Very cool, if true

I'm only on Season 2, ep 16 or something, but Penny's characterisation bothers me way more than Sheldon's.

Sheldon, to me, is patently an Aspy uber-nerd, and I don't see him portrayed as anything other than that. He frequently gets his comeuppance, and when he doesn't it's usually because his friends are getting their for enabling them and frankly the deserve it. He's absolutely deserving of sympathy however because however convinced he is of his superiority or rectitude he is never content, and so OC that he has to go through considerable effort just to maintain an emotional constant.

If anything, his friends are every bit as deserving of censure as he is because their constant enablement is what excuses him from having to change and furthermore the very fact that they continue to remain friends with him at all speaks of a serious case of several GSFs. He is the kind of dysfunctional personality that only a bunch of hardcore geeks will tolerate specifically because of the GSFs.

We've all known people who share some of Sheldon's traits. You know that I'm extremely vocal on the topic that awareness of one's faults and shortcomings does not give one license to practice them at will. But in Sheldon's case he genuinely doesn't believe that he's doing anything wrong - he knows that other people think so, and has chosen to disagree. This is evidenced by the fact that he does, on occasion, ask for information on a given social code - sarcasm, 'small talk', etc - when he has decided for whatever reason that it would be a useful thing for him to know about. That others have seen this and chosen to remain his friend despite his deliberate rejection of their social mores only speaks of their weakness, their compassion, or indeed their own conceit.

Since, after all, the ability to tolerate such a horrible person with such a great mind must speak a little of their minds too, right?

Penny, on the other hand, is one of only two women on the regular cast. The other is a (brilliant) selfishly promiscuous borderline sociopathic mean girl. And Penny is an impulsive, insecure, self-loathing, self-destructive airhead. It's also patently clear that the writers couldn't give a damn about her character or continuity, because they contradict themselves with her background and personality pretty regularly. She's far from two-dimensional, but she's most definitely an afterthought of a character - particularly sad given that she's the driving force of the plot.

For the record, Howard annoys and offends me way more than Sheldon does too, because he's treated as relatively normal by comparison, and he's really not; he's disgusting. Sheldon's probably got a diagnosable condition: what's Howard's excuse?

EDIT: I'm also amused and not at all surprised that

theferrett hated Spike, the soulless killer who was put through considerable torture having made the decision to try to get his humanity back despite still being evil, but doesn't, it seem, have anything to say about Xander, who's only reason for behaving despicably on a repeated basis was a teenaged crush and some social retardation. Human, besouled Xander, one of the biggest arseholes ever to have walked Sunnydale's streets, strangely never seems to get any criticism from geeky men.

(Sorry, sorry, can't seem to type straight today)

Edited Date: 2010-03-05 12:14 pm (UTC)

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Howard's treated as despicable by every other character on the show up until the point where *season 3 spoilers* - so I don't have a problem with the display of his behaviour, as it's not being condoned.

My problem with Sheldon is that people seem to see him as likable. Lots of comments on the thread are defending him as being sweet and positive, despite the fact that as a friend he'd drive you completely crazy.

I don't remember contradictions in Penny's character/background. Anything in particular spring to mind?

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Not condoned, perhaps, but certainly tolerated.

The commenters are insance or stupid. Sheldon is negative and very, very sad. He's done exactly one sweet thing in the whole time I've been watching.

The most recent thing that came to mind was that In one episode recently Penny talked about being a junior Rodeo champion, then a few episodes later talked about being in no way sporty at all, then a few episodes after that turned out to be a crack shot with a paintball gun because she'd learned to shoot as a child. Not overly surprising in most comedies, but on a show like BBT that level of inconsistency shows, to me, that the writers just don't care that much about her character.

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I'm not sure that shooting = sporty in large chunks of the US. The rodeo thing, on the other hand is definitely a major thing to let fall through the net.

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Also, where are the lots of comments in that thread defending him? I only found maaaybe one, and that one's tenuous.

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"I think my sympathy for Sheldon comes in where I think he honestly doesn't realize what he's doing."

(for which, by the way, I disagree - he's shown the ability to recognise things when it's in his best interests before, and to work things out.)

"I love Sheldon because I have many friends that ARE Sheldon."

There are less than I remembered - I think I was largely remembering people talking about how they knew _other_ people who thought Sheldon was great.

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The second of those is the one I was referring to.

The first, well, perhaps you disagree with, but the commenter seems to be saying he's sympathetic, not that he's either 'sweet' or 'positive'. I'm really not seeing this tide of rampant positivity in Sheldon's direction. Most people seem to be saying "I think what people think is..." but no one actually coming forward to be one of those people.

In our house, Erin watches and mildly enjoys BBT very much despite rather than because of Sheldon. I thoroughly enjoy him, but almost entirely due to the schadenfreude effect, particularly sweet when I know that I no longer allow that kind of negative or selfish behaviour from people in my own life. Having been the person who puts up with that, I think they all bring it on themselves, and therefore consider them fair game for mocking.

