What I'm trying to say is that whether it exists or not in a given episode (hell, a given scene) is entirely arbitrary, the result of an on/off switch the writers can choose to flip or not. It's not a true part of his character (otherwise the writers would stick to consistent rules that make sense), it's just another quick joke they can make on Raj, i.e., if they want the audience to laugh at him they'll put him in a scene with a woman without a beer. If they want him to act normal they'll stick a single beer in his hand and then continue on as normal.

I mean, really, what would be the difference between Raj walking in and saying "I went to a hypnotherapist, I can talk to girls now!" vs. him always having a beer in his hand?

This was poor wording on my part.
What I mean is, there's nothing about Selective Mutism that suggests that, upon a person with Selective Mutism drinking alcohol, the Mutism will be negated or it will (even temporarily) fade away.
So, I do think it is reasonable for me to have referred to Raj's condition in the show as promoting a message that Alcohol Cures All Problems when alcohol is used for exactly that purpose, and alcohol has no similar effect for actual individuals with Selective Mutism in real life. Alcohol is presented as a cure-all when it really isn't.

The fact that Raj suffers occasional consequences for his reliance upon alcohol to speak to women does not refute the fact that alcohol is necessary for him to speak in the first place, when it shouldn't be. That's simply not how Selective Mutism appears to work, at least based on what I'm reading.

Well you just stumbled on a point many fans of the show are arguing, myself included... they managed to fix Howard's storyline a bit with Marriage, they are moving on with Sheldon, Leonard is only getting fixed in the end of the show obviously... i don't recall Raj ever mentioned going to a therapist, only the experimental drug test... i don't know how the real treatment for his condition is, but i would imagine if it was done poorly or too "fantastical" it could be considered in poor taste. And then, like you said it... take that away from the character and what does he have?

it's a Sitcom not a documentary. It's exagerated to comedic effect. Selective Mutism is linked to Anxiety and Shyness... light Drunkness is known to ease up on those 2 things a bit, they just wrote that in for comedic effect.

Mind you that in the show it's very clear that his issue is psychological, since eating a -rum cake- was enough to allow him to speak with a FBI agent once. And the effects are nearly immediate.

I dunno, finally have him come out and start dating Stuart like they hinted at in the beginning of this season and see where he goes from there....Eer, since I've hated what they've done with all of the major relationships, and their past stance on homosexuality, maybe not that. But hell, do almost anything else, since sticking with the detrimental busted ass status quo that's easily fixable just because it's the status quo is one of the contributors to labeling it as the Worst Thing on TV.

To be totally honest i really don't like how they tease that Raj and Amy are "probably-maybe" bi-curious (or in Amy's case Bisexual) now THAT is a forced joke that pokes at nothing.

Specially since it correlates the fact the least sexually active characters suddenly have feelings for the opposite sex... that does rub me badly.

You Been Law Schooled
 

So, just to clarify.

You accused me of not knowing what the hell I was talking about:

…Which, by the way, is an objectively wrong characterization of my degree of knowledge of The Big Bang Theory.

The misrepresentation of mine that you seized upon was that I typed this sentence:

Which you disputed because, in your words:

You likewise point out that the show isn’t advocating that “Alcohol Solves All Problems” because there are occasionally negative repercussions to Raj’s reliance on alcohol. That’s okay, though I directly responded to that argument here:

You didn’t really respond to that yet.

Only, the bottom line is that you’re really assuming that I was attempting to make an argument I wasn’t making at all:

You’ve conceded that Raj is in fact ‘shy.’ You’ve either agreed outright or chosen to simply ignore the related commentary I’ve made regarding misogyny and homophobia in other scenes . Yet you still think it’s appropriate to have essentially trolled – yes, trolled me not once but twice previously when responding to my comments. First you gave a glib TL:DR quip (ironic since you’ve actually typed walls just as long as mine in this thread), then instead of engaging me on the merits on my arguments you said, and I quote:

And now you’re debating around in circles regarding Raj’s Selective Mutism. When it’s beneficial for you to rely on the diagnosis of a real disorder, you do so. When it’s beneficial for you to rely on “comedic exaggeration” as justification for RAJ’S MUTISM NOT ACTUALLY RESEMBLING THE ACTUAL DISORDER you do so and brazenly contradict yourself in the process. You can’t rely upon the defense that Raj’s disorder is ‘real’ as a justification of the sitcom’s approach to Raj, then claim that the exaggerations are for comedic effect WHEN YOU SAID:

