And just that quick, Big Bang Theory returns to last place on the list of my favorite shows. It’s not that it wasn’t funny, or at least amusing. It was the same problem I encounter time and time again on BBT – blatant sexism. It came in a slightly different guise than usual this week, though. I have read, on and off over the years, various diatribes against the show’s portrayal of geeks as predominantly male but that portrayal has never bothered me as completely as it did this week.
After this week I profoundly, deeply hate that BBT presents nerd culture as prototypically male. I love comic books/graphic novels and know plenty of other girls and women who do, too. The enjoyment of comics has nothing to do with gender. It’s all about personal taste. And, not to go on a gender-based rant here, but any perception of female disinterest in comics is because of the dreaded “accepted norms”. If more men than women buy comics it’s because people buy comics for young boys, and dolls for young girls. And those (many) women who do buy comics are drawn in just as much by good writing as their male counterparts. The representation of the BBT WAGs as comic book noobs who chose Thor because the main character is hot irked me on a fundamental level.
The episode’s one (slightly) redeeming feature? That, in fighting about the properties of Thor’s hammer, the women not only had a discussion about something other than their boyfriends/husbands, but expressed their own opinions on something and didn’t just ape things that Howard, Leonard and Sheldon had told them. It may be small, but it’s something. – K
Quoteworthy: “You have booze with breakfast on a Tuesday, you got a problem. You do it on the weekend, you got brunch.” – Penny
Pond Hopping Girls 