Edited Date: 2010-03-05 01:28 pm (UTC)

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Also, 'fewer'.

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If it's good enough for Tesco it's good enough for me :-p

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daisyflip.livejournal.com

I haven't read the article about Sheldon (I'm on a five minute break) but I like him. Because it's a comedy. And his character is funny and has some of the most beautifully written comedy lines in recent US sitcom history.

Characters in comedy don't have to represent anything, or any group. They can just be, existing purely to make me laugh. He facilitates a lot of the humour, as do the other characters and their interactions. I'll try and read it later on.

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the intelligence thing sounds familiar. but as well as having to try and risking failure being scary unfamiliar things, i'm pessimistic and lazy on top of that. so on the rare occasions i do try and inevitably fail the first time, i assume it'll get no better, or at least the reward won't be worth the effort, and give up. :>

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momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com

Yay trams!

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You can't say things like that!

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sigmonster.livejournal.com

Can and will. Yay trams!

I do like the Nottingham trams, even though they only started running well after I'd moved away from the city...

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momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com

I am going to get myself a badge made damn it!

Though I am curious to know more about the current dispute and snafu mentioned in the article.

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simont

Livejournal redirects your links

In particular, that post links to this one which gives (weird and obscure) opt-out instructions:

Open the Admin Console at http://www.livejournal.com/admin/console/
Execute the following command: set opt_exclude_stats 1

The latter post also says that the feature is supposed to have been removed anyway by now, but it didn't seem to have been: when I looked at the HTML source of an LJ-served web page this morning, it had a strange <script> section right at the very bottom which mentioned "DrivingRevenue" or some such and which my personal S2 style definitely didn't put there, and which went away when I followed the above opt-out procedure.

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xquiq.livejournal.com

I can't understand why anyone would find Sheldon a romantic character, but I can see why some people might find him sympathetic.

A character who cannot be honest about his need for people and who doesn't 'get' social norms isn't experiencing the type of relationships that most people take for granted. Yes, he alienates people & is at times abusive, but in doing so he contributes to his own alienation. It's entirely possibly to have sympathy for this, while still thinking the character is an ass.

I have met people (in geek circles) who share some of the same character traits (I'm smarter, my subject is more important, coupled with OCD tendencies). In the past I tended to have run-ins with these people, now I usually walk away. I have limited patience & think they're assholes, but that doesn't mean I don't have any sympathy.

The Spike thing I think is more straightforward. For one, he's fairly handsome & has the bad boy thing going on. Fantasies about fictional bad boys aren't about condoning dreadful behaviours in real life or even desiring that the fantasty becomes reality. It's entirely 'safe' in that the character isn't real, so there's no danger. Added to that, there's the appeal of the actor himself: if a handsome or charming actor plays a nasty character, he's still a handsome or charming actor.

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Ah, yes, TheFerrett, where the sickly stink of his idiocy wafts forth from the very first paragraph. Seriously, he says "Spike only had fans because he is hot and women are stupid", in the first fucking sentence, before going on to explain that he simply doesn't understand why Sheldon has fans - is it because women are fed with brain poison?

Man, fuck that guy. I don't get why he still gets relinks after the entire "They're not rapists, they're ENTHUSIASTS" and "women who say no more than once to a man should be dragged into an alley and beaten" incidents. Dude's a misogynist "nice guy" troglodyte who somehow gets a pass on his idiot bigotry because he's ALSO a Faaan(tm).

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You seem, in this case, to be just making shit up.

Because the first paragraph doesn't say that about Spike.

Because he never said that about women saying no more than once (he said that when women say no repeatedly and then give in that it teaches men to keep badgering. And he's right, it does).

And I can't find the original context to "they're not rapists, they're enthusiasts" - but my memory of the original context is that he's talking about men who talk to women, not men who have sex with them against their will.

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he said that when women say no repeatedly and then give in that it teaches men to keep badgering.

Leaving aside how that's deeply insulting to both men *and* women, he also blindly ignores how *scary* the "asking repeatedly" is, and blames the women entirely for their eventual yes regardless of the fact that women on the receiving end of that kind of badgering most often find themselves *afraid for their lives*.

I can't find the original context to "they're not rapists, they're enthusiasts"

The original context is "if you didn't want creepy guys openly drooling on you and making aggressive, often hostile, sexual comments and gestures, you shouldn't have been attractive to them. Their 'bad' behaviour is your fault for being pretty and you aren't allowed to get mad."

It's a very common thread with him.

If Ferrett were a Big Bang Theory character, he'd be like Harold except resentful and angry that "those bitches" didn't appreciate him enough.

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1) Yes. And the post was stupid, because he hadn't taken it into acount. And I'm fine with that - he does sometimes say stupid things, because he hasn't thought shit through.