…Do you see the inherent contradiction here? In your words the show never “pokes fun at his disorder,” but we’ve just established HIS DISORDER IS DELIBERATELY EXAGGERATED FOR COMEDIC EFFECT. If the disorder is deliberately exaggerated for comedic effect, then yes, that decision was deliberately made to poke fun at an imaginary version of Selective Mutism which alcohol mysteriously temporarily alleviates so that the audience can laugh when Raj gets drunk to solve his problems, and laugh at Raj when he's sober and incapable of speaking.

Okay, I’m calling it like I see it.

Bells: You are trolling. You are trolling in this topic for the mere sake of being antagonistic. You are creating conflict for the mere sake of enjoying the subsequent conflicts. You’re more interested in antagonizing others than you are in actually advancing substantive arguments in defense of Big Bang Theory. Because there isn’t any substance whatsoever here.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I rest my case.

Also; How can the pink panther strike again when it isn't even in the movie?!

Objection! I got better marks in law school than you!

It's mysterious curse does.

Not really. Penny's excessive alcoholism has been a consistent part of her characterisation since her previous break from Leonard. And most of the nerdy humour seems to come from when the characters not knowing what to do and asking other nerds what to do and getting very bad advice. Which is what you'd expect when you ask other socially awkward people how to handle awkward situations. And they might have conversations where they talk about comics or films and apply real life situations to that scenario (for instance, how does Superman wash sweat out of his suit?). That seems like a great length to go for a laugh considering you seem to think that the nerds draw laughs at the slightest geeky thing they do.

Why is it ridiculous that a girl like Penny would do those things? She looks more athleticv than the boys and lots of pretty girls binge drink.

Yes, but not because he's a nerd. It's because he eats fruit loops and that seems more like a hazing thing.

You say this but you're also aware that Raj has tried other methods such as drugs. And in another episode when he's teaching Sheldon meditation, he states it helped him stay in the same room as a girl. As someone said, it's a kind of selective muteism that's basically being exaggerated for humour.

Forcing it into his hand basically involves him holding a beer in his hand. They're usually eating anyway, so how is this really forced? But just to say alcohol does not allow him to act human. He becomes a jerk. The joke is that he can either not talk or be a jerk. Especially when they put him in situations where he has to talk to a woman, like a job interview or sexual harassment meeting. Yes, again, it's an exaggeration, but so are most characterisations in sitcoms.

But Raj isn't a homosexual. In fact he says himself that he's probably metrosexual (maybe that isn't one of the 12 episodes that you've seen.) So he would probably get annoyed if people kept thinking that he was just because he likes some unmanly activities. That would be frustrating and if this was a drama he's be deeply troubled. But it's a sitcom so we laugh at his frustration.

Yes but they usually laugh at what Howard says in response because Raj has said something that Howard can't ask or say in company. You've missed the actual joke there. And it has been used to further a scene, such as when Howard blamed Raj for something knowing he couldn't defend himself and when Raj whispered in his ear he totally lied. I found that funny.

And the laughter came when the side effects caused involuntary movements of his hand. It was still being tested anyway, for which Raj signed up for, so it was a solution that could be persistent anyway.

Does it really matter? This goes back to the rule of funny that was mentioned earlier in regards to ignoring science for the sake of a joke. Do they really need to be so strict in their comedy that they can't have alcohol inhibit his securities long enough for him to over come his mutism. This is not a documentary or a drama, it's a sitcom. If it's funnier to ignore the piece of information, then ignore it.

"That would be frustrating and if this was a drama he'd be deeply troubled."
But that's my entire point!!!

It's wrong plain and simple that our society views homosexuality as so abhorrent that for others to believe we may be homosexual is 'deeply troubling.'

Look, I know Raj isn't homosexual. It really shouldn't matter, but that's not the point of my argument. It's how Raj and others in his social network view the 'accusation' of homosexuality that's so offensive from a social justice perspective.

Ideally we'd live in a society where we didn't give a shit if someone misidentified our sexuality. Period. End of story. What this show does is it turns heterosexuality into a badge of 'normalcy' and 'honor' that Raj is only too desperate to cling to.

