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Nerd Culture, The Big Bang Theory, and Chuck


Ta-metru_defender

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Essays, Not Rants! 105: Nerd Culture, The Big Bang Theory, and Chuck

 

I stopped watching The Big Bang Theory a couple years ago. Part of the reason was because I was growing tired of it, other part was I simply couldn’t be bothered to keep up with it. For a class, though, I have to write a scene for The Big Bang Theory. This means watching episodes of the show to get a hold of the rhythm and voices of the show.

 

I started watching Big Bang during its second season and enjoyed it for what it was; a sitcom about a bunch of nerds. I got the references they threw around, had or wanted some of the memorabilia in their rooms, and remembered when that Rebellion poster in Leonard’s room was announced. This show speaks my language.

 

So did Chuck, another show I began watching around the same time, although it spoke it differently than Big Bang did. In Chuck the nerd shout outs came as frequently and as accurately as in Big Bang, but in this show they felt more a part of the plot. Maybe it’d be meta gags like an entire episode following the structure of Die Hard or guest stars quoting characters they’d played in Terminator or Firefly. Other times the show would work it into the story: Chuck and Bryce speaking Klingon so they won’t be understood or Casey telling Morgan there are only three Indiana Jones movies. Chuck used nerd culture to enhance the story, partially because the protagonist himself is a nerd, partially because it’s that sort of show.

 

The protagonists of Big Bang are caricatures more than characters; Sheldon the insufferable genius, Raj the funny foreigner, Penny the clueless blonde, and so on. The entire premise of the show stems from their nerdiness and inability to mesh with the ‘real’ world.

 

Chuck of the eponymous show, is a far more rounded character. Yes, we’re told he can quote Wrath of Khan word for word and he does employ the Wookie prisoner trick on a mission, but it’s all part of who he is rather than who he is.The show’s about a normal, nerdy guy who gets brought into a world of spies and intrigue, and sometimes it’s his nerdiness that saves the day, other times it can be his sheer gumption. Chuck’s identity goes beyond his nerdy traits.


This yields different treatments of the characters and their nerdiness. Take gaming as an example. Rock Band is played for laughs in Big Bang, whereas Chuck brokenheartedly playing Guitar Hero while drinking whiskey leads to one of Season 3’s most heartfelt moments. Halo Night in Big Bang is often used as a gag or an opportunity to show how unchanging Sheldon is, even if the other guys would rather be doing something else. Early in Chuck’s first season, Chuck and Morgan are discussing something while playing Halo. The former presents Halo as being a gag in and of itself, whereas Chuck presents it as just something guys do.

 

And there’s the central conceit of the nerdy humor in The Big Bang Theory: It’s funny because they’re nerds. The characters playing Dungeons and Dragons or reading comics is funny in and of itself, not because of anything they do with it.

 

Compare Community, which just aired their second Dungeons and Dragon episode. Once again it features the characters playing a relatively realistic game of D&D. It’s funny, not because they’re playing D&D, but because of what they bring to it. Hickey using his ex-cop interrogation techniques on a hobgoblin or Dean Pelton’s overcommitment to his character’s relationship with his father. It wasn’t funny because they were playing D&D, but what they did while playing it.

 

Now, Chuck ended in early 2012 and I stopped watching Big Bang shortly after. In the years since I started watching these shows nerd culture has, as a whole, become far more mainstream. The Avengers happened, superhero movies are topping the box office, suddenly it seems like everyone’s watching shows like Game of Thrones or Doctor Who. Nerd culture and pop culture are overlapping more and more. Big Bang is steadily becoming out of touch with where things are headed. A recent episode has a gag about how girls don’t play D&D though I know more than a handful who play tabletop off the top of my head.

 

What I love about Chuck and Community is their willingness to embrace nerd culture for all that it is. For someone like me, someone who’s been neck deep in nerd culture and general geekiness since before Iron Man became a household name, it’s great to see shows who love this and celebrate the fun of being a nerd. With regards to Big Bang, well, I’ll quote Penny Arcade: “In Big Bang being like me is the punchline.”

 

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You're right that the characters in The Big Bang Theory are more of caricatures than the characters in Chuck, which is inherent because the former is a sitcom and the latter is more of a drama with comedic elements. I've never seen Community so I can't really speak to how that show compares.

 

But I somewhat disagree with the characters in The Big Bang Theory being "funny because they are nerds". That is something I often hear in criticisms of the show, and it doesn't really click with me. The show makes fun of the characters' nerdiness, but not any more than any other sitcom would make fun of its own characters' defining traits... whether they're a womanizer, an "average joe", a curmudgeon, a slacker, a workaholic, a drunk, or what-have-you. No matter what traits define the characters, they will be exaggerated beyond the semblance of realism for comedic effect, and at one point or another every character is bound to end up as the butt of a joke.

