4 ms·

…really? "Nerd minstrel show?" Ah yes, we poor nerds, overcoming centuries of repressive awkwardness and desk jobs.

jacobolus 9y ago
Maybe an analogy in poor taste, but the premise of BBT is basically “look how many negative stereotypes of scientists and engineers we can get our audience to point and laugh at, if we take our lazy awkward mean-spirited writing and put a laugh track over the top”. Try searching for versions with laugh track removed to get a better sense of the writing per se without the extra emotional manipulation. Compare with Silicon Valley, a comedy show which also mercilessly skewers nerds, but more for the sake of social commentary than just piling on insults, and which treats even the most caricatured characters with some dignity and humanity.
- PakG1 9y ago
  I find this sentiment interesting. I find BBT hilarious and identify with the characters. I often drag my wife to watch a specific BBT episode to get her to understand the way I think or understand the way I was in the past before I met her. I don't find it demeaning at all. I often find it hilarious and say, "yeah, that's me right there!" I see myself in Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard all of them. Raj, not so much. I haven't watched enough of The IT Crowd that people here on HN cite as being a better show to know what I think of it. The few clips I've seen on YouTube, I've only seen the IT Crowd characters being bullied more than I ever saw BBT characters get bullied. It's probably a biased sample, maybe those clips are at the top of the list because people like to watch nerds get bullied? I don't know. All I know is that I don't get all the hate towards BBT.
  - rubyn00bie 9y ago
    It’s for those of us who aren’t able to express ourselves using the characters. My family, friends, and outsiders use the stereotypes to label me or describe me in ways I find incorrect. It’s not a knock against those it does, I’m just incorrectly placed and it’s frustrating. In some ways, yes, it’s hating the symptom and not the root, but I’m only human despite my steadfast nihilism.
  - jjeaff 9y ago
    I like IT Crowd, but I agree, it is just some funny, derpy IT guys that nothing every goes right for. But BBT guys have a lot of the stereotypes but generally come out triumphant over the bullies and thugs of the world. If anything, BBT celebrates "nerds" more than any other show in recent memory.
- kbenson 9y ago
  I never really watched much of it, but this PA comic[1] from a few years back clued me into this. I can't say I disagree (even if I've known plenty of nerds that like Big Bang Theory). Sterotypes often have some truth to them, to lesser and greater degrees, but that doesn't mean playing them up to an extreme degree for laughs is something we should necessarily encourage. 1: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/01/21/royalty https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/01/21/royalty
- Fnoord 9y ago
  Someone made a series out of Revenge of the Nerds?
brunoc 9y ago
I stole this from someone else, but I can’t remember who. BBT is what stupid people think smart people are like.
- eco 9y ago
  I think Big Bang Theory is terrible but I don't think the people who like it are dumb. Just a different taste in humor. I've heard a similar observation but contrasting Big Bang Theory with Arrested Development (or Community or Rick and Morty, whichever someone wants to say is smart, I guess) that I think is more accurate: "The Big Bang Theory is a dumb show about smart people. Arrested Development is a smart show about dumb people." I think "dumb show" reflects more about the style of humor than the type of people who like it. Some people prefer clever, subtle humor. Some people want goofy and slapstick humor. Some people love awkward situational humor. There is no account for taste. But yeah, it's an awful show.
  - derefr 9y ago
    > I don't think the people who like it are dumb I don't think that's quite what the parent was saying. It's not that BBT is a show for a dumb audience. Rather, BBT is a show about supposedly smart characters, with a writing staff that doesn't have anyone sufficiently-smart-enough on it to be able to accurately depict the thinking process of genuinely smart characters. You can't, as someone with an average IQ, really write the internal monologue of someone with a much higher IQ. You can probably capture their personality, but you can't solve problems the way they solve problems (or write characters who do so) without, at least temporarily, actually being that smart. This is an often-discussed aspect of writing military fiction: it's basically impossible to come up with the sort of strategic masterstrokes that a famous general would come up with, without yourself being a famous general. You can bring together ten lesser strategists and ask them to knock their heads together, and you still won't get a brilliancy† out. † https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-play-a-brilliancy https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-play-a-brilliancy Most people who write master strategists in fiction end up just doing one of a few main things: • they crib all the "clever moves" from well-known historical battles. This limits you to just, essentially, writing history over again wearing a new coat. • they get an actual master-ish strategist to consult. You see this in, for example, sports anime about chess or Go—the author usually relied on input from a high-level professional (but not master) player. • they just make the characters' abilities entirely informed, rather than explicit. This is your Sherlock Holmes story: you can see what they came up with in the end, but you don't get any insight into how they went about putting it together. The author just decided what the solution was, worked backward to what sorts of clues would lead one to that solution, and then decided by fiat that the protagonist would notice those clues. The whole "rational fiction" movement is basically about avoiding doing any of the above.
hawkice 9y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and say minstrel shows were disgusting and mean-spirited enough that the historical context that contained them was overpowered by its own characterizing foulness. Would be a pretty stomach churning thing to see today even without knowledge of the history. Definitely a coherent metaphor, in the same way 'grammar nazi' is -- conflating style but not magnitude.
icantdrive55 9y ago
He worded it harshly, but it's the horrid acting. I always thought if the producers didn't snag a young Penny, there would be no show today. She carried that show for years. And yes--I just liked looking at her, in the beginning. The actor who plays Sheldon might be the luckiest actor ever. (I like the guy, but just a awful actor. I don't think it's just the role either.) And Leonard. I don't get it, because he was so good on that show with Barr? I think it's the writing, and overhanded directors? Never figured out why it's so popular in the USA. I understand it being popular overseas. They watch it with a different standard than we do. I don't think they can spot the intricacies of bad acting? Then again, most of you probally love the show? To be fair, the actors that got better with time: Penny was always a solid actor. The other blond got better. The actress who played Blossom got better. The engineer got better. The guy who went to space.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  Jim Parsons has won four Emmy awards and a long list of others for his portrayal of Sheldon Cooper. You may hate the character and the actor, but he’s objectively not a terrible actor.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    If only the Emmys meant anything else besides what's popular this season first and foremost...
- always_good 9y ago
  I think you just mistook your boner for Penny as a diving rod for good acting.
derefr 9y ago
If you want to be more stark about things, BBT is at least partially a people-on-the-Autism-spectrum minstrel show; that's certainly what most of the laughs concerning Sheldon's character are really about.
coldtea 9y ago
As if a group can complain against discrimination only if their pain is as big as another groups? BBT as a minstrel show -- which is a way of mocking another group -- is an apt simile, regardless of whether blacks suffered worse fate or not. Which is not even relevant anyway: what blacks suffered had little to do with minstrel shows, those were the least of their troubles. If parent had compared BBT to slavery, you'd have a point. But he made a much more precise argument.