First: It's ableist. It's the same kind of shit that upsets so many people when it comes to Sheldon's potential representation of individuals with Asperger's. Exaggerating a disorder into the punching bag for a series of jokes -- so that the misconstrued disability itself is the butt of the joke -- is something that should be avoided. When this happens, Raj is stripped of humanity and simply becomes that guy whose Selective Mutism makes him unable to function. Hell, the fact that it happens solely, exclusively and consistently whenever a woman is simply present -- and the fact that alcohol always temporarily 'cures' the condition -- these are misrepresentations of what Selective Mutism actually is, done so that we can laugh at the idea that someone would have such an affliction.

Second: Bells can't simultaneously claim the 'real disorder' as a defense of Raj's representation of a 'dysfunctional' individual and suggest that "the show never pounces on his shyness...never makes light or pokes fun" at said serious disorder, then claim comedic license for the show's producers to exaggerate that disorder because doing so would be 'funny'. His positions are contradictory.

Except for the episode where he gets drunk, and that lets him "score" the hottie at some party, and he has sex with her, then wakes up and freaks out HILARIOUSLY over how he's in bed with a woman who was super attracted to him because of how he acted like a douche when he was drunk.

There are many problems with this.

Few people suggest alcoholism as a cure for anything. My great grandfather (Whom I never knew, died before I was born, so don't see it as some sob story) suffered from anxiety, and went to alcoholism to self-treat himself. It's actually one of THE first signs of alcoholism, when people use it as a self treatment for anxiety or some problem they have.

So, we're also expected to make fun of Raj for being a high functioning alcoholic.

Snake, please keep this in mind for future posts in this thread, or perhaps step out for a bit.

I want to watch the same show you do, where the characters are primarily mining the depths of pop culture, nerdy and otherwise, in order to make jokes, rather than primarily relying on surface pop culture references that code as nerdy (regardless of how popular they are in actual culture). Or rather, I want that show to just finally come back on the air, since it's called Community.
If it's not meant to seem ridiculous, where's the joke? Why did you bring it up as an instance of the audience laughing at Penny?
Well, we've seen Drunk!Raj and Sober!Raj, and there is indeed a difference between them. But there's also Alcohol-Proximity!Raj, who is exactly like Sober!Raj save for the fact that he can talk to girls. That's, at the very least, just lazy-ass writing. You can have a schism between Hulk and Bruce Banner, but you can't say that the default is Bruce Banner getting all of the benefits of Hulk with none of the downsides as long as he's wearing purple pants.
Bells had said the mute thing was an aspect of the character that was integral to Raj and that the show would never pick on this aspect of him. I was pointing out that wasn't the case. Thank you for adding another example (Howard abusing his knowledge of Raj's mutism to lay false blame on Raj, knowing that due to Raj's mutism he couldn't defend himself.)

I haven't been banned from NPF in a while; maybe I'm overdue.
 

Your selective enforcement of this principle is, in practice, defending trolls from criticism far more than it's accomplishing anything constructive in these kinds of conversations. As exemplified in the fact that these kinds of awful threads have occurred on a continual basis, and will certainly continue to occur in the future.

If you think me and my 'backseat moderation' (I'd prefer truth-telling, but whatever works) was more a problem in this thread than Bells and his brazen trolling was, just tell me straight up and I'll leave NPF and you won't have to deal with me anymore.

That's not intended as a 'threat,' as Lord knows many of you would prefer I left anyway. More as a mutually beneficial arrangement. You can keep the community the way you'd prefer it, and enforce the rules the way you'd like to enforce them. And I can find better ways to spend my time than in a place where I'm expected to tolerate this kind of behavior without the ability to publicly address exactly why it's so detrimental.

10 pages of debate about The Big Bang Theory. What a bunch of nerds.

Snake, I've PM'd you about this, and this is severely off-topic at this point. Do not continue this line of discussion in this thread.

The rest of you carry on with your discussion of this terrible, terrible show.

I only read the first chapter of his novel but Snake is right on this and everyone else is not really engaging his points. We already had this exact debate in the last thread though. Didn't we come to the conclusion that the best strategy was to confront bigotry and not just report it.

Also Osterbaum, use a real page per post settings- its 2 pages.

