially clumsy science nerds). Did it sometimes fall flat? Of, course. Did it get a little stale towards the end? Sure, most long-running shows do.
But what was important was this: Bob Newhart. I find him incredibly funny and his appearances were one of the highlights of the series. I wish there had been more of him. But then, maybe less is more in this case.
There was a callback to this in a later episode… I think it was when Howard found out he had a long lost half brother, and at some point in the conversation Howard mentions the robot hand. And his half brother says “Because that’s all you needed, right?”
And actually, the best line in the robot hand episode is Vernee Watson calling over the PA for an orderly with a wheelchair. “We’ve got a robot hand grasping a man’s penis.”
Howard says “Couldn’t you be a little more discreet?”
Vernee snaps back “I’m sorry, we don’t have a code for ‘robot hand grasping a man’s penis’.”
There’s a similar joke in the movie “Broken Arrow” where this turns out to be military jargon for a lost nuclear weapon. Somebody (Travolta maybe?) quips “It happens often enough that you have a code phrase for it?”
I never thought that, because I saw myself and my friends in their portrayal; to me it felt authentic, allowing for exaggeration for sitcom purposes. Actions: ridiculous, but character portrayal: reasonably accurate.