Maybe an analogy in poor taste, but the premise of BBT is basically “look how many negative stereotypes of scientists and engineers we can get our audience to point and laugh at, if we take our lazy awkward mean-spirited writing and put a laugh track over the top”. Try searching for versions with laugh track removed to get a better sense of the writing per se without the extra emotional manipulation. Compare with Silicon Valley, a comedy show which also mercilessly skewers nerds, but more for the sake of social commentary than just piling on insults, and which treats even the most caricatured characters with some dignity and humanity.

PakG1 9y ago
I find this sentiment interesting. I find BBT hilarious and identify with the characters. I often drag my wife to watch a specific BBT episode to get her to understand the way I think or understand the way I was in the past before I met her. I don't find it demeaning at all. I often find it hilarious and say, "yeah, that's me right there!" I see myself in Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard all of them. Raj, not so much. I haven't watched enough of The IT Crowd that people here on HN cite as being a better show to know what I think of it. The few clips I've seen on YouTube, I've only seen the IT Crowd characters being bullied more than I ever saw BBT characters get bullied. It's probably a biased sample, maybe those clips are at the top of the list because people like to watch nerds get bullied? I don't know. All I know is that I don't get all the hate towards BBT.
- rubyn00bie 9y ago
  It’s for those of us who aren’t able to express ourselves using the characters. My family, friends, and outsiders use the stereotypes to label me or describe me in ways I find incorrect. It’s not a knock against those it does, I’m just incorrectly placed and it’s frustrating. In some ways, yes, it’s hating the symptom and not the root, but I’m only human despite my steadfast nihilism.
- jjeaff 9y ago
  I like IT Crowd, but I agree, it is just some funny, derpy IT guys that nothing every goes right for. But BBT guys have a lot of the stereotypes but generally come out triumphant over the bullies and thugs of the world. If anything, BBT celebrates "nerds" more than any other show in recent memory.
kbenson 9y ago
I never really watched much of it, but this PA comic[1] from a few years back clued me into this. I can't say I disagree (even if I've known plenty of nerds that like Big Bang Theory). Sterotypes often have some truth to them, to lesser and greater degrees, but that doesn't mean playing them up to an extreme degree for laughs is something we should necessarily encourage. 1: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/01/21/royalty https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/01/21/royalty
Fnoord 9y ago
Someone made a series out of Revenge of the Nerds?