Actually i was just underlining the point that the show doesn't make a "lol people with disorders are funny" joke, since many here don't follow the show, this notion could easily come across, but it would be wrong... surely the show makes tons of situation where his condition would be "quirky" and made for gags... that's the shtick. But i wanted to try to bring forward that the show doesn't have a mean spirited sense of humor since this is a real psychiatric condition that i'm sure more than a couple of the show's fans probably have and/or relate to in some degree.

As for teasing Raj, it comes and goes every character does it and gets it at some point



BTW, if anybody actually care, there is spoilers above...


There is also another Episode where he gets drunk in a party and wakes up next to a overweight girl, he rolls, sees her, thinks for a second, and turns again with a huge smile and goes back to sleep. Also there is the above video i mentioned. Outside of context anything can look shady, but it's not a really good thought process to analyse anything from this kinds of shows as a unique point in the universe, you need a little context and sense of continuity to see if the show has bad vices or if something is just showing in a bad light...

I think we're overlooking the bigger point of this thread, which is to say, everyone who watches this show is retarded.

Now that's trollin'.

http://i48.tinypic.com/2467yvr.jpg

It'd be deeply troubling for the character who is unable to cast of the perception of homosexuality just because he likes to do non-manly things. Not because being a homosexual is a terrible thing which must be avoided at all costs. And the show never paints it like that. I mean, we can either walk on egg shells on this and say all homosexuals on TV must be painted in a light which makes it ok incase someone gets the wrong idea or we can treat them like people, the way we do straight people, and have jokes about it.

And it's not even like the humour is that offensive. Raj likes to cook, dress well and takes care of his body. Yeah, not necessarily manly-man activities to be sure, but then none of the main cast are manly men at all. When assigned roles by Sheldon, Leonard of all people becomes the muscle. It's just another area in which one of the main cast isn't a man. But homosexuality isn't treated like an accusation. In one episode Raj asks his parents to arrange a date for him and the woman that he is paired with is a lesbian looking to get her parents off her back. How is that insulting exactly? Never once in the episode is Raj disgusted that she's actually a lesbian while at the same time it highlights the social injustice that still exists in India of homosexuality being frowned upon.

On the final note, it's not just misidentified, it's constantly so. Can you imagine how soul destroying it must be to identify as something but have no one accept it? Raj doesn't cling to heterosexuality as a badge of normalcy, he just wants to get a girlfriend so his friends can stop ribbing on him. We all know of people who didn't date in high school and got made fun of and practically every one thought they were gay but a few years later got married and had families. At best you might be able to call the main cast immature but no one is treating homosexuality as wrong in the show.

Right, so we can't show any disorder in sitcoms because people will end up misunderstanding how it works? Or do you actually think that someone with selective mutism will watch the show and think alcohol will cure them? Because I'm quite sure most people will know that it's a sitcom and alcohol doesn't work that way. Maybe I'm giving the human race too much credit but you can't treat your viewers like morons.

It feels like you really want this show to be something very serious that deals with social disorders and homosexuality (among other things) but that wouldn't be a sitcom and it wouldn't be funny. I mean, if nothing else these people aren't human. They're characters. They are characterised by certain attributes so that when we tune in we can instantly recognise a character. Humans are more complex, granted, but for a television show to depict a fully human character would require more time than a sitcom has and, again, it wouldn't be funny. I don't know about you but my life is not a barrel of laughs. An exaggerated version of me and my friends might be but not it as it currently is in it's most human state.

You'll have to talk to Bells about what Bells said.

I've never watched Community so I can't comment on it. But all the stuff I mentioned happens on Big Bang Theory, just maybe not as often as you'd like? I dunno, I like that the episodes have some plot and a sense of continuity.

It's hilarious because she passed out on the floor during a game of twister and to wake her up Bernadette told her they ran out of wine. Not the most intelligent humour, I'll give you that, but it's a funny exaggeration of how bad her alcoholism has digressed since the break up. That doesn't destroy the fact that break up was difficult for her or is it funny because it's ridiculous that a pretty girl would binge drink or be that broken up about a relationship. It's funny because it's a situation that lends itself to comedy.

There's also a scale. Raj has been shown to get more of a jerkass the more he drinks. And it also depends largely on what he drinks, which lends me to believe that he drinks light beer not just to keep the calories down but perhaps it affects him less. So I guess some kind of hulk in the middle, like Grey Hulk with the brains and brawn?

