Have you ever seen the CBS TV show How I Met Your Mother? It is one of the funniest shows on the planet. It is about five friends as they struggle with the ups and downs of adult life. They deal with work problems, relationship problems, friend problems, and anything else you can possibly think of. One character, Barney Stinson, is played by Neil Patrick Harris. He is a womanizer who can’t have enough sex and always gets the girl. In my opinion, he is the most sexist character in all of television. But, the strange thing is that none of the other main characters ever say anything to him about it, or call him out on it. They all just assume its Barney being Barney and they go along with it.
Every single girl that Barney picks up in the bar, or on the street, or at work, or wherever else he meets them, is portrayed as a dumb girl who fall for any pick up line in the book. They are never smart enough to see that this is just some random guy who wants nothing more than to have sex. Or if they are able to see that, they are just as sex hungry as he is and don’t care at all. Not only is that how Barney sees them, but that is how all viewers see them as well, pulling the “male gaze” into effect. During the show, we are put into Barney’s shoes and we look as the situation from his point of view. This means that we are all Barney, creeping on his next victim and because of that, it makes us think like Barney. We see her as a game that needs to be played and a challenge that has to be conquered, making us just sexist as he is. The “male gaze” is powerful and the fact that most of pop culture is shown through the male gaze makes it seem like it is okay in real life situations.
In one episode, Barney even gives another character a tour of his apartment. He highlights all of the things about his apartment that make women want to leave once he is done with them. He talks about how he only has one towel in the bathroom, one pillow on the bed, no food in the fridge, and a huge collection of porn that is prominently displayed on his wall, like a collection of books. Barney is very forward about all of these little things that make women leave him after he hooks up with them. He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he wants nothing to do with them after they hook up, it is unbelievable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9yRWs0zASg
In this clip, Barney demonstrates his sexism, through his lack of compassion for anyone. He shows us this when he talks about his “Hot Crazy Scale.” The “Hot Crazy Scale” is a scale that Barney puts girls on and they are allowed to be a little crazy as long as they are as hot as they are crazy. He even mentions some specific girls that made him create the scale. The way he talks about the girls, you can see that he doesn’t really care about them or their personality as long as they are hot enough to make up for it, because he is shallow and only cares about looks. He believes that only looks matter and they can make up for anything.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7ZVEvxSR7g&NR=1
This clip is a perfect example of Barney and all he has to offer. All of these tricks clearly demonstrate his lack of chivalry and lack of any sort of gentlemanliness. It is easy to see how the producers of How I Met Your Mother purposefully characterized the random girls as stupid and very naïve. In the narration, Barney even mentions at one point that you have to “select your target, preferably a girl with a real nice phone”. It doesn’t matter who the girl is as long as she has what he needs to trick her, such as a nice phone. Through this playbook, you can see Barney for the sexist, single-minded man he truly is.
Throughout the episodes, Barney is openly sexist; he follows “The Bro Code” and uses the Playbook in order to pick up girls. He is demining to women and doesn’t care what people think about him, as long as he can find a girl dumb enough to hook up with. At points, Barney’s sexism and outright lack of sensitivity for the entire female species is funny. But other times, the writers of How I Met Your Mother take it too far and need to stop.
Works Cited
Barney Stinson How i met your mother, Hot,Crazy SCALE Barney Stinson. YouTube. Uploaded: StevenxVan; 18 October 2009. Video. 16 September 2011. (Web). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9yRWs0zASg
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