brunoc 9y ago

I stole this from someone else, but I can’t remember who. BBT is what stupid people think smart people are like.

eco 9y ago
I think Big Bang Theory is terrible but I don't think the people who like it are dumb. Just a different taste in humor. I've heard a similar observation but contrasting Big Bang Theory with Arrested Development (or Community or Rick and Morty, whichever someone wants to say is smart, I guess) that I think is more accurate: "The Big Bang Theory is a dumb show about smart people. Arrested Development is a smart show about dumb people." I think "dumb show" reflects more about the style of humor than the type of people who like it. Some people prefer clever, subtle humor. Some people want goofy and slapstick humor. Some people love awkward situational humor. There is no account for taste. But yeah, it's an awful show.
- derefr 9y ago
  > I don't think the people who like it are dumb I don't think that's quite what the parent was saying. It's not that BBT is a show for a dumb audience. Rather, BBT is a show about supposedly smart characters, with a writing staff that doesn't have anyone sufficiently-smart-enough on it to be able to accurately depict the thinking process of genuinely smart characters. You can't, as someone with an average IQ, really write the internal monologue of someone with a much higher IQ. You can probably capture their personality, but you can't solve problems the way they solve problems (or write characters who do so) without, at least temporarily, actually being that smart. This is an often-discussed aspect of writing military fiction: it's basically impossible to come up with the sort of strategic masterstrokes that a famous general would come up with, without yourself being a famous general. You can bring together ten lesser strategists and ask them to knock their heads together, and you still won't get a brilliancy† out. † https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-play-a-brilliancy https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-play-a-brilliancy Most people who write master strategists in fiction end up just doing one of a few main things: • they crib all the "clever moves" from well-known historical battles. This limits you to just, essentially, writing history over again wearing a new coat. • they get an actual master-ish strategist to consult. You see this in, for example, sports anime about chess or Go—the author usually relied on input from a high-level professional (but not master) player. • they just make the characters' abilities entirely informed, rather than explicit. This is your Sherlock Holmes story: you can see what they came up with in the end, but you don't get any insight into how they went about putting it together. The author just decided what the solution was, worked backward to what sorts of clues would lead one to that solution, and then decided by fiat that the protagonist would notice those clues. The whole "rational fiction" movement is basically about avoiding doing any of the above.

hawkice 9y ago

I'm going to go out on a limb and say minstrel shows were disgusting and mean-spirited enough that the historical context that contained them was overpowered by its own characterizing foulness. Would be a pretty stomach churning thing to see today even without knowledge of the history. Definitely a coherent metaphor, in the same way 'grammar nazi' is -- conflating style but not magnitude.

icantdrive55 9y ago

He worded it harshly, but it's the horrid acting. I always thought if the producers didn't snag a young Penny, there would be no show today. She carried that show for years. And yes--I just liked looking at her, in the beginning. The actor who plays Sheldon might be the luckiest actor ever. (I like the guy, but just a awful actor. I don't think it's just the role either.) And Leonard. I don't get it, because he was so good on that show with Barr? I think it's the writing, and overhanded directors? Never figured out why it's so popular in the USA. I understand it being popular overseas. They watch it with a different standard than we do. I don't think they can spot the intricacies of bad acting? Then again, most of you probally love the show? To be fair, the actors that got better with time: Penny was always a solid actor. The other blond got better. The actress who played Blossom got better. The engineer got better. The guy who went to space.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
Jim Parsons has won four Emmy awards and a long list of others for his portrayal of Sheldon Cooper. You may hate the character and the actor, but he’s objectively not a terrible actor.
- coldtea 9y ago
  If only the Emmys meant anything else besides what's popular this season first and foremost...
always_good 9y ago
I think you just mistook your boner for Penny as a diving rod for good acting.

derefr 9y ago

If you want to be more stark about things, BBT is at least partially a people-on-the-Autism-spectrum minstrel show; that's certainly what most of the laughs concerning Sheldon's character are really about.

coldtea 9y ago

As if a group can complain against discrimination only if their pain is as big as another groups? BBT as a minstrel show -- which is a way of mocking another group -- is an apt simile, regardless of whether blacks suffered worse fate or not. Which is not even relevant anyway: what blacks suffered had little to do with minstrel shows, those were the least of their troubles. If parent had compared BBT to slavery, you'd have a point. But he made a much more precise argument.