You're welcome.

You got promise kid. You got gumption, you got moxy, you got heart. You drop by my office anytime and tell them I asked for yah.

Aside from the one instance you mentioned where they throw a bone to the gay community to say "hey, gay people are people too, and they have to deal with some rough shit" while still, of course, playing it up for laughs, the show really does treat being a gay man or even just a man who "lowers himself" to doing "womanly" things like it's a thing that you don't want to be. The joke is that Raj does "unmanly" things and we are supposed to laugh at him for it. The other characters make fun of him for his interests, and the punchline is often nothing more than "Raj does girl things."

That's super duper offensive. It's sexist and homophobic all at once. It's not treating gay people like people everyone else is being treated, because just being straight is never a punchline in the same way. It's a shitty message to send and a shittier one to defend.

What? It's misrepresenting the pain people who have the disorder in real life have to go through for cheap laughs. It insults the people who have it, which is more important than risking insulting the intelligence of people who don't.

Oh right, it's okay for them to be offensive caricatures of people who aren't straight/neurotypical/white/etc. because they aren't real people. Let's just not worry about the real people that they're supposed to be based on and have a few laughs at their expense. Awesome.

There is a scale, he is seen having a light beer most of the time he is eating out with friends, mostly at diner... i don't even drink and even i think this is far from being any sort of problem. In other situations he drinks other stuff and the effects ramp up quickly. Like the Rum Cake in one episode.

Also, this...



Only further evidence that his problems are Psycological + "It's a sitcom-itis" since Alcohol can't possible effect people THAT fast

They also make fun of Penny for doing man-things. Amy is casually bi-sexual or at the very least appreciates the beauty of both men and women which is played for laughs because she has an sexually ignorant boyfriend, no one even knows what Sheldon is, as they joked about him reproducing in various ways in an early episode, Howard's promiscuous and often overtly creepy attempts to pick up women is the butt of jokes for him and Leonard is clingy and needy with women. This is all stuff we are supposed to laugh at but the homosexuality is treated like a bigger deal.

I mean, geez, it's not like they throwing rotton fruit at him or kicking him out of the group for not being man enough. That kind of macho bull doesn't even exist in this show. Its gentle ribbing and every character gets it from some direction. Raj's isn't even always that he likes cooking and looking after himself, sometimes it's a mutism, sometimes it's his Indian background. It's like none of you have ever annoyed a friend simply because it's fun to annoy him.

In so far as if the option is slightly misrepresenting it for a joke ( I wouldn't call it cheap laughs since it's a part of the character that is continually and routinely investigated, such as the occasions when he has mentioned using meditation or experimental drugs) or treating it with the most absolute detailed honesty. I mean you could take the third option and take it out but I'm not convinced it's that insulting. Someone with selective mutism might even find the alcohol solution funny because it wouldn't work. But you'd have to ask someone who has it.


It is if you're going to have caricatures of straight, neurotypical white people too because they also aren't people. What real people are they based on? Did I miss where this was based on a true story? It's fiction. They are characters. The closer you get to creating a character that is completely human the further away you go from dramatic and entertaining story telling. That isn't to say it won't be interesting but it's interesting in the way James Joyce might be interesting rather than say Adrian Mole.

Apparently BBT has thrown around the word tranny for laughs so I'm gonna go ahead and say case closed fuck everyone responsible for this abomination.

Unless of course all characters of fiction must be perfect... but that would upset the perfect people.

At this point in time, you're arguing that it's okay for a show to contribute to the oppression that leads to one in twelve trans women being murdered, our identity being reduced to "chicks with dicks", and a hateful, unaccepting society that drives many of us to suicide.

The show itself, as written by its creators, has chosen to do so to make an audience laugh, all in pursuit of material gain. The creators value money over the lives of trans women.

I wan't to make perfectly sure that this is the avenue you want to go, Bells.

Do you really think this is excusable?

But Kim. It's for the sake of comedy and network share. Do you not live in America? Do you not live in the most pure example to date, in the existence of humanity, of unfettered capitalism? Do you not respect the ideals this country was founded on.

If I were a betting man I would suspect you think "human lives" are worth more than "profit" for which lol dick