The original context is "if you didn't want creepy guys openly drooling on you and making aggressive, often hostile, sexual comments and gestures, you shouldn't have been attractive to them. Their 'bad' behaviour is your fault for being pretty and you aren't allowed to get mad."

Cite?
(Not to mention that he'd be right in that case - they're _not_ rapists, they're idiots who are enthusiastic towards with women, with the social skills of a rat on crack. I don't, anywhere, remember him saying that women weren't allowed to get mad about this.

Edited Date: 2010-03-08 10:21 pm (UTC)

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Cite!

Something I said the last time the douchebag was brought to my attention: "It's entirely possible that [Ferrett and his wife] really are great people, in person, and that he's nothing like the privileged, misogynist, entitled, Nice Guy troglodyte he plays on the internet. It's also possible he's really Wesley Snipes.

But he plays that guy on the internet, picture-perfectly, constantly, without EVER breaking character, and has done so for *at least half a decade*. Every single time he writes, that character comes through clearly around the edges of everything he's saying, and he keeps "accidentally" dropping hints that it's there even in unrelated articles."

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I'm reading that and not seeing anything that says that women aren't allowed to get upset when people don't take no for an answer, drool on them or treat them badly.

It says that dressing sexily will make some men want to sleep with them, and that some of them will attempt to chat them up. This seems to be to be such a basic part of the human condition, as seen on TV, in movies, and in bars all over the world, that it barely needs to be said.

Which bit do you disagree with?

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Oh, hey, you asked for more details, so let's provide 'em.

"these guys aren't rapists; they're enthusiasts. You dressed to provoke a certain reaction, and you got that reaction — just not from the guy you were hoping to attract. And yeah, I'm sorry that the guy was enough of a lout to think that waxing rhapsodic over your boobs was sweet talk that would inevitably lead to the boudoir, and I can even get that it's tiresome fending off the aroused masses… but the idea that he was wrong for approaching you is just stupid.

You went trolling for men. You caught some. Yeah, you have to throw some back, but don't blame the men for that."

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Also! The very definition of misogynist "nice guy" fuckwittery can be found in the attitude that produced this bit: "It's a weird game these women played. They wanted to dress up in fuck-me outfits and find men slick enough to lie to them. They'd find a guy who'd invest a few hours pretending that his main goal for the evening wasn't to dip the shaft… and if he feigned disinterest well enough, he'd be rewarded with an enthusiastic shaft-dipping.

And then these women would bitch that their boyfriends all cheated on them, and they were clearly stupid to expect anything else —they had gone out of their way to be attracted to men who had lied to them from the start. What the fuck did you think would happen?"

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It's over-generalising, but I've seen _that_ happen numerous times.

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Yes. I agree 100% with that. Men who are attracted to you will sometimes approach you and tell you so. Sometimes you will need to tell them you are not interested.

Still not seeing the problem.

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Still not seeing the problem.

What, the bit where he says you're not allowed to get angry because men are stupid and can't help themselves, and you didn't make yourself unattractive so it's your fault, doesn't strike you as a problem?

Before we continue this, I have two important questions for you.

#1: If someone refers to Barack Obama as "the boy president" while posting pictures of watermelons on the White House lawn, insisting on referring to him as "B HUSSEIN Obama", and demanding to see his birth certificate to prove he's not a Kenyan who is a secret Muslim, is that person making racist statements?

#2: Do you know the term "dog-whistling"?

"Ferrett" is consistently hostile, entitled, vindictive, misogynist, and stupid.

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I'm not spotting the bit where men were stupid. Are you saying that people should never attempt to chat up someone they find sexy? And that doing so makes you stupid? Because that's what you currently, to me, seem to be saying.

Oh, and yes, and yes to your two questions. And still not seeing it on your statements at the bottom.

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I'm not spotting the bit where men were stupid.

Does that mean you've finally found all the bits where he calls *women* stupid?

I'd say that's half the battle, but it's really more like 95% of it based on volume.

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Ok.

I think we're looking at the same behaviours here,

I'm mapping them on to someone who looks at the stupid behaviour around him, and describes it. Not sensitively, frequently not nearly as smartly as he should, but generally wanting to find some answers and improve things.

You're mapping them onto awful fucking behaviours you've seen elsewhere, and it seems clear to you that someone who talks in the way that he does has to be the awful fucking person that you've seen repeatedly.

I can't see how we can resolve this, because you keep pointing me at things which clearly, from your point of view, illustrate his awfulness, and to me look like normal opinions. I see him talking about incredibly common dating behaviour and fucked up relationships, you see him condoning derogatory treatment of women.

Short of finding some bit of text where he actively says that all women are animals and should obey their male masters, I don't see either of us getting anywhere with this. You wanna call it a day and agree to disagree?

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