How I met your mother is an American sitcom where the main character, Ted, recounts his story to his children that led him to meet their mother. Even though the story was basically supposed to revolve around the two main characters, the addition of Ted's friends and the other characters in the show made it all even more eventful.
Even though the show was widely acclaimed for its unique storyline, addition of humor and its dramatic elements, there were a lot of things that were found to be problematic in the show, especially the representation of women in it.
From the very start of the show, we have the main lead, Ted, who is trying to find a girl for himself and it can be seen that Ted could go to any extent just to find that 'one true love of his life.' There are several places where he has passed derogatory comments regarding women, talked low of them and have even gone as far as slut-shaming them, for example, in one scene, Ted says, "There's a bunch of models in the lobby and the gossip is one of them is really a dude. Wanna play who's hot and who's scott?" Now, this comment is not only objectifying women but it is also a transphobic statement.
Ted has also shown to be an overly obsessive creep, who doesn't take no as an answer and can be overly jeoulos when it comes to his partners, all the while not being completely honest himself. There was a scene where Ted asked his partner to 'get rid of the dogs' that her ex boyfriend had gotten for her, disregarding the fact that his partner was really attached to to dogs. But when it came to Ted himself, he would generally lie about the things that his exes had given to him. There is also a statement that shows Ted's obsessive and creepy behaviour, "When you love someone, you don't stop ever. Even when people roll their eyes and call you crazy. Even then! Especially then! You just dont give up!"
This is promoting the culture of men not taking no lightly. Where they feel the need to get a yes out of a woman or a person that they like, and when after all the efforts, the answer remains a no, it ends up with them being angry over the fact that they tried so hard but the girl never considered the efforts. (Maybe should've taken the no and moved on in the first place.)
So, considering all the problematic elemts of the show, the question arises, should it be as widely acclaimed as it is when it is promoting the transphobic culture, objectification of women, and romanticizing the problematic side of a male lead?
When I read the title of How I met your mother on this article, I was sure you were going to write about the problematic character of Barney Stinson. But reading this made me realize how we've been unintentionally fooled into believing that Barney was the only problem in the show. In reality, Ted was no different. He dated a huge number of women, he was pretentious, obsessive and jealous in all his relationships. The absurdity of it all is apparent when it is all summed up, and the viewers realize that all these toxic traits were actually present in the protagonist of the show, that the viewers were made to believe that he was a lover boy, a perfect…
Adding along to your blog, the character of Barney can also be deemed problematic and taking the audience to the wrong direction. He has been shown to objectifying women and still getting a lot of them. In an episode, they also show that Barney counted the number of girls he slept with. His behaviour can be deemed as being a womaniser, which he was, and he was so casually accepted for it. Him being praised and looked up upon such behaviour reinforces within the audience such behaviour, and spreads things like these in the society. However, women are not to be viewed as objects or something to fulfil your sexual desire with, but should be treated as humans and equals.…
Another problematic aspect of the show was how overweight people were shown to be extremely undesirable. Ted rejected a girl after finding out that she used to be fat in the past. This implied that being fat is something that will forever make you undesirable. Such problematic opinions were also upheld by Barney who referred to his 9th commandment as “No fat chicks”
The only overweight character on this show was Patrice. She was constantly treated awfully even though she was a very sweet and considerate person. It is no coincidence that she was the only overweight person in the show and yet was treated this way. So much so, that Robin could not comprehend the idea of Barney liking…
Although Ted is shown as very intelligent but he is always on the hunt of THE ONE, but he never sticks to one. He definitely is a bad boyfriend. Throughout the series, he cheats, lies, deceives, and manipulates while portraying himself as the innocent during the scenario. He cheats on Victoria with Robin, he lies to Robin, he leads women on (and then calls them crazy), he pressures Stella into dating him, then gets upset when she refuses to move to Manhattan despite having a young child in school in New Jersey, he ghosts women and breaks up with them for petty reasons... in short he is problematic and is featured as the mainstream character.
No doubt that barney was a womanizer but any many instances , I felt like ted was even worse than barney. He was the main lead and apparently due to his so called romantic portrayl , he was in the good guys list. His behaviour with Robin was extremely obsessive . Atleast barney accepted his behaviour , Ted’s behaviour was unapologetic and was romanticized. Ted had this obsession with finding “the one” and in doing so he hurt many girls. Can his behaviour be justified just because she wasn’t the one? Remember when he went back to Natalie because he missed her but brokeup on her birthday because she wasn’t the one? Or when he cheated on Victoria after convincing…