 

Furthermore, one thing I love about The Big Bang Theory is that it shows more than one type of nerdy character. It is not out-of-the-ordinary for a sitcom or even a drama to have one recurring "nerd character" who embodies each and every stereotype of nerd culture. They wear disheveled, ill-fitting clothes, play MMORPGs religiously, collect trading cards, have mastered hacking (or Hollywood's equivalent thereof), have no real-world social life, and can't hold a conversation with a woman to save their life.

 

In The Big Bang Theory, a lot of the characters DO fit a lot of the nerdy stereotypes. The four main characters all read comic books, watch Star Trek, play video games, study some science-related field, and make frequent semi-obscure references. But at the same time, they have unique traits which define and distinguish them a lot more than their nerdiness. Rajesh is dramatic and ostentatious, can't talk to women except when medicated or inebriated, and frequently references his Indian upbringing. Sheldon is a socially oblivious egomaniac obsessed with routines. Howard is a sleazy smooth-talker who lives with his mother and gets himself into all kinds of trouble with women, then tries to weasel his way out of it. Leonard is the closest thing the show has to a "straight man". He is timid, unassertive, and just ever so slightly socially awkward. But in almost all situations, he tends to be presented as a good guy. He, and the issues he tends to run into, are highly relatable (or at least, pitiable).

 

Penny, the only non-nerdy character who's consistently been part of the main cast, is worldly to a fault, and it is not rare for the other characters' nerdy knowledge and references, delivered with complete seriousness, to be the setup of a joke, while her her mediocrity and inability to relate to her "book smart" neighbors is the punchline.

 

Overall, the show isn't highbrow humor by a longshot, and I can see how its brand of humor might be off-putting to some people, but I think a lot of the criticisms of it are a little bit unfair. Like a number of other sitcoms, it fishes for humor in all kinds of situations. However, while shows like The Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Simpsons, etc. focus their attention on stereotypical families, this show focuses its attention on stereotypical nerdy graduate students. I don't think there's any real shame in that.

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I disagree that Big Bang is all about their inability to mesh with the real world. The characters have made tons of progress compared to other sitcoms.

 

Raj overcame his inability to speak to women unless medicated, Howard moved out of his mother`s house and got married, Amy and Sheldon are slowly but surely becoming more intimate with their relationship, Penny quit her job and is looking to pursue a serious acting career, Lenard has made significant progress with his career and has become a lot less awkward in public than season one...

 

The characters really change with that show as opposed to say Raymond where everyone stays more or less the same. They develop and their situations are pretty funny (not just the fact they do things). When they did a scavenger hunt in one episode, the writers decided to pair up characters that normally would not interact, such as Howard and Amy. My gosh, that episode was fantastic, and I have never once participated in a scavenger hunt the likes they have. Also I don`t really associate with any of them in terms of my nerdiness, really. I have yet to see any of them play Pokemon or watch Princess Tutu (bummer).

 

They may focus on their initial nerdy qualities to start, but when you put them all together and progress the story, the show becomes more about problems people have, such as an unopened letter from Howard`s estranged father or Lenerd`s mother humiliating him or Penny`s hopeful rags-to-riches story or Amy pursuing a relationship that seems to be a dead end at first or Bernadette coming to terms with settling down with a lady`s man, etc. There are tons of situations that make the show interesting outside of the base character traits of nerdiness in my opinion.

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The Big Bang Theory has, for its many faults, at least done quite a bit in the area of character development. The trouble with that show is that I just don't think it's funny. If I want to watch a show about characters unable to fit in, I'd watch reruns of 3rd Rock from the Sun.

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Aanchir, I feel like in 2014 the "it's a sitcom not a drama" rationale falls flat. Even ignoring single camera sitcoms like The Office or Community, shows like How I Met Your Mother have certainly raised the bar for what we expect.

 

The humor feels a lot, well, like I'm being laughed at. Like I said in the actually essay-not-rant, the joke isn't what they do while playing D&D, it's that they're playing D&D. Game night isn't funny because of Wolowitz's relentless teabagging, it's funny because they're playing video games. That gets old real quick because the punchlines are stuff I do. It's much more specific than humor as broad as the dumb dad watching football and drinking beer. And when it gets specific, it feels targeted

 

 

Right, but that's all more recent. Even then, I watched a new episode (train one), and, again, gag was Sheldon didn't know what to do on a date. I stand by that statement.

 

 

As a whole, I have a deal of respect for the show. They do put effort into their science and it is impressive to sustain a show for seven-soon-to-be-ten seasons.

 

But I'm with Sumiki here, many of the jokes plain don't land and the ones that do make me feel dumb or mean for laughing at them. I was one of those kids who got picked on for being a nerd, it's odd to see a tv show doing the same thing.

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