Rape in HIMYM?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — How I Met Your Mother
Cokoki — 9 years ago(September 29, 2016 05:45 AM)
Okay, so maybe rape isn't the correct word to use in this post, but after seeing a bunch of the episodes I began to think of one thing:
Was how Barney sometimes picked woman up by lying, illegal? And I'm not thinking of "small" lies by lying about job, age etc. But when he pretended to be a completely differet person, like Lorenzo Von Matterhorn, is that illegal in the US? Because the woman wanted to sleep with Lorenzo and not Barney? Or is it only illegal to pretend to be the partner of someone?
Another example that made me think of it, is the in S4E4, where Barney is pretending to be future Barney, telling a girl to sleep with young Barney, because otherwise he won't fix global warming, and they will all die.
Of course it is an unrealistic situation, and the girl is extremely stupid to believe it - but lets say it happens in real life: Wouldn't it be illegal to manipulate someone like that into sex, basically lie by indirectly "threaten" them with their death, if they don't do what he says?
Maybe some of you think I am reading too much into it or taking it too seriously, but it was just something I thought about. It's not like I am boycotting the show or anything. -
Moonlighty — 9 years ago(September 30, 2016 07:38 AM)
When did Barney pretend to be a police officer? And how could you possibly think impersonating a figure of authority is anywhere near the same league as saying you have a different name?
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that I'll be over here looking through your stuff.
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stargazer_1682 — 9 years ago(September 29, 2016 09:58 AM)
For a long time they kind of blurred the lines of propriety with Barney. He certainly had no qualms misrepresenting himself to get a woman into bed, and didn't mind having their inhibitions loosened with alcohol. In "Moving Day," he's lamenting the failings of living so far away from the bar, and the level of intoxication for many of those women was questionable.
The one that really stands out though as crossing the line, was in "The Stinson Missile Crisis". He's reviewing with Robin ploys he'd done; and show one where he ran paid TV ads claiming to be a doctor specializing in breast reduction. He then proudly states that it was so successful, it lead to a "related enterprise," where he ran paid ads as a fake attorney, forming a class action law suit against his doctor guise.
This isn't him just walking into a bar in a white lab coat, and letting women make the assumption that he's a doctor and let that sway an otherwise ambivalent opinion about whether or not to sleep with him. It starts with these women seeking medical treatment from someone claiming to be a medical professional, regardless of how crass or inept he might have offered that service through TV ads (and using his real name in his doctor identity no less). He then sleeps with apparently quite a few women; and then lures some percentage of them back through an aliased lawyer. And for that to work, the women need to become aware of the fact that not only was Dr. Barney Stinson's purported service a scam, they need to feel violated enough by that experience to join a class action suit, where he would violate them again through the same form of misrepresentation. That "enterprise" as he called it, makes him a serial rapist; one so perverse that he tries to entrap his victims a second time, and is proud of how well it worked.
It's arguably for the best that the show ended the way it did, because it made me not want to watch the series any more; so I never ended up watching that episode more than once, I believe. I actually had to look up the particulars, because I could only recall the basics; and refreshing my memory exactly how it played out, was rather appalling. I can't believe they thought that, that was an appropriate joke, or something they should add to Barney's history.
"Sorry, I mistook you for a corpse." -
Cokoki — 9 years ago(September 29, 2016 11:25 AM)
Oh yeah, totally forgot about that one. That's not okay.
When I was younger I didn't really think about these things, but now it kinda surprises me how many shows/movies "promotes" or joke about what I guess you could call rape culture, for a lack of better words.
Like when I was 15-ish, I loved the movie "Super Bad" - but now when I saw it a few weeks ago, it really disgusted me because the whole plot was basically about getting two girls to drunk, they would sleep with guys they wouldn't want to sober, and then not remembering it the next morning.
Or another show I can't really remember the name of, where they make a scene where a guy is being raped "funny" because you know, men wants to have sex with everyone, right? -
foxytree2 — 9 years ago(January 18, 2017 12:28 AM)
Because I don't believe in your inane college campus theory? You call me stupid, but yet you are so quickly to believe everything you are told on a college campus. There's some dumb silly stuff, but "rape culture" has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
#OctaviusUniversity -
RomanceNovelist — 9 years ago(December 31, 2016 10:09 PM)
I'm glad someone is finally talking about this. Barney's behavior indicated that he had an extreme hatred of women and as much as I loved the show, the writers also seemed to have a hatred of women. Barney was a serial rapist who preyed on the naivet or foolishness of women by completely misrepresenting himself to them. There were times when he even impersonated ted, or used Ted's name to get women. At one point, he even designed a web site provoking women he'd slept with into believing they slept with ted, ruining his reputation. Total male "privilege" situation.
That's why I never understood why so many viewers were anti-ted, the good guy and pro-barney, a terrible person. People like Barney because barney always won, despite being a horrible person and hated ted because he always lost, despite being a good person.
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