Marc Alan Fishman: The Anti-Big-Bang Hypothesis
Welcome back everyone. It would seem that last week I ignited the Internet ablaze by admitting I’d not seen “Wrath of Khan” until the week prior. The fine people folks trolls at Fark.com labeled me an ignorant dork. Ignorant of what I don’t know. Dork? Agreed. But then one of the feistier folks in the thread scoffed “I bet this guy loves Big Bang Theory.” And it’s pretty clear that’s an insult.
Well, motherfarkers? I do.
Now, let’s be absolutely clear: I like the show. I don’t profess to say it’s anything more than exactly what it is, a network sitcom. And amongst it’s pre-taped, live audience laugh-track, script-by-way-of-a-writers-room brethren? It’s on par, or maybe slightly better at times, than the rest of the dreck it sits with. No, an episode of BBT will never be regarded as a game-changing piece of television. But when did it ever have those aspirations? Anyone who took time to watch more than five minutes of the show would realize that it’s cut from the same cloth as all other inoffensive PC drivel. To think that it somehow had the ability to rise above that line is a thought shared only by people whose optimism borders on the terrifying.
With all that being said, let me lament again: I like the show. Quite a bit. The show celebrates a culture I myself am very much a part in. The fact that between the traditional tropes, I’m getting legit winks and knowing nods to characters, stories, and knowledge only really appreciated by a subset of society is a boon. Just this past week, the ladies of the cast had a subplot about reading comics and getting into arguments about them. Could anyone here tell me 10 years ago we’d predict we’d have a popular television show that contains characters who argue over the semantic properties of Mjolnir? Moreover, would you then say that said argument would actually be qualified as “nerd-worthy?” Well, if you’re raising your hand, then your pants are on fire.
For those naysayers out there, and I know there is a rising crowd of them, I beg you to truly mull over the gripes you’re bringing to the table. The big one? “Big Bang Theory is offensive to nerds!” OK. Well, guess what, Internet? I must have not received my invitation to the official nerd message board where I would make my vote. I certainly must be amongst your ranks. I own unopened toys. Long boxes. DVD box sets of defunct cartoons. I know the frame count of Ryu’s hadoken and why being several frames shorter than Ken’s makes it a more effective special move in Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Certainly if that doesn’t allow me access to the secret nerd cabal, I don’t know what will. To imply that the show, which again is a mainstream situation comedy, is offensive to nerds is offensive to me.
Is it offensive because the laugh track is cued up to moments that laugh at the main characters’ foibles instead of celebrating them? Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it’s a motherfarking laugh track, meant to usher the masses towards the guffaws. And guess what, internet? The fact that Howard Wolowitz admits to playing D & D is in fact funny to the uninitiated. Did I laugh when he said it? No. But then again, I didn’t get up in arms because the people in the studio audience did.
Nor did I sound the flugelhorn of justice when the same jackanapes chortled over Leonard getting picked on, or Sheldon doing just about anything on the damned show. Simply put, the show is aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator. To bemoan this fact is to hold a mirror up to every other sitcom in existence and shake your fist in anger. You can then join your true brothers in arms – the offended handy men who watched Home Improvement, the spiteful OB-GYN’s and jazz musicians in a murderous rage over The Cosby Show, and of course the bewildered radio psychiatrists aghast over Frasier.
The fact is Big Bang Theory caters to the median pop-culture nerd. The person who is vaguely aware of comics, Lord of the Rings, and perhaps Doctor Who. The show was built around the predictable notes of countless other shows before it; all of which can be explained. To think that we as a counter-culture are owed a TV series that doesn’t laugh at us, but with us… need only look to all the shows we’re already watching. Doctor Who, Toy Hunter, Star Trek, Battlestar: Galactica, Face/Off, Adventure Time, and so forth. Simply put, there’s already a boatload of shows that cater to us as a culture. Stop crying over the one that dares to poke at us for being dorks. As they say: let your freak flag fly. Maybe even laugh once in a while.
The way I see it, Big Bang Theory is plenty nice to the main cast the haters feel are nothing but forever picked on. Over the course of several seasons, Leonard (and Raj) have boinked Penny, Howard has gone to space and found love, and even Sheldon has found a partner. And sure, the audience has had their fair share of yuk-yuks over the boys’ failure, but to imply that the show is anything but loving of their stars is laughable at best. And for those who would say that the show is somehow regressing the nation to hate the geeks, dweebs, nerds, and dorks of the world… I offer a shoulder to cry on. There there, it’s O.K. I know it hurts when the big bad jocks push you into your locker, citing that they wouldn’t do it, had it not been for last night’s episode. Wipe those tears off, nerdlinger!
Because if TV sitcoms have taught me anything? It’s that it’ll all be forgotten next week.
SUNDAY: John Ostrander
I love The Big Bang Theory. Yes, the characters are bit socially awkward, even a bit inept. But realistically that is not a huge fabrication if we are being honest.
I am 61 years old. When I was a kid a popular television show was Leave it to Beaver. One of the ancillary characters was Lumpy Rutherford. He was Wally’s friend and he was stupid. One of the ways you knew he was stupid was because he read comic books. This was the early 1960’s.
On the BBT, the characters who read comic books are college professors, have PhD’s and one has been an astronaut. What’s to complain about?
Well, technically Howard only has a Master’s (which Sheldon will never let him live down)…
Speaking as someone with Asperger’s Syndrome, I find Sheldon to be a hilarious send-up of all our best stereotyped traits. I laugh at him because he reminds me of me sometimes.
And it’s nice that all those whiteboards in the apartment get vetted by the physics department at UCLA to make sure they’re all technically accurate…
Ignorant of X simply means you do not have a working knowledge of X. I would assume if they called you ignorant after you said you hadn’t seen Wrath of Khan, they meant you do not have a working knowledge of Wrath of Khan. And since you’d said so yourself, I don’t know why that would be a topic of debate.
The importance of that film to the general realm of sci-fi, that’s perhaps worth discussion. If it is a film of any importance, then your self-professed ignorance is worth amending. If it is not relevant any more, then there’d be no point. But that’s for others to discuss. I’m just a word junkie.
It’s the subtle distinction of laughing with and laughing at. Yes, the show is rife with sci-fi and comics references, but they fly over the head of the vast majority of the audience. If every pop culture reference were replaced with generic non-existent names and references, the vast majority of the audience would laugh just as loud. Because they don’t get that the argument about Doctor Who is one that fans have every day, they’re just thinking “listen to those geeks talk about dumb things”.
BBT can’t even stop doing it to itself. They had the episode a week or two ago that played on the “Eek, a girl in a comic shop, i don’t know what to do with my hands” trope. THIS is an image we’re supposed to be pleased with? And like with James Gunn’s recent blog post that set the internet on fire for a week, I saw no satire or irony in the scene. It wasn’t supposed to be turning the trope on its ear.
I can’t recall a TV show that’s done a “geek” episode where the fans didn’t come off as comically clownish or hopeless socially incapable failures. Even when one of the characters of the show is revealed to be a fan, he’s either embarassed about it, or gives some half-hearted speech about how they were odd-ducks as a kid, and comics or sci-fi was a safe haven.
I think the references in Roseanne were more in-line. The characters were not about being comic geeks, but they pervaded the show.
“n. Over the course of several seasons, Leonard (and Raj) have boinked Penny, ”
Actually, Raj never boinked Penny.
(And why is boinking something that would be done *to* her. She’s likely to be the more active party.)