Examples:
"The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition"
Howard: Penny, let me take this opportunity to point out that you are looking particularly ravishing today.
Penny: Not with a thousand condoms, Howard.
Howard: So there is a number.
"The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization"
Penny: Howard, would you like to explain to me why your Facebook page has a picture of me sleeping on your shoulder captioned: "Me and My Girlfriend"?
Howard: Uh oh, here comes "The Talk"!
"The Lizard Spock Expansion"
Howard: May I say Penny, not a lot of women could look as hot as you do with such greasy hair.
As seen in the examples above, Howard hitting on Penny has, through almost constant repetition, turned into harassment. Howard's friends, however, never do anything about his behavior expect for, almost halfheartedly, telling him to stop because he's embarrassing himself and them.In Season 2 Episode 12, "The Killer Robot Instability", Howard again hits on Penny, but this time she does not just shrug him off.
After Penny yells at Howard, it is obvious that his friends are shocked by her harshness. They even compare her to a killer robot, an inanimate object with no feelings whose only purpose is to destroy. Summaries of the episode even call Penny's behavior cruel and that Howard was a subject of her wrath.
What is even worse is that Howard's friends tell Penny that she needs to go and apologize to him for hurting his feelings. Even though she was the one who had to deal with the constant sexual harassment for years, she was at fault for yelling at him to make him stop. When Penny goes over to Howard's house to apologize, he takes her apology as an okay for him to make a move on her again.
Penny, reasonably, responds with punching him in the face. However, apparently even that is not enough to deter him, as at the end of the episode he tells his friends that he is at least half-way to pity sex from Penny.
This exchange is problematic in many ways. One, it teaches women that it does not matter how many times you reject a man's advances, he will continue to come on to her. On top of that, if a woman responds angrily or even violently to a man's persistent advances, that it is something she needs to apologize for. Two, it teaches men that when a woman says no, she doesn't really mean it. She may say no a thousand times, he still has a chance if he constantly asks. It hurts me to watch these scenes because it makes me feel helpless against male advances, which is exactly the lesson that this episode teaches.
It's interesting that the descriptions of the episode on IMDB and Wiki are putting blame on Penny, when it is Howard that should be to blame. Your examples just go to show how normal harassment is in society, and that's really scary. The Big Bang Theory has viewership rising from a little over 8 million viewers from the start date in 2007,to over 18 million viewers in 2012. That's a lot of people to be seeing harassment like that, and I haven't really seen any mainstream articles talking about the problem with this topic. It's disappointing to see the leniency on such a big and important subject.
ReplyDeleteI've always heard how sexist The Big Bang Theory is and while I don't understand the appeal anyway because the commercials aren't even funny to me, this makes it much less appealing. It's frustrating when people do not take "no" seriously, because there is nothing more firm or definite that the word "no" so why is it so hard to understand? It reminds me of a quote my friend once told me that his fraternity used to say, "40 no's and a yes, still means yes." He says it was a joke but the fact that it is a joke in general appalled me. I hate when my sister doesn't listen when I say "no, you can't borrow my clothes" so for a man to not take "no, i'm not interested" or just plain "no" seriously is horrible and needs to change. The media's display of this harassment isn't helping either, and it's unfortunate to see.
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