Rape in HIMYM?
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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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The statement above is true. -
foxytree2 — 9 years ago(January 18, 2017 12:51 AM)
You're way off with calling Barney a "serial rapist". Was he a scumbag? yes? He was, by no means, a serial rapist. Your comment, along with this thread is just freaking silly. The writers didn't hate women, they actually showed off a lot of the women characters as strong, such as Robin, Stella, Janette, and Lily being "the dominant one" around Marshall especially. The show was directed by a woman. There are smart strong women out there but yet again there are dumb women out there. Giving out a fake name to and getting a girl to
willingly
sleep with you, while scumbagish (subjective) is still not considered raping someone.
Funny that you mention Ted, and Barney's male privilege, and how Ted was on the wrong end of it. I'd say Ted was on the wrong end of "female" privilege when he got his ass kicked by his girlfriend with the sock monkeys and we're all just supposed to laugh at that? Someone mentioned how you're not supposed to laugh at bad situations in this thread but this was funny? and yes, it honestly was, but in reality he never swung at Natalie or harassed her in anyway but because she's a female and he's a male, she's allowed to psychically assault Ted in public by pouncing on him and throws punches simply because he broke up with her?
#OctaviusUniversity -
foxytree2 — 9 years ago(January 18, 2017 04:36 AM)
Eh. I just watched the particular scene with what you were talking about here. Your whole argument is completely off. Barney pretending to be a breast doctor
wasn't
the appropriate part of this joke at all. No one in the group laughed when they saw the commercials and they didn't show any emotion other than disgust at Barney, as always when his character reveals his dastardly schemes to his friends. Barney's shockingly
inappropriate
behavior around his friends is one of the major running gags of the entire show. You missed the whole point of the joke then, that Barney's advertisements were SO BAD, it was unmissable to anyone with a functioning brain, that they were FAKE, so fake, that Robin even immediately questioned him when she asked "Women ACTUALLY fell for that?"
It was inappropriate, but another one of the running jokes from the show is
how
Barney gets stupid dumb women to sleep with him. Yeah, because what licensed doctor on a television ad actually says "If your KNOCKERS are too damn big, I can handle them it"?? The IDEA that those commercials would even get aired on any television station in a real world setting is just beyond
absurd
. Why on the widest of earths would, Survivor, which is on a major network, have "Dr. Stinson" as a sponsor with these idiotic commercials? If you saw that commercial in real life on TV, would you think that was real?! You believe this commercial would also go world wide, too? NO! Because that again, is absurd. Anyone who would believe commercial is ABSURDLY stupid, which if you couldn't figure this out, Barney liked to target easy, dimwitted, big breasted women. That's why the dynamic character relationship when he met smart women like Quinn, Robin and Nora who actually had a brain was fun to see, because he couldn't fool those women with the "plays" like he ran on the other nameless women he had meaningless sex with throughout his life.
Keep in mind, Lily flippantly says to Barney "I can't believe you go through so much trouble to get laid" after watching the "well-endowed" lawyer video, which is another absurd advertisement that no one in the history of mankind would believe to be real. Her character is spelling out the joke for you. Her reaction is implying she didn't even she Barney as a rapist, as she literally just watched something so asinine unfold in front of her own eyes (the commercials and the commercials actually being successful). Lily figured that Barney (while yes, pretending to be a doctor is inappropriate) got those women to willingly sleep (she used the word laid, not rape, or coerce) with him and there was no foul play, because it's consistent with his other ridiculous, FAKE, TV show stories about how he is a successful
womanizer
. Not a
rapist
.
Who knows? Maybe they gave up sex so quickly because they wanted to use their looks to undergo a gold digger lifestyle with a rich doctor. You know, because beautiful women ARE attracted to rich men or
who they think
are rich men. Again, the gang sits there in silence and disgusted, the laugh tracks go off at the stupid name "Arnie Linson" and the models breasts being so large they got in the way of her watering a plant. The joke ends when Barney goes for a high five with no one returning the favor, and everyone just sits there disgusted at him.
Quit trying to force something that wasn't there and just laugh at the dumb joke. Overcomplicating things, much?
#OctaviusUniversity -
skywalkr_00 — 9 years ago(October 01, 2016 11:09 AM)
Boring and silly thread ,but i loved the Back to the future example.Yeah ,you should watch that movie. All 3 parts.
And to be on topic ,don't overthink it ,it's a sitcom.You can't take this crap seriously . Just read his Playbook and try some of that stuff ,maybe you get lucky.
