I really love the show, I think it's a combination of likable characters and feeling special when you understand a physics/chemistry/scifi etc reference. It makes you feel smart because you are in on the references that the smart people are making.
Tropes, Caricature, Mocking, Sterotypes... These things have been the tools of comedy for a LONG time. For good or bad they will remain that.
The problem is context, it's Lenny Bruce mocking the cop who is reading back his skit in court. It's Dave Chapel pointing out how people quoting him on twitter without the context miss the point...
These are made up people in a make believe world doing made up things. They aren't meant to be taken seriously on any level.
I'm not supporting the parent comment. But don't you think we as humans have a penchant for conflating the reel and the real and ending up reinforcing the stereotypes present in the world?
If anything, we need less stereotypes. A caricature is fine, But after a certain point it just feels tiresomely pigeonholing into an idea.
Love the sneaky word play! Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?
> ... reinforcing the stereotypes present in the world
The whole point of comedy is to take away the teeth behind these things. The act is meant to reshape culture and conversation. Stereotype, beauty, the perception of color, were very fungible and its just another tool!
In reference to the first video: did the definition of 'misogyny' change while I wasn't looking? These guys don't seem to exhibit 'dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women'. They simply want to have sex.
Also, one of the main features of the show seems to be to point out the fact that, with respect to women: That's Not How To Do It. So, to claim that the show's writers are "doing it wrong" seems to be missing the point. It'd be like criticizing the writers of All in the Family for imbuing Archie Bunker with working-class conservative values. The whole point of the show was to illustrate how wrong he was.
For the first two guys, the video's point is that their sexual harassment, spying, and dehumanizing comments towards women are played for laughs without it being obviously wrong. The humor is in them being bad at socializing; their behaviors aren't addressed, and are portrayed as pathetic, socially repellent, but ultimately harmless.
The comments Sheldon makes are misogynist in the literal sense of the definition you gave, too, self-evidently so, IMO. The first video starts listing examples at 10:45. Again, the humor is just in the juxtaposition of average people's attitudes with his open contempt for women, with his bigotry acknowledged but never really addressed.
If all entertainment must conform to an idealistic view of society then it's just going to be really boring isn't it? I think a lot of people are not going to watch TV shows if they only portray the world in this highly moralized way.
I probably wouldn't like the characters or watch the show if they didn't make the jokes or have the quirks and shortcomings that they do.
The point is whether the artistic output is prosocial or antisocial. Different aspects can be different levels of one or the other: art, commentary, critique, education are all important. Reproducing awful antisocial behaviors without the attendant critique on those behaviors leads people to normalize and ultimately adopt those behaviors. We are social animals and time and time again it's proven that it doesn't matter if we're "socializing" with real people or fictional characters, we want to be part of a perceived in-group and so will act in ways that make us think we'll be liked by those whose gaze matters to us. Sitcoms are especially capable of stirring up these feelings since there is immediate social feedback (laughtrack) to the behaviors seen